Category: education

End of Semester musings…

Published on by Katherine1 Comment

I have taught at UMass Boston since 2004 and I have to say that this has been one of the best semesters ever. I know that this sounds strange especially since we are still teaching remotely due to Covid-19, but I had the most amazing students this time around. They worked a lot, did not complain (mostly), were up for whatever activities and/or assignments they had to complete for the week. I am amazed that my courses just flowed so well that the semester felt effortlessly. I am not saying that my students and I didn’t work, but everything seemed to go so much better than previous semesters. I did not teach differently, nor was the amount of work less than other semesters. Yet my students were eager to complete each week’s work.

As I finish reading their last blog reflection, in which they need to tell me what they liked and didn’t like about the course. I am taken aback at how positive they are.  Here are a couple of my students’ comments:

 “I really enjoyed the material that was covered in the class and appreciate the effort put into it. Even though this is an online course, but there never was any confusion on an assignment which is always a plus.”

“Overall, I appreciated the structure and layout of the course. Comparing this experience with many other online courses using blackboard, I feel like the extra effort put in to setting up weekly sessions made for a smooth experience each week. Some classes don’t utilize the format used in this course and I think those that do not could benefit from trying it.” 

 “I had a great semester in this class. From the get-go the instructor was fully transparent with students of what to expect in this course. The world was going to a tough time, but the instructor made it easy for us to have enough time to complete assignments and she also went beyond to find a quick way to communicate with students. I’ve learned a lot in this course, from how to write a professional email to how to write a short report or business report. Didn’t find anything challenging, just I had to make sure to manage my time wisely so that I can have time to do my assignments. I guess that’s a surplus this course has brought to my life. Overall great semester and now hopping to pass the final exam.”

Usually, their comments are not this encouraging or positive as they always find something to complain about as students tend to do. I am not saying that everything was perfect or that I am flawless teacher as I have my moments, but my students’ comments did make me feel like I was doing something right.

To be honest I am not used to getting so much sanguine feedback from them, so I am wondering if after a year of remote classes, have the students come to appreciate a well-organized online course as they had to take so many of them lately and understand what makes one better than another. Or it might have more to do with the fact that there is a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel rather than how well I design, create, and teach my courses.  If that is the case, I have no doubt that they will be back to normal by the end of fall semester. Or maybe not, time will tell.

Katherine

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Katherine

Adapting and Reinventing Our Lives During Covid

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Lately I have been thinking about the positive things that have come out of the year that will always be known as the time of Covid-19, isolation, and lockdown. It is also going to be remembered for reconnecting with the people that matter the most. This year forced us to pause and offered us an opportunity to refocus and prioritize only on what is important in our lives such as family, friends as well as taking better care of ourselves and each other and being extremely adaptable!

Because of the technological advances i.e., the internet as well as software like zoom, skype, what’s app and so many other apps, we connected with our loved ones more than we ever have been. So, the lockdown has not been so isolating as one would think. Being home gave us more time to do other things like go for a walk or video chat a friend something that is not always possible when you are working in the office with other people around you.

It also revealed to both employers and employees that work can continue from home without people losing their momentum. Partly the reason why countries did not go completely bankrupt was because with the help of the internet people could continue working from home.

For me and my colleagues this meant that courses were to be taught remotely. Faculty and administrative staff went online. Our usual department meetings were also held online. While it can be tiring being in front of a screen all day it also has its advantages.  As a faculty I am not always on campus and unfortunately, I don’t live close enough so I can pop in and out of the university to attend workshops, tentative meetings or even conferences as I have to schedule these extracurricular activities around my son’s activities. I don’t mind putting my child first, but I am also a very driven career-oriented person and I have loved being able to participate more.

Thus, as I was reflecting about how work from has changed, I realized that during the last 12 months I have attended more work meetings and workshops than I have in the last 5 years. I receive emails about all sorts of events that are online and since I am home, I log into zoom and listen in. I have never felt more connected and so well informed about work before. It has been amazing. I say this because I have taught online before and at the time the university did not have anything online expect for a small number of courses so if you did not drive to work there was no way you could be part of a meeting, workshop, or conference. During that time, I felt extremely isolated and disconnected from everything and everyone at work.

