Perhaps a Different Perspective on Online Teaching

In March last year, the pandemic dramatically struck close to home when universities across Canada (and probably in many places around the world) abruptly moved from delivering lectures in person to online. The suddenness with which it happened meant there was scant preparation, with huge impact on professors/instructors and students. In general, the move went well -- a testament to everyone working together to make the best of an unfortunate situation.

Come September, little had changed and many universities, including the University of Alberta, conducted most classes online. This continues for the term that is just starting.

I taught a course on Operating Systems twice last year: January-April (Winter 2020) and September-December (Fall 2020). My Winter 2020 term started off in the classroom with me using PowerPoint slides. This was supplemented with numerous interactive exercises that used the classroom whiteboard, as well as a "human animation" example. For Fall 2020, it was PowerPoint over Zoom, with no whiteboard tools. (Yes, there are whiteboard tools for online teaching, but they are a poor match for my needs.) 

Having been out of the classroom for more than a decade, in Winter 2020 I was disappointed to see that the trends emerging in the early 2000s had continued. I had seen class attendance slowly decline and students in class become distracted by their laptop and/or cell phone. The number of in-class questions kept dropping as compared to what I remember from the pre-social media days. Few students were willing to speak up in class and answer questions that I posed. In effect, the class was largely a one-way communication: I was a talking head at the front of the room.

I had more fun teaching my Fall 2000 course than I have had in many, many years (118 students).

It took a couple of weeks, but the students warmed to using chat. I ended up going more slowly through the material for each lecture because of the interesting questions being asked, often anonymously, through chat. I stayed online after class to continue a dialogue with engaged students (often over 40!) and that sometimes lasted 30 minutes. I've found that being online (and possibly being anonymous) has dramatically increased the willingness of students to interact with me. The students have made Operating Systems much more interactive than I ever imagined it would be, more engaging and educational for the students, and more fun for me. A winning situation for everyone!

The only downside is that I covered the course material slower than I anticipated (because of the in-class questions) and had to rush through the last few lectures to make sure all the material was presented.

Classes start on Monday for the Winter 2021 term. I am excited to be back in the (virtual) classroom and look forward to engaging with the students in a meaningful way to enhance their learning experience.

Details: Students could ask a question through chat by sending it to the entire class or privately to me. That meant that students afraid of asking questions publicly could still direct a question to me during the class. This was valuable because, quite frankly, these students often asked "I don't understand this. Can you re-explain it?" -- something they felt intimidated about doing in a public setting (but usually did after class when no one was around to witness their "ignorance"). I respected the student's privacy by reading the question asked out loud, but without the student's name. By verbalizing all the questions, there was no need to also publish the chat window -- the classroom video was self-contained.