How did moving online impact your experience of the university or research institution? What were your immediate thoughts when classes and research were moved online?
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Although I was lucky enough to not have any classes online, my masters dissertation was significantly impacted by moving online. It meant having no access to archives and thus primary sources, as a result of which I could have the level of engagement I had hoped to have with original work in my dissertation.
Besides, this being my first research work independently, I missed out on the thrill and experience that comes from having visited an archive yourself. Now going into my PhD I know that navigating archives, figuring out how to access them and who to contact will be a difficult task which might make the entire process of writing delayed if not difficult.
Since it was my final year,I was quite disappointed by the move online. Aside from academics,I had many things planned for my final semester,which had to be abruptly cancelled. The shift of classes online was also shocking,as it was something so new. Since we were the first batch to experience this,there wasnt even a set format that was followed. I remember having classes via zoom and whatsapp,due to continued confusion. However,I was lucky enough to have really understanding professors. Our deadlines were flexible and my department ensured that we had access to online resources. It was also the camaraderie of my fellow classmates that was inspiring,as we were all willing to help each other continuously. Even then,online classes did take a toll on my health. My sleep cycle got messed up,I would get loads of headaches,and I would feel drained out after a whole day of classes. I also didnt feel like interacting with people,because that would mean looking at another screen after classes.
Working in a School system, we had no choice but to move online and succumb to virtual mode of teaching. Being an alternate/progressive school, somewhere our philosophy and social emotional connect with the child doesn’t go in sync with merely small rectangular boxes and shut screens. I missed that connect. That sense of touch, shaking hands with your students, hugging them, their noises in the corridor , catching up in between the classes, resource room, accompanying them on trips. Virtual mode of Education had become quite an strenous affair. It’s not that we haven’t worked so much when the school was functioning physically but then a cup of tea with our team, colleagues and conversations kept us going.
It is interesting that you mention physicality as a component of your teaching philosophy! How have you adapted your alternative teaching style in the virtual mode? Especially in the context of school children, retaining whose attention would presumably be a tough task?
When studies and research moved online, one did not immediately grasp the gravity of the problem at hand. A lot of the study material was available online. It was as though we were spared the trouble of going out so that we may single-mindedly focus on the completion of our dissertations. While one could easily have benefited more from visit to libraries, online resources were so abundant, that even to this day one has not been able to exhaust them.
Many of us used to participate in a Reading Group. With the pandemic, this moved online as well. I had never heard of Zoom! But since then, Zoom caused us to meet such people whom we would otherwise never have met. We were able to learn from seniors in regular meetings on Zoom, what we might otherwise not have learnt. In this sense, education moving online was a blessing.
Seminars and Conferences at various institutes around the world being held online made it possible for students to attend events they would otherwise never have been able to attend.
Where one lost however, was in one’s relationship with one’s supervisor. One could still communicate online, but it was not the same as meeting in person. Regular in-person meetings would allow seeking advice and correction in a manner not possible online. It would allow one to learn from the peson of the supervisor, not just his words. The pandemic has delayed our initiation into academics as apprentices. We have accumulated much knowledge but still find ourselves weak, deprived of the inner strength and wisdom to handle that knowledge.
When the country went into lock-down, I was in the process of completing the final semester of my undergraduate program. Initially, the impact this would have on the learning experience and how one relates to the university space was not entirely evident. However, as I moved on to pursue my post-graduate studies online as well, it became apparent that the shift would stand to radically alter the student experience. The loss of access to the university space was the most abject as it had earlier served to engender the feeling of belonging. Moreover, on a personal level, it had provided a sense of structure to most endeavors. At another level, online classes began to feel very alienating as one didn’t have the physical cues at their disposal while interacting with professors and peers. In addition, it was very difficult to maintain focus due to the constant blurring of boundaries between the home and the work space.
At another level, the online mode could be credited for providing the time and space to explore other avenues as well as to pursue further skill development.
Immediate thoughts included thinking online learning would provide some continuity for enrolled students and allow educational careers to not be adversely impacted or disrupted for those who needed to remain on track.
Saving up on commute time also appeared to be a plus as well as my being able to still see my whole class regularly through the semester.
It did sound like it would be terribly isolating- which it proved to be. Plus one cannot have a truly quiet space in the home akin to an office space so the distractions at home was always going to be a tough assignment.
Moving online needed a lot of shift in expectations. all the initial interactions with the classmate and teachers was online. The initial awkwardness between me and my classmates + talking to teachers as if we know them when we had to ask them for something was very challenging. selecting the CR based on online conversation, knowing that this is the group we will have to make friends with without knowing each others predilection was a gamble. i could offend anyone without any intention. so there was a massive excitement to start masters but at the same time a massive limbo of knowing and not knowing the people i was classmates with and the teachers of course.