The necessity to keep things running has made people creative and resourceful. For example, this week as well as next week I am attending 3 different conferences without having to leave my home. Furthermore, since everything had to be put online, I was given the opportunity to grade writing portfolios online for a different department, which is something I have been wanting to do for a long time. It gave the chance to see what that department considers good writing for graduating university students especially since I teach in a similar department for business students. This was such an interesting experience that I would not have been able to have if the pandemic hadn’t occurred.

So, my hope for the upcoming fall semester and new school year as we gear up to return to in person learning is that the university will continue to stream in person workshops and meetings for those that cannot always make it to campus. If they continue to use tools like zoom, they will find that attendance is going to be a lot higher as more of the faculty will log in to join the conversation.

Let us continue to reinvent the world and our lives!

Katherine


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How Are You Really Doing?

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The title of today’s post comes from the workshop I attended last week which discussed how faculty and staff are doing mentally and as well as how their wellbeing is while working remotely during a pandemic.

It was an interesting workshop because we were able to express how we are doing and feeling. In the small group that I was in the main theme of the discussion was anxiety, stress, and adjusting to being home all of the time. On the positive side my other two members talked about how they feel that education and learning as well as the way we work is changing. That what the pandemic showed us was that we don’t need to be chained to our desks or classrooms and that we can do as good of a job if not better with a more flexible work schedule as we did when we work 100% on campus. It showed us different way of living and working. One that allows as to balance our lives better. Being able to go to campus once a week to teach and touch base with the students instead of 2 or 3 times a week is a big change. Of course, I have been saying this for years and have been talking about hybrid courses and the benefits that come with this type of teaching mode.

Even the staff that I spoke to were hoping to go to campus as they had missed interacting with colleagues and students, but also hoped be able to stay home a couple of days a week and use zoom to communicate with faculty, staff, and students. They felt that it offered a better way to balance work and home life especially for people raising children. Once we finished the small group discussion, we all came together again and talked about what themes came up. Which you can see above in the word cloud I created.

The other thing that surprised me was that the majority of the faculty and staff were women. I guess I shouldn’t be as women tend to be more in touch with their feelings and emotions. Having said that you would think that we would take care of ourselves better and yet as most of the women there admitted (me included) that they put themselves last on their daily to do list. As mothers, wives, and educators, most women make sure that everyone else’s needs are taken care of before they even get to the point where they can take care of themselves or ask for help. Giving ourselves permission to look after oneself is important in order to take care of everyone else. As well as learning that it’s ok to ask for help.

Overall, the workshop ended on a positive note with the promise to continue the discussion and inform the university about how we are feeling and doing. I see this as first step towards good mental health and overall wellbeing as well as bringing the university into the conversation.

So how are you feeling today?

Katherine

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In-Class, Online, Hybrid, and Remote Teaching. Which is better?

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I have been teaching for about 25 years at this point and I have taught in class, online, hybrid and remote classes. At this point, I have been teaching online, in-class, and hybrid courses for over 10 years, but I hadn’t taught a remote class, however because of the pandemic and Covid-19 I had the opportunity to teach remotely for a year. This gave the opportunity to reflect and realize that I don’t actually like teaching all modes of teaching.

Until 2010 I predominately had been teaching in a classroom. From the beginning of my teaching career and until the early 2000s I didn’t know that there could be a different way of teaching, but once I began teaching at UMB I discovered online teaching, not because the university was offering online courses at the time, but there was a lot of talk about online and online education. And well, that was pretty much it.

So, I began looking around and searching the internet in order to understand what that meant and wrap my head around it. I have to admit that because online education was in its infancy there wasn’t much out there at the time. Long story short I was able to begin teaching a version of a hybrid course (which had no name at the time) in 2007 and I was the only faculty in my department to do so. I was the odd one for a while as the only NTT (Non Tenure Track Faculty) that wanted to teach using online tools. I really thought that teaching online could eventually be a big deal and I wanted to learn early so I dived in. By 2010 I was creating and teaching my first online courses and that was so much fun and exciting for me because I was able to push education and learning to a different level. It also offered a lot of flexibility as far as not having to be stuck physically in the classroom. As a result, I ended up teaching exclusively online courses for 6 years and it was an interesting time for me as it gave me the opportunity to complete a second master’s degree in Instructional Design and raise my infant son.

