How online learning is going for Cleveland-area college students

This article was first published in FreshWater on April 6, 2020.

As colleges and universities across the country move online in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, professors and students alike are grappling with how to conduct education outside the classroom. For some, this means simply going about business as usual via multiperson video chat platforms like Zoom or Google Meet. For others, the change entails completely overhauling syllabuses and established standards of grading.

I like to believe that in-person classes grant a particular intimacy to learning that is difficult, if not entirely impossible, to capture across multiple time zones and locations. Try to imagine Aristotle and Plato discussing the nature of virtue over a Zoom meeting. It’s just not sexy. On the other hand, shouldn’t we be used to this by now? Aren’t our lives already so entrenched in the virtual world that online learning should be, well, par for the course? As it turns out, the answer is a resounding yes and no.

First of all, it’s awkward. As students and educators, we are sailing together in uncharted waters, and it’s painfully obvious. Typical classroom standards — such as raising your hand to answer a question — are being turned inside out. In my film class of 30 students, my professor has settled on what I’ll call the “free for all” model, where anyone can shout out the answer. While I believe this style can be beneficial with smaller class sizes, with dozens of people on a call you wind up with constant interruptions, followed by profuse apologies (“You go!” “No, you go!”), exaggerated awkward silences and, worst of all, even more airtime for the kid who thinks he’s the one with the advanced degree.

Then there’s the problem of having to go. What do you do when you have to, err, use the little girl’s room? Typically, I mute my mic, turn off my camera, and hope not to be spontaneously called on, but I’ve seen videos of students legitimately asking their professors midlecture if they can go to the bathroom. It’s as if we’ve reverted back to asking our teachers to let us take a dump. Yikes.

But it doesn’t end there. Professors, let’s be honest, are Luddites when it comes to technology. In one class, I felt so bad that my professor couldn’t figure out how to see all the students on his screen that I put a message in the chat with instructions (spoiler alert: he didn’t see it).

A friend told me her professor had the camera off the entire time she was teaching, so the students followed suit. Countless TikToks show students pretending to be frozen in order to get out of a presentation during class, or videoing themselves on their phones so it looks like they’re in class.

Still, I can’t help feeling a little bad when professors buy into these conniving Gen-Z tactics. Sure, it’s funny to see these professors flail about like students cramming for a midterm, but in reality, such technology troubles raise interesting questions about the sustainability and training required to maintain online learning indefinitely—or even for another six months. All jokes aside, this sudden shift to online instruction has serious implications for the present and future state of education. One thing that’s come up again and again, as my college has attempted to adapt its grading policy for remote education, is the question of accessibility. Who has access to the necessary resources—and who doesn’t—is now, perhaps more than ever before, becoming increasingly clear.

If a student doesn’t have enough to eat at home, can they really be expected to produce the same quality work as before? And what about students who need to work 60-plus hours a week to support their families? What if they lack consistent internet access because their parents just got laid off from nonessential businesses? If their only income comes in the form of a $1,200 check from the government, barely sufficient to pay the rent?

Ironically, these inequities have always been present in higher education, if hidden beneath the surface. My hope moving forward is that we come to acknowledge these moments of glaring inequity and use them as a learning experience going forward, rather than pushing them aside as a result of the pandemic. This period of online learning offers a window into the systemic injustices at play in education; in order to ensure that education is accessible to everyone in the future, we must look through the open blinds.