The immediate thoughts were the desire to know my classmates but the inability to judge who to talk to and what to talk to them. the other immediate thought was the excitement to know my teachers since my course is the only course of 44 seats in India with international students. Ergo, my teachers are the very best of the field I am in. there was a desire to know them, understand them and establish that teacher student dynamic
I can imagine how daunting and yet exciting it must be to begin an entirely new course online. As someone who spent my final year of graduation online, my experience was similar and yet different from yours. While I knew all my classmates and teachers, our switched off cameras created a sense of alienation and detachment in class. But at the same time the online system gave us a chance to interact at odd hours with one another, with no fear of having to rush home before it gets dark!
When we shifted to online mode, I was in the middle of my second semester. My immediate thoughts were that of excitement as it seemed like an escape from the monotonous routine we were following in offline mode. As an introvert, envisioning people as black squares and hiding behind my own square initially made it much easier for me to articulate my thoughts confidently and participate in class discussions. However, once online mode went from being the exception to the norm, it did not take long for me to realize its demerits and the toll it was taking on me physically and mentally.
For one, I realized that a significant portion of the joy of learning came from conversations we had over a cup of coffee after class or in the corridors during breaks. These moments were serendipitous and did not have to be scheduled a day before via zoom. With most family members working from home, I also struggled with having to juggle household chores between classes which prevented me from giving undivided attention to what was being taught. Another issue I faced was distinguishing between work, rest and leisure time as my bed simultaneously acted as my study table, my dining table and my place of rest. This led me to an unhealthy cycle of over-exertion and lethargy.
Sitting behind a computer screen and speaking from a place of comfort was definitely a plus point for people (including me) who fear public speaking. But do you think that a lot of communication was lost too, in the online format? Was there any filtering of the content you were speaking because you were sitting at your home and not the physical classroom?
Sudden pedagogical shift from offline mode to online mode was overall stressfull particularly in initial stage because I had then recently got admission in PhD and I was having so many plans to do in offline mode but unfortunately things went topsy turvy because in Kashmir another level of frustration was low internet speed.
Due to this sudden shift in starting days I was so much de motivated as far as research is concerned but then I tried to keep myself motivated with this hope that 4G internet connectivity will be restored soon.And fortunately same happened then I consider with this online shift world is now my classroom.
For me Online mode learning helped me to grow per day
Personally I think online mode came blessings in disguise for me because I was able to volunteer myself for so many other things besides my PhD and I was able to interact people from outside Kashmir which ultimately help me to divert my attention towards growth mindset.
Because of online classes I was able to express my views more openly than in actual classroom.
Overall the experience is good but still the essence of learning and experience things in an offline mode is deeply missed.
When classes were moved online last March, I was in the middle of my last semester of undergrad. As part of my engineering degree, the final semester had to be spent working on a team-based final design project. As part of this project, we had to develop a working prototype of our design. Due to the situation after classes moved online- with everyone scattered all arond the globe without access to the required facilities- we had to completely re-evaluate our goals and settle for a sort of virtual prototype, which to be honest was a huge disappointment.
After this, I ended up doing the entirety of my masters degree online as well. I couldn’t take a lot of classes I had intended to take because I did not have access to labs and other facilities. In addition to this I definitely felt there was a substantial decline in the quality and effectiveness of classes when they went online. Bascially, my grad school experience can be described as watching pre-recorded lectures and submitting assignments without interacting with any peers or professors. More often than not, this left me feeling isolated which only added to the stress of grad classes.
As a third year PhD at the beginning of the pandemic, I did not have online classes or anything. And so the whole experience was tinged with isolation and despair. It seemed like everyone around me was using the time of lockdown “productively” and taking time to write papers, apply to conferences, and catch up on work. While I had my hands full taking care of my house, and felt so guilty that I was not using my time wisely. One year on, I have learned to be kinder to myself and use the resources I have at hand. While archives are inaccessible, digitisation of sources has been a lifesaver.
I joined masters program in Dec 2020. Online classes were not interactive and it felt like a formality in the midst of chaos that was happening around us. Although it became easy to attend classes as they were just a clock away, the excitement and curiosity has been really missing. The campus experience and interaction with learners from different cultures, religions and socio- economic background has always helped me to widen my perspective towards social issues. In online classes I felt like sitting in my own bubble trying to guess why my classmates are not responding or interacting in the class.
From my experience, online mode of learning can increase the access but cannot ensure the presence of mind of learners . Teachers struggle to understand what we are interested in and what is our existing knowledge as they cannot read our body language in online classes. Home environment does not give that space to think and rethink about ideas and trying to make connect between different ideologies.