In 2017 I was asked to come back to the university and teach in the classroom and as much as I love teaching face-to- face I did not want to give up my online teaching practice. So, decided to go full circle and teach a course that combined both online and in-class teaching techniques and tools, i.e., a hybrid course

and that is the way I taught until March 2020 when the whole world turned upside down and the majority of educators in the US ended up teaching remotely. We all thought that this way of teaching could work but it doesn’t really work because you get on Zoom and most of the students don’t like to show up at all unless you make it part of their grade, their cameras off, they don’t participate, and I ended up trying to teach or have discussion looking at black screen with students’ names on it. This ended up being a super difficult way to teach because no one was participating, and I didn’t know if students were even listening to me. It kind of felt like when I first started teaching English as Foreign language in Greece and as I spoke my little 2nd grade students did understand what I was talking about and just stared at me. Of course, after a year of teaching remotely I have managed to teach using Zoom, but it was my least favorite way to impart knowledge.

If I had to choose my favorite way to teach is the hybrid course, were I get to see my students in class once or twice a week and then the rest of the work is completed online. I love it because it combines both my strengths, in class discussion and personal communication with my students and online which allows me to use tool like Videoscribe by Sparkol to create e-learning videos and free material for my students to practice their grammar as well as expand their knowledge so much more that I could in a traditional classroom.

Katherine

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Blackboard Annotate? Yay or Nay?

Published on by Katherine1 Comment

I have been using the updated version of Blackboard Annotate for over a semester now and I have to say that it has made my grading life a lot easier and faster. For starters it has cut my grading time quite a bit because I don’t need to spend any time downloading and uploading homework assignments to and from Blackboard as well as creating and naming folders that fill up my computer with student homework that I have to go and delete at the end of the school year.

 In the past I used MS Word’s review tool that includes track changes to grade and provide my students with feedback on their writing.  The Blackboard’s Annotate software is a lot easier to use and a lot more intuitive. What I mean by that is that the tools are grouped up better allowing the grader to not keep changing between the different functions. For example, in the pen section where you can underline parts of the paper digitally you can erase a mistake without leaving that area. In the previous version there was no eraser, and it was very difficult to delete a correction. Just that change has made it so much easier and less time consuming for me as I teach writing.

The other function that I am enjoying a lot is the comment tool as I am able to provide in line comments with ease and because it mimics the MS word “new comment” in the review section it is second nature to me and the students. Once you add the comment, a small yellow icon   A picture containing clipart Description automatically generatedshows up and then the comment appears in a panel next the comment. Although you cannot edit the comment you can easily delete it. Hopefully in a future version of Annotate they will add the edit function in the comments section as well.

Another cool function is the content library, which allows you to create a bank of reusable comments that can be edited or deleted. You can also add a comment to the submission page from the menu. The other thing that I liked is that you can type keywords or phrases to search for comments that I have saved and because I don’t need to keep typing my comments it has become one of my favorite tools.

With almost 80 students a semester and about 7-9 assignments for each student you can imagine how much happier I am with Blackboard Annotate these days. It has turned a long session of grading papers quicker, simpler, and easier. So, yes, I would recommend that anybody who has access to this version of Blackboard Annotate to take the time to learn how it works.

Below you wlll find an overview of Blackboard Annotate from the Blackboard’s YouTube channel:

YouTube Video https://youtu.be/WFaEf_7-KaM

Katherine

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Gone Fishing…

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This is my last post for this school year. Even though we are not going on vacation this year I decided to devote August to rest, relax and rejuvenate. As I have a feeling that this upcoming school year is not going to be a walk in the part. Usually, in August I spend all of my time with my family and feeding my brain by reading only things that make me grow. For me and my family, August is a big month as we have lots of celebrations. It is the month I got married to my wonderful husband and it is also the month our son was born as a result I always take this month off.

So, because of that, I make sure to finish everything I need to do for September. I start sending emails about all sorts of things so I can make sure that my prep for the fall is complete no later than July 31. From editing my syllabi, making sure that my courses are updated to reflect the changes I want to make, creating new e-lectures to completing my AFR’s (Annual Faculty Reports).  Besides needing a break, I love spending the majority of my time with my family.  It helps me go back to teaching ready for the new school year. I have learned from past experience that if I don’t take the time off, I am miserable all year. By May I feel extremely burnt out and I can’t be the best educator, wife, mother, and friend to anybody. I just don’t perform to full capacity and it shows in my work. I don’t do a good job teaching, writing, or anything else I do professionally. This then seeps into my personal life because I become stressed out, annoyed, and irritated causing my personal life to not be good either. As a result, I then tend to not have a lot of patience and tolerance. What is more, the people around me can tell. Thus, for my sanity and others who have to live, work, and have to listen to me teach for three hours a week  I spend as much time as possible throughout the year decompressing and August is one of those times.

