Reflections on Remote Learning: U. Chicago
Four U. Chicago juniors share their hopes and fears for the coming term — and their learnings from the previous.
2020’s unprecedented school closures displaced millions of students in just a few short days.
For those holding citizenship within the U.S., returning home and adjusting to hastily-made remote classes was chaotic and inconvenient. For international students, the school closures were catastrophic.
Barred from staying in their dorms, international students had to decide between returning to their home countries and families — thereby jeopardizing their ability to later return to the United States and complete their studies — or remaining alone in a country severely unprepared to contend with the coming pandemic.
Now, with just weeks remaining until the start of the Fall term, national and international students alike are waiting for confirmation that their universities will reopen. But effective and implementable measures for controlling COVID-19 are not readily available, leaving many universities hesitant to announce their plans for the Fall.
(It’s no wonder that so many students — 43%, by our count — are considering taking time off of school if courses remain online.)
Several institutions have asked professors to prepare course materials in a ‘hyflex’ format: a combination of face-to-face and remote instruction, with the expectation that the professor will be prepared to flip instructional styles on a moment’s notice. But in addition to doubling the workload for professors who will teach this Fall, the ‘hyflex’ method of instruction assumes that students will knowingly endanger their health by returning to their college campus. If also offered the option to remain home and tune into lectures remotely, how likely is it that these students will return?
To learn more about how students’ learning experiences have been impacted by COVID-19, we spoke with four students — two domestic and two international — who attend University of Chicago.
Our Panelists:
How was your experience moving to entirely-remote learning in the Spring 2020 term? Were you in the same timezone as U. Chicago?
Jo: I wasn’t in the same timezone as U. Chicago. I was six hours ahead of the school, which made it a bit complicated for classes that were scheduled in the evening — especially long, discussion-based classes. I normally schedule those classes for the late afternoon, and they end around 9 or 10pm. Being home in London, there were certain discussions that I would wait up for until midnight just to begin. So for me, it was really inefficient.
Walker: I was one hour ahead. It was pretty good overall — having to work from home made focusing harder, but not impossible, and I still got grades that I was happy with.
Jenny: I actually couldn’t travel home because of the time zone issues. Zoom class-wise, I found a lot of lectures really hard to stay focused in unless they were interactive lectures. Overall I wasn’t satisfied with remote learning.
Mikey: I was in the same time zone. I had the same schedule as last quarter, so it wasn’t a big deal. Being remote definitely affected my productivity. In-person classes tend to make me more productive, because I feel more accountable. Being on my own schedule was nice, but I tended to procrastinate on my work. I didn’t learn nearly as much as I have with in-person learning.
Do you anticipate returning to campus in the Fall, despite most U. Chicago classes being held online?
Jo: I’m planning on being on campus because of the time difference and how complicated that was the first time around — I don’t think I want to repeat that. I also feel like being on the university campus will help encourage me to work in a more scheduled manner.
Walker: Yeah I will most likely return to campus in the Fall, mainly because I don’t anticipate the pandemic getting much better in the short term.
Jenny: Yeah, I do — a) I want to see my friends and be in the city with all of them, and b) with the ICE policy changing, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. As an international student, I don’t want to risk that the U.S. might prevent me from entering back into the country.
Mikey: Yes, because I want to take advantage of the classes that are offered in person.
In building your Fall class schedule, have you found yourself gravitating towards taking more “easy” or “difficult” classes online?
Walker: Last quarter I tried to load up on hard classes, and I will likely do the same in the Fall depending on the Pass/Fail policy.
Jenny: I mixed it up. I wanted to take some hard classes because I thought they might be easier to do remotely, and then I also took some easy classes to balance it out in case that went wrong. Overall, I think the classes did become more difficult despite the content being the same. It’s just harder for you to focus when taking classes at home, when you don’t have study groups or office hours in-person.
Mikey: I haven’t really thought about it that much because I’m on a track, so I have to take the classes that I have to take. But I think that if I had the option, I would’ve taken my harder classes now, because they’re easier online.
Was the quality of the education that you received remotely the same as it was in-person?
Walker: The quality just isn’t the same as it was in-person, but I thought my professors did a really good job given the circumstances and what they had to work with. It’s definitely hard to engage in discussion over Zoom with classmates. It’s also harder to pay attention and focus when you’re not in a classroom.
