You may feel a little discomfort

I've attended the trainings and (mostly) mastered the technology so I can keep my classes running in a peculiar hybrid combination of face-to-face and online learning, but nevertheless a lot of what I'm doing this semester simply doesn't feel comfortable. While it's true that classes aren't necessarily designed to maximize my comfort level and, in fact, discomfort can motivate learning, I find this persistent discomfort fatiguing and disturbing on a variety of levels.

I've had trouble learning students' names (because they're masked and distant) so I'm not always comfortable calling on them in class. I've had to toss out tried-and-true activities because I'm not comfortable requiring students to move close together to work in groups. Zoom classes evoke uncomfortable stage fright, and the inevitable glitches interrupt the comfortable flow of classes.

But right now what's causing the most discomfort is the prospect of proctoring for my midterm exams. Two classes will take exams face-to-face, with a living breathing human being (me!) observing from the front of the room; two others will take online exams proctored by an online proctoring program. There's not really that much difference between being watched by a person who's present in the room and being monitored by a computer, but somehow the online proctoring makes me really uncomfortable.

I've taken all kinds of training and put all the appropriate measures in place to make sure my students know what they'll face: the proctoring system will take a photo of their student ID, monitor their facial movements to make sure they stay within the camera's frame, lock down their web browser so they can't navigate away from the exam, disable copy-and-paste so they can't keep a copy of the questions or send them to anyone, and automatically cut off their access to the exam after 60 minutes. Sounds reasonable, but all this high-tech monitoring feels very Big Brotherish to me.

But are my students comfortable? Hard to say. They don't complain too much, but they drag themselves into classes and they approach class activities with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. I get the sense that they really want this semester to be over without too much more grief an annoyance, so I'm trying to do what I can to make the path forward clear and direct.

And so we carry on. We'll get there eventually, accepting the limitations of this peculiar method of teaching and learning, and if the online proctoring system makes everyone crazy, then we'll make adjustments before finals. Comfort is not our primary goal but at least we can all be uncomfortable together.