The other thing I like to do during my time off is plan early and brainstorm on blog posts or e-lectures for example among other things because if don’t do that ahead of time I am constantly playing catch up and it is not my best writing if I don’t. Like I make sure that my courses are completed and uploaded long before the semester begins as there is not possible to teach and design/create a course while it’s running. It’s too stressful and mistakes are bound to happen, which is not how I want my students or anybody else to think of me. Also, I teach around 80 students a semester and there are some weeks I have so many papers to grade that it is impossible for me to write anything when my brain is completely fried. So I came to the conclusion that I work better when I take August and January off and take care of myself.

I hope everyone has the opportunity to take some time off even if he/she stays home this year. Enjoy the last month of the summer with your loved ones as this year is bound to be a tough one since COVID-19 is still raging. With any luck by the end of 2020, the hard-working scientists and doctors around the world might have some sort of solution for this pandemic so can stop feeling so stressed out and that we are out of control!

This is where I wish I was for August but maybe next year:

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See you all in September!

Katherine

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Thinking, Reflecting…

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This week has been super busy as I was trying to finish grading final exams, final papers of my summer courses, as well as posting grades. So, besides the actual reading and grading, I spent a couple of days just thinking and looking at students’ grades. When I am doing it, it makes sense, but when tell someone that I actually take a couple of days to spend time just to think about the students and their grades they look at me surprised. I guess in other professions this type of process does not occur.

It is also an activity that most in the education field don’t talk about. I am not sure why, but we don’t. During this time, for starters, I want to make sure that all of the grades are entered, and I have not missed anything. The other reason is that I look at how much a student has progressed in a few months or weeks and if that is reflected in his or her final grade. As I am looking at their grades I am wondering if what I set out to do during the semester or summer session, occurred. What I mean is, I always have a set of goals as I begin designing and then teaching a course. It becomes evident if those objectives were met when I look at my students’ grades.

This is the time that I take a lot of notes so I can remind myself if what I used for the semester worked or not. By “worked” I mean, did online tools like VoiceThread, or a homework assignment fulfill its objective?  How did the students react? Did they do well? Did they acquire the knowledge I was hoping for? If not, why not? What can I change to make, so I can make their learning experience better? Or they can absorb the material better?

So, thinking about grades and performance objectives at the end of a course is extremely important in order to begin the process of redesigning an upcoming course. I see it as a way to measure if what I am doing in the classroom virtual or face-to-face is important. Of course, there are those students that register for my course that they are not ready for it or those that are taking, but have no interest in learning because they believe that the course is a waste of their time and they need to take it to graduate. I don’t usually take most of those students into account because how I can look at a student that doesn’t have the prerequisite knowledge in order to do well in my course. It is those students that I have a hard time failing because the majority of them work extremely hard to pass the course and even though they have progressed a lot it still isn’t enough. On the other hand, the students that think have nothing to learn are the ones I that I cannot be concerned about because there is always something to learn, and instead of approaching the course that way, they close themselves up to all sorts of missed opportunities.

These and many more thoughts that go through my mind during this period of reflection. Of course, there is a lot more to it than just thinking and re-evaluating for a couple of days, but this is how I begin the process of working and thinking about the upcoming courses I will be teaching in the fall, spring or summer semesters.

Do you think about how your students did while taking your course? How do you go about designing and then teaching a course?

Katherine

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Giving Grace…

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Last week I was talking to one of my grad students on zoom because she had missed the deadline to submit a homework assignment. As I was listening without speaking the student proceeded to tell me everything that happened to her and the reasons behind this. I hadn’t had the opportunity to turn the video on and as I listened to the student I decided not to. The student was super nervous, and I did not want to add to it by showing up on her computer screen, but I could hear her voice. She was upset and worried. Not adding the video actually made me listen to the student more carefully because there was no video to distract me.

As I am sitting there, I am thinking why is the student so upset? I haven’t even spoken yet. Once the student finished explaining I asked so, “What can I do for you?” The student was so anxious she couldn’t bring herself to actually ask for permission to complete the work she had missed. So, I had to nudge her along. Finally, I decided to put her out of her misery and give her permission to submit the late homework. Now, this is not an undergrad that just forgot or procrastinated to do her work. This is a graduate student in the MBA program. The majority of these students are working professionals, type A with extremely driven and determined personalities.

