What Have I Learned?
Shirley Jackson, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Portland State University
Teaching courses online is something I resisted for years. I enjoyed seeing my students in person and getting to know them not only in class but sometimes as we walked to or from class. Some of the conversations led to students coming to my office where we could continue our conversation. Others took photos of books lining my shelves to help them build their personal libraries. When it came to having to teach remotely, one of my primary concerns involved losing this connection, and not being able to show students who I was as a professor. As a Black woman professor, the problem of both high and low expectations of our abilities is a constant source of frustration in working with students and colleagues.
One of my answers to retaining a connection to students in remote teaching, was by offering group and one-on-one office hours. The hours varied throughout the week and days with little consistency of who attended. In one term, I may have had no students or only one or two students opting for one-on-one office hours. In another, I might have a student or small group of students who would take
advantage of the group office hours. The tendency was for students to email me to discuss their concerns. Then, of course, there are the students who signed up but never attended or stopped attending or visiting the course site after a few weeks. Those who responded to my emails about their absences or missed assignments were able to officially withdraw, change their grade option, increase their attention and remain in the course.
In order to account for the lack of face-to-face contact with students and the ability to clarify course concepts and assignment expectations, I provided a variety of helpful resources. These included not only the weekly overviews in the course modules, instructor-created videos in my asynchronous courses, but also videos on writing papers, critical thinking, and how to cite sources. Yet, although I provided a multitude of sources, not all students were using the tools I had made available. This gave me an opportunity to quickly snatch a book or two (or more!) from a shelf to show students a title or author’s name, relying on whatever books I had in my home office or quickly looking up a title that I might want to share with students.
I was aware that when the move to remote teaching took place that I could not do what some may have done – throw up a PowerPoint and call it online teaching. I attended virtual webinars on remote and online teaching, attempting to develop my skill sets in a format with which I was unfamiliar. I had to think about my pedagogy in a way I had not done before. I also had to figure out a way to let students know who I was as a professor. That meant, holding the same standards I had always held. I included an explanation of how many hours they were expected to study and do homework based on the number of course credits. In one course, students wrote essays during the term that culminated in a final research paper, discussed topics in small breakout groups and in the main classroom on Zoom, and participated in a variety of activities including weekly discussion posts, polls, and quizzes. All of these activities made me aware of how much I was asking of them and how many of them came through.
I learned a lot from remote teaching over the last year. It still gave me a chance to know some of my students – more so in my remote synchronous course than my online asynchronous one – through visiting them in their breakout rooms in the former and reading their weekly discussion posts in both. I also learned that I enjoyed the challenge of teaching online. It is not easy. In fact, it is very challenging and requires a lot of organization and thought in setting up modules and assignments and grading regularly so the students are aware of where they are in the course. But what it taught me was that I needed to have the ability to stay away from my campus.
When I moved from one department to another, we were in lockdown and thus, there was no hurry to move offices. I rarely visited my old office unless it was on the weekend when I thought no one was around. As is the case with so many of my fellow Black professors, I realized that my campus was not a healthy place to be as a Black woman. I had constantly encountered microaggressions from colleagues and a campus administration that claimed to be “woke” and progressive but was not. Now, with a new office less than one-fourth the size of the office I was moving from, the numerous books on my shelves and the artwork on the walls could not possibly fit. The only option was to move my campus office to my home. I needed to be in an office that did not seek to erase my decades of teaching by making it impossible to take into consideration the focus of many conversations with students – my books and encouragement when they expressed an interest in building their personal libraries.
My campus office had been a comfort zone by housing those things I found useful in my teaching and research, but my home was my comfort zone during the pandemic. After my new bookcases arrive and my books have been moved to my home office, this will epitomize what I learned during the pandemic and teaching online. Campuses are not inherently safe spaces nor are they our community. Face to face teaching is something I enjoy but teaching online gave me something to focus on during a pandemic that kept me engaged and energized, just like my students.