探花精选

With the start of the new school year, teachers and professors around the world have been scrambling to find solutions for teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. With safety on every school鈥檚 mind, the new way of teaching has students staying at home for learning.

Most students have been focused on how they鈥檙e going to adjust to their new schedules, but what about the educators?

To get a perspective of how teachers are doing with the new conditions, I interviewed three professors at 探花精选 about how they鈥檙e handling the stress of teaching under new circumstances.

Audrey Smith is a psychology professor at Sauk who鈥檚 been staying hopeful during the global pandemic. When asked if she thought teaching would ever go back to normal, she commented, 鈥淚 sure hope so!!! There is just something special about being in a classroom, but I am also concerned that virtual learning could become a new normal. Remote learning also may be cheaper and easier for a student to enroll鈥�.

A question given to Smith asked if she thought learning from a distance would affect the way that students learn the information given to them. She explained how distractions at home and the attempt of multitasking would affect teaching, 鈥淲e as humans think we can successfully multitask, which is simply not true. There is a sizable amount of research that shows multitasking successfully is an ideal we have, but in reality, we lose focus on one distraction.鈥�

Professor Smith is not the only teacher at Sauk who has voiced their concern. Daniel Mc- Collum, a criminal justice professor and Title IX Coordinator for Sauk Valley Community College, has noticed a pattern in his live video classes, 鈥淥ne thing that's becoming apparent is that fewer questions are asked during live classes. Student questions often enhance the overall learning process, so we'll see how that goes.鈥�

On a brighter note, Mr. McCollum shared a pleasant result of online learning, 鈥淭hus far, I have had perfect attendance in our virtual classes. That's rare in traditionally-delivered classes.鈥�

So while students may not be asking as many questions, they are taking initiative and making sure they鈥檙e still participating in class calls. McCollum sees this pandemic as an opportunity to push creativity and give new life to his teaching style, to find ways to keep students interested and engaged. Even if everything was on track with remote learning, it鈥檚 not without its faults. Connor Williams is a mathematics professor at Sauk who鈥檚 missing the personal touch of in-class teaching, 鈥淚 would like to just get to know my students more than I can right now. I'm not really sure what else I can do to have more conversations with them, but I want to get to know them more鈥�. And when asked about the most difficult part of remote learning, he answered, 鈥淏eing online and in a Google Meet session, it's very difficult to have a conversation with students as they come into class and leave class鈥�.

Being isolated during class doesn鈥檛 just alter a student鈥檚 ability to learn; if learning isn鈥檛 easy to accomplish over a video camera, it isn鈥檛 any easier to make connections.