While I was talking the grad student, stunned by the fact that I gave her a chance, kept thanking me for understanding and being flexible because her other professor had said no even though the student had a good reason for being late. I cannot of course talk about the particulars of the student’s reasons because of FERPA laws and protecting my student’s privacy nor are they important.

Once the zoom call was over, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Not because this is my first time talking to a student who is asking for an extension for a homework assignment.  After 16 years of teaching at UMB, I have had numerous encounters with students, especially because I teach the dreaded business communications courses that all undergrads need to take in the College of Management in order to graduate.

The thing I was thinking about how as educators we have a lot of power over our students. We teach them all of these courses and try to transfer our excitement and love for the topic we spent years learning about. I have spent about 8 years in higher ed just learning with multiple professors. They were all great and brought their experience, knowledge, and enthusiasm to the classroom, but the majority were distant and unapproachable. Of course, you don’t realize it until you meet the one professor that will change everything for you. For me it was, Pepi Leistyna he was everything a true educator should be, passionate, kind-hearted, and welcoming. As a student, I never felt worried about going to his office. It always felt like chatting to a friend, not my professor.

So, as I kept thinking about my student and I was wondering about how I can positively and negatively impact a person’s life with one yes or one no. Then I was reflecting on all of the work we as educators put into a course. If we spend all this time envisioning, researching, designing, and teaching courses, why can’t we include compassion, kindness, and grace as part of our teaching practice as well? Who says we need to be distant, cold, and closed up in order to teach? Why do people need to be scared to ask for an extension to a homework assignment? That’s not how education should work. Students should not be scared to talk to me or any other professor. I am not saying that I am going to not have deadlines or have students follow them, but why is it so wrong to bend the rules once in a while? Why is frowned upon to give students grace?

At the end of the day, my course is going to be one of many that a student will take in their lifetime. I would consider myself blessed if they leave my class having learned the material that the course was designed for and think of me as a nice person, they got to spend some time with during a semester in their second or third year of college.

How would you like to be remembered by your students?

Katherine

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Thoughts on Teaching, Taking Stock…

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Since my last post I have been thinking a lot about my students that are finishing up the semester and  how I taught them, or should I say facilitated their learning because I really don’t think of myself as a teacher in a traditional way. You know, the kind that sits in front of a classroom and lectures. I actually abhor that kind of teaching because it makes students lazy and comatose. Most of the time they are so bored that they end up looking at more interesting things on their laptops, tablets, or phones. The way I like to teach is when I am off-center i.e. when I make the students take center stage. As a dear friend and colleague used to say when I was a new professor, the lazier the instructor the more active the students. At the time I didn’t understand what she meant, but almost 20 years later I do because with teaching and experience comes understanding.

Of course, she didn’t mean that I shouldn’t work, what she meant is that I shouldn’t lecture so much and let them do active work. When I say I don’t lecture I mean I don’t sit in front of a group of students and explain how prepositions work in a sentence (although in some instances I have been known to do that as well). Because part of teaching business communications includes quite a bit of grammar instruction since many of my students are ESL and International students that many have a hard time writing a cohesive sentence.

When I teach on campus I begin the week by laying out what the week is going to be about as well as the type of work they are required to do, but I don’t lecture in the traditional sense and that is why I like hybrid courses because they allow me and my students the flexibility to expand the number of activities and learning since there is so much information that you can squeeze into a 50 minute class period. So, a lot of my lecturing happens online via e-lectures for it allows the students to view it as many times as they like or practice with the interactive grammar exercises that I have created.

The other thing that I do during this time of the semester especially after I have posted final grades is trying to see if my students have been able to meet the goals, I set out for them. To that end, I use the backward design model by Wiggins & McTighe which believes that learning experiences should be planned with the final assessment in mind. One starts with the end i.e. the desired results or goals and then designs the curriculum from the evidence of learning called for by the standard and the teaching as well as the material needed to equip students to perform’ (Wiggins and McTighe, 2000, page 8)

So finally, as the semester winds down I take time to think about everything that happened and look at my notes and see what worked and didn’t work this time around. How do you end the semester or year?

Katherine

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Are we meeting student expectations?