Jenny: I think it’s really dependent on the class. One interactive class that I had, the quality stayed the same: the professor was the same, the kind of content was the same, and the way the class was managed was the same. But in some classes with pre-recorded lectures, it felt like the professor was just getting the lectures done really fast. With online learning, it just feels like it’s so much easier for students and teachers to find leeway to do it easily and not put in the maximum effort needed.
Mikey: No, it’s worse. Something about being in person, in class, I just feel like I pay attention more. The video lectures were weird, and discussions were weird because not being in-person makes it harder to focus. Also the classes that were meant to be taught in-person weren’t originally designed to be online, so we didn’t learn all that we would have learned in person.
Jo: For the classes that I was taking — which were primarily STEM classes — it was pretty similar. Either way I’m just looking at and reading through the textbook, because the class is based on the textbook. The discussion-based classes that I was in were a lot worse. They definitely took a lot of self-teaching, where I was doing more work for the class than I had been in-person, to make up for the fact that it was online.
Do you have an example of that?
Jo: In my Sociology class, for example, I felt that I was doing a lot more research about the backgrounds of the books that we were studying. In the past two quarters, my professor would introduce the books and we’d discuss the authors’ backgrounds during class to get a better understanding of what we were reading. With online learning, we didn’t have enough time in the class sessions to go through the background and talk about the preliminaries of these books we were reading.
Are you looking forward to taking classes online? Are you anticipating any of your classes being in person?
Jo: I am actually looking forward to being remote — I definitely preferred being remote, because I was a lot more free to do what I wanted. Maybe that meant that I was a little less efficient with my work, but it also meant that I could start up work anywhere. So I am actually kind of looking forward to it being online.
Walker: Personally I’m not looking forward to online class, but I anticipate that professors will be more prepared to teach online this Fall than they were for the Spring. It wasn’t super efficient taking classes online, so I’m not sure how that’ll go in the Fall, but being able to be back on campus, and working in my apartment with my friends who are also studying, will definitely help.
Jenny: I am actually looking forward to taking some classes in-person more than online, but I do think I would appreciate having some online classes as well, because it’ll be easier to manage my time schedule better.
Mikey: I’m more looking forward to classes returning to an in-person format than online. I’m just looking forward to classes returning in general. But I was more likely to go to my lectures when they were online — even if I wasn’t paying attention — just because it’s easier to go online.
What has your experience with U. Chicago’s LMS been like?
Jo: I thought that it was challenging to keep up with all the assignments on Canvas, because we were being bombarded with online announcements all the time. I was on Canvas for the majority of last quarter. Literally the majority of my days were spent on Canvas, because I was trying to figure out what I had due that day. It could have been organized better. That being said, the university handled everything pretty well — they did the best they could with what they had.
Walker: My experience with Canvas has been pretty neutral. I think sometimes it’s hard to locate messages versus notifications, and having a more centralized hub to do that might make learning easier. I think the biggest grievance I have is that some classes use Canvas and others use different platforms, and it makes it hard to keep track of assignments because I have to switch between two platforms all the time. If there was some way to merge their features on a single platform, it would be helpful and save me some time.
Mikey: It wasn’t like it was disorganized or anything, just a little overwhelming when everything was coming through one portal and I was getting like 25 emails a day. But other than being a little overwhelming, everything was good.
What technology would better aid you in your online classes this upcoming quarter?
Jo: A better monitor, because I’m killing my computer with how much time I spend on it. And if there was a platform that kind of centralized all my assignments, like Canvas, but was easier to use — that would definitely help. That would help a lot to have something that was always reminding me what I had due all the time.
Jenny: Better WiFi.
Mikey: Being able to go back to lectures — having those recorded was sweet, I liked that a lot. I liked literally every material that would’ve been handed out in person being online, so I could easily find it. An easier way for us to turn in hand-written documents would be great. And if everything was all in one place — like messages, and video calls, and lectures — it would for sure help me. For sure. With an exclamation point. ●
Live video lectures & office hours? ✔️
Centralized assignment, announcement, and Q&A feed? ✔️
Slack-style chatrooms? ✔️
Rapid file-sharing? ✔️
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