An upside

Is there anything positive that came from the pandemic? Maybe.

Of course, I don’t want to ignore or downplay the severity of COVID-19 or the coronavirus. Perhaps “positive” is not the way to describe it – but some interesting adjustments had to be made, ones that at least some people might benefit or learn from in the future. 

I’ve built my entire blog around the impact of the pandemic on education. There are canceled internships, a lack of job prospects, and online classes. And the latter is what I will be talking about today.

In a few entries, interviewees talked about the downsides of online learning. In one case, online classes couldn’t replace the practical elements that were supposed to be taught in the course. In another case, online learning led to feeling isolated. But to some, working and learning online is actually beneficial.

As NPR reports, “many employers now say the benefits of remote work outweigh the drawbacks” and a variety of companies (including Twitter and Facebook) announced they would allow a significant chunk of employees to work remotely in the future as well as specifically hire remote workers.

Working from home is some people’s - including students’ - choice for a variety of reasons. I spoke with Fabian, an economics students, who had a generally positive experience learning remotely, despite some challenges.

How quickly did your college adjust?

The college had about 2 weeks to somehow adjust to the situation, to say: we’re going to use the college’s online learning platform more intensely.

What did remote teaching look like for you?

On the one hand there were instructional videos and on the other hand online lectures. There were also worksheets and answer sheets. In the field of labor law, for example, we were able to work through the PDF files. You read through the case and checked the legal text to see if it applied and put a check mark next to it.

The lecturers also had additional consultation hours. 

Three lecturers worked with instructional videos. The fourth lecturer simply worked with PDF files, so text files. But he also offered a video conference at the end of the semester, where you could ask your questions over 2 hours.

The online lectures happened at fixed times, like with a normal schedule.

Selected content was uploaded in the video so that not every single thing was worked out during the lectures. The exercises from the worksheets were explained in the web session as well.

And how were the videos structured?

Well, the subject “production” -  as you can imagine - is very math-heavy and the videos included apps that allow you to take notes.

That means you could see what the lecturer was writing. That was the advantage: you were able to follow the videos and determine which material was more important to study for exams, because the lecturer’s personal notes carried so much weight.

When the lecturer manually adds information to a slide, one can be like "this additional information was missing in the original presentation and he added it, so it is possible that this will be an exam question".

How did your day-to-day change?

On a standard day, I leave the house at 6 a.m. I usually take the train at 6:30 and get to the university at 7:15. I then have half an hour to prepare for the lectures. If I am unlucky, it can happen that I am not done until 7:20 p.m. Ideally, I can still get home from Dortmund with the last train.

Currently I get ready at 7:30 am. My study area consists of my laptop and tablet in the living room. The day starts at 8:30 a.m. with the first lecture.

What were the benefits?

Something I enjoyed was that I had almost 2 hours more sleep because the commute was gone. I think that's 3 hours total which I would have spent on it otherwise.

Another benefit is that you can access these instructional videos whenever you want. That’s a huge advantage; you can say "okay, so and so many hours until this online lecture". So I also have the possibility to watch the instructional videos right before.

I think that’s a great thing, that you have the videos from which you can get information – and that you can watch them several times if you want or need to. And then there is this additional  video conference, which also includes a lecture, but also provides the chance to have questions answered.

Was the quality of teaching the same?

Yes, if not better. I can imagine that the preparation of these videos took a lot of time. Consequently, they always thought about exactly what they are saying and how they are saying it.

What are the challenges or downsides to remote learning?

One disadvantage was that you might get called out of the lecture by your grandmother and have distractions from the outside. Of course, the lecture doesn’t wait for you.

That was perhaps the biggest downside, that you might have distracting factors at home that you can't anticipate or control. Construction noise, for example. I also sat across from my partner, who also worked from home at the same time. I was attending my lecture, she was working simultaneously… you can get in each other's way. If one has to make a phone call while the other one is speaking up in class, it can certainly be annoying to be in the same room.

Another problem is different levels of motivation. I had days when I was super productive and days when I was less productive.

What did you miss out on due to online teaching?

I missed networking. Simply being in the same room with students. I'm now at the end of my studies and already have a small network of students around me who can help me out if I can't attend a lecture. Or if I have a question, I can contact them via WhatsApp.

If I’d be a freshman now… I find it very difficult to imagine, because you don't know what to expect, you don't have the support of others and you can't build a network.

How would you like to see teaching continued in the future?

That, on one hand, students who want to attend a lecture physically have the opportunity. And at the same time, that other students, who may not have the opportunity to be present, can still participate.

Maybe that could be an option in the future, so that people can participate in a lecture or seminar both offline and online.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.