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This morning I was reading the morning news and saw an article on how Northeastern is being sued by students for inferior online teaching. I am not going to take a position on what Northeastern is doing as far as teaching online goes and how prepared or not their faculty were when they asked them to transfer their courses to online because I am not familiar with the university’s online platform. From what I understand, Northeastern is one of the many universities being sued by their students.

The question is why? Why are students suing their universities? What are their expectations? Are faculty not working up to their usual standards?

I have no doubt that the majority of faculty if not all of them have been working a lot more than they usually do to compensate for having to transfer and teach online in order to assist students in successfully completing the semester because as educators this is what we do help, educate, and guide students. So, have their teaching standards dropped? No, it has not dropped, it changed to accommodate the online modality. You cannot go from a high standard of teaching on campus to a low one because you are teaching online.

So, what is wrong? Why do students feel that they are not getting what they paid for? The article I read did not say. I think that many students like faculty and administration do not understand that teaching online versus on campus is not the same thing.

As far as the faculty are concerned, I believe that when they transferred their courses online, they did a great job and all of the material is there that they were going to teach in class. But in what format? You cannot use the same teaching tools online that you used in-class. It doesn’t work trust me I have tried. In the early years of online teaching despite my best efforts, I did have a few teaching fails and learned from them but unlike my colleagues, throughout the US I had time to hone my online teaching skills.

Also, you cannot just use zoom and lecture non-stop until the end of the semester as the students will be exhausted from all the live online lectures.  There must be a combination of synchronous and asynchronous activities such as zoom lectures with online activities and e-learning lectures. Something that most faculty did not have time to create as you need to search to find the software you think might work, learn how to use it, and then design and create the material. Time instructors did not have.

That is where the administration comes in. As they didn’t understand the amount of work it takes to create and set up an online course. Two weeks is not a realistic amount of time for faculty that are starting from scratch to be able to design and create an online course let alone several. At this point, I think that the majority of admins are finally understanding what it takes for faculty to go online as I am sure they have heard back from their faculty about the challenges they are facing.

Finally, let me talk about the students, most have no idea what it means to be taking a full load of courses online. Sure, they have taken an online course a few times. That’s different. So that is why they probably feel that the work their professors are doing is an inferior job. Taking a full load of courses online means that the students need to step up and be responsible for a lot more than they ever had to. Why? because now they need to log in and find things as there is no professor at the front of the class to answer questions as they are looking at their phones checking their social media status and how many likes they got on Tik Tok. They need to remember to get on zoom, make sure they have a good working computer, fast internet connection, and actually take notes. When they have a question, they need to log in to their online platform to post a question that might take their professor more than twenty-four hours to respond. This creates stress and tension for students because they think that they should get a response immediately, they don’t realize that their instructor might also be overwhelmed by the fact that s/he was not planning on teaching online for half a semester and is now trying to figure out how to teach in this new platform while teaching. So, suddenly life became a lot more complicated than it was before the quarantine.

The bottom line is that students have to take charge of their own learning and work independently and figure things out on their own. Of course, that is easier said than done. It is difficult for them because they are not ready. This is not how they were taught in K-12. I say this because as a mother of a nine-year-old boy 4th grade has been a difficult year for him long before COVID-19. The teachers realized that children are not able to be more in charge of their own learning and day as a result for the last few years they have begun asking students to use agendas to write down their schedules. So, since September I watched my son struggle to figure out how to remember to write things down in his agenda and to also make sure to look at his agenda. This has been painful for me and him, but I had to let him fall on his face several times in the hope that he will learn and become more responsible for his own learning. These are life skills that many of my students do not have. One reason for this could be that they came from a different country or their school system just didn’t think it was important enough at the time. But like everything else education and curricula evolves and changes to reflect the needs of the students to help them succeed hence the change in my son’s school.

The other problem most college students are facing is that it is hard to have to go from an in-class learning experience to an on-line one and be expected to perform the same.

Let’s not forget that students are locked up in a house with their parents which cannot be easy nor stress-free for them as they also had to leave their dorms or apartments as well as their friends behind. Physiologically they are stress out and tired of this new way of living and going to school. Their lives have changed, and they don’t know when they are going back to school. For now, everyone in higher ed will stay online for the foreseeable future and that is not easy for college students to accept. Eventually and hopefully by the fall semester, we will all be on-campus teaching and learning, but it won’t be the same. I don’t think that we can ever go back to the pre-quarantine time.  I see education evolving and changing in ways we never thought it would.

What do you think?

Katherine

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