This morning I asked my first-year students to give each other virtual high fives to celebrate the end of the third week. When simply being present in the classroom counts as a major victory, you know we're living through peculiar times.
And they get more peculiar by the minute. Later in the same class, the internet connection became unstable and Zoom kept disconnecting, which must have been disconcerting for the one student who was joining the class from quarantine but it was difficult for the rest of us too because every single time Zoom came back on again, that annoying computer voice would loudly announce, "This session is being recorded." I jumped every time that happened and it happened at least a dozen times.--and now I hear that I have a student in another class who has to quarantine. Just when my quarantined students are being cleared to return to one class, I'm going to have to start Zooming in another.
As it happens, I was giving my honors students some instruction in how to do their presentations that start week after next, and I reminded them that whatever technology they rely on, they should prepare a Plan B just in case. The wonky tech in the classroom provided plenty of examples to support that claim.
But things are going well enough. On the tenure and promotion committee we're figuring out how to observe and evaluate teaching in a variety of settings, so by the end of the semester we'll be experts on all the different ways our colleagues are managing pandemic pedagogy. I've been having Zoom conferences with my composition students, and as much as I miss having people in my office, we're getting the work done despite everything. And the sunflowers are blooming. Who gets the high-five for that?
No comments:
Post a Comment