As I could save lot of travel time, I tried to use it in reading books and articles related to my discipline. Hence, it has become self paced learning for me where I am majorly dependent on intrinsic motivation to read and learn new things.
Thank you for this interesting insight! Do you think that learning in an online setup is completely self motivated? Do you think to some extent curiosity too is a privilege in such times?
For me as a trans man, university was a space that acted as an escape from transphobic home environment. It was a space of self-affirmation and being my true authentic self.
When the classes shifted online, this space that gave me a sense of belonging was no longer available. It took me a lot of time to adjust with it as even the sleep cycle was adversely affected because of all this. The thoughts that I would always try to keep myself away from started visiting me more often while staying at home.
I have always witnessed that classroom discourses are very rich in nature as one gets an opportunity to learn from their (singular-gender neutral pronoun) peers and professors but due to this online shift the participation from the peers also got affected as many a times many of us would not have a private space to attend and participate in classes from. This was something that I thought I was missing upon the most.
Hi Zayan! I resonate so much with so many aspects of your experience, from the lack of personal space, to the constant self-surveillance and erasure. I wonder how you dealt with it, and how you adjusted, because I don’t think I quite have.
I spent a lot of time this last online semester reading non-course work (fiction, non-fiction, theoretical, whatever) that was affirming, and I also spent a lot of time looking for collectives and spaces of support online. I’m looking at another few months of online learning from home (at the least), and even thinking about it makes me really anxious. I hope you can find yourself in better circumstances soon, but till then, sending love and solidarity.
My immediate thoughts were that this shift online would be temporary. I couldn’t wait to get back to the college/university space and comfort and freedom it offered. But this prolonged lockdown of college spaces has now brought me to a place where I no longer wish to go back or go out. I find myself in a rush to make use of the greater amount of time at my disposal, time which I’m no longer spending in say, commuting. I have fill my day with activities but the fatigue that comes with being stuck in one place has meant that they’re being done for the sake of being ‘productive’.
As a migrant student studying BA in a different city, going to university first meant moving to a different city. Moving here implies many things to me: active negotiation that one as a ‘new’ person in the city has to take, isolation, ‘settling’ slowly and over time, independence or a sense of control, etc. For many like me, the first wave of COVID-19 demanded many of us to move back into their ‘smaller cities’. There was already a sense of loss here with moving back with family during what is said to be the ‘time of your life’. This sense of loss was only further deepened for me as moving back home meant no access to the library (when things started functioning again in phases), not being able to ‘access’ oneself in terms of what one is ‘studying’, feeling ‘stuck’, etc.
With this change of platform, it felt like all the exciting stories one hear about college, ‘unlearning’, and ‘college life’ felt alienating. There was an urgent need to reimagine being a student.
Hi Antarul! Thank you for these insights, I think I felt the need to reimagine being a student too.
Since, I’d spent around two years living alone, in a different city, away from my family, this last year of online learning back home felt like being stripped of all the things I’d learnt in college, all the independence and self-sufficiency I’d cultivated for myself.
I also felt like this sudden transition also affected my independence in other arenas: I felt unmotivated, I didn’t have the curiosity to engage in classes, I didn’t see the “point” of it all, and I depended on my friends and classmates to pull me out of bad thought spirals a number of times.
If you’d be open to sharing it, I’d like to hear more about your experience of feeling “stuck” as you put it. Because I think that kind of stagnancy held me down, too.
I consider myself extremely lucky in that my graduation was held only a few months before the pandemic began and turned the world upside down. My batch was the last to have a ‘normal’ thesis project, a ‘normal’ graduation, a ‘normal’ goodbye to the college experience.
In that sense, Covid-19 did not affect my college life. However, seeing the impact it had on those around me who were learning and teaching online during multiple lockdowns influenced my plans for higher education. I earlier intended to pursue a masters this year; I’ve pushed my plans back two years in the hope that by then it will be possible to get the full experience without the fear of Covid-19 looming over our heads.
Immediate concerns were-
1.Library facility
2.My internship at school
My hope:-
1. We would be safe at home and things could be done later.
2. Everything has +ves so online education would have to which would unravel with time.
3. Curiosity and wish to explore this new form i.e online education.
4.These new things and experience would bring out new and more strong &developed person out of me.
Online classes came along with a shift back home, and the two interconnected experiences completely altered the way I engaged with what I studied. I don’t have a room of my own, so that meant that I was under a constant apprehension of being monitored, overheard and walked in on. This was very different from my physical classrooms, which I’d found liberating and relatively non-judgemental. My immediate thoughts were on two different tangents: the first was a wistful hopefulness that maybe this was a temporary change, and the second was anxiety regarding how to adapt to circumstances so fundamentally different.