Context I teach large lecture sections of 150-200 students, with TAs, access to Zoom and Zoom cloud storage, and being able to buy the necessary gear. I teach at the University of Toronto, a large, urban, public research institution. I am an able-bodied person with not health conditions, and my perspectives are as an ally.
Why should we still offer some form of online option? The gradient of risk skews disproportionately towards poorer, marginalized, black, brown, indigenous, and disable people. What this means is that they have to manage more risk and can suffer worse outcomes due to a range of factors, many of which are consequences of an unequal society that existed before the pandemic.
Consider the case where a student is vulnerable or lives with someone who is vulnerable. Considers the multiple layers of students who come from marginalized communities, take mass transit, lack access to good healthcare, sick leave, and options to work from home. Additionally, when students get sick and need to isolate, they need access to the course. While these are just a handful of examples, the general point we can draw is that risks and consequences are not equally shared by our students. Marginalized, racialized, disabled student bear much more of the risks and consequences of the pandemic.
Some politicians and administrators framed returning to in-person learning using the false binary of (A) in-person = good for mental health vs. (B) virtual learning = bad for mental health. In reality we live in a much more diverse and complex world. Some students are concerned about their health, and being forced to return to in-person classes is a source of anxiety. Hence, society has a wide spectrum of people and needs, and false dichotomies are by nature unequal, not inclusive, and can contribute to codifying systemic inequities.
If we take a step back and think about teaching over the past several decades, we have not given much attention to people with disabilities to our shame. The pandemic exposed this clearly. We don't do nearly enough for students with disabilities. And as people get tired of the pandemic and rush back to in-person only learning, we also eliminated online access in most cases, leaving marginalized students behind yet again. Many institutions chose in person only, and if students can't make or miss class, then the message was for them to "get the notes from a classmate," as if nothing happened between 2020 and today.
But the thing is, we know how to do it better. We learned during this pandemic how to teach online, and provide more access and more support for disabled and marginalized students. Offering students online options provides more ways for students to manage their risk and get an education.
My current tech set-up and typical day
- iPad, apple pencil, laptop, Rode Wireless Go mic.
- Teach class from the physical classroom, and start a zoom meeting.
- Zoom screen share iPad, connected via cable (for quality and reliability).
- Project computer screen in class via HDMI, so students in class see the iPad screen.
- Use a mic setup that allows students in-class and online to hear you (necessary for large lecture halls, not necessary for smaller classes.)
- Class is taught using Notability (PDF annotation app) used as a virtual whiteboard with prepared handouts and google slides.
- Record class meetings to Zoom cloud, post to Canvas with PDF notes from class.
A typical day is similar to what I'd normally do. I have activities planned that switch between students working in pairs and whole class discussion. With the zoom option open, student can join breakout rooms or depending on the attendance, stay in a whole group discussion online. The teaching experience is broadly the same, but there are differences.
I visit in-person students as I would normally. I go around the room and check in on a subset of groups as move around the class to different locations each time. I use this to guide the timing and to seek out questions or topics we need to make public.
For zoom students, I tried a couple of different things, depending on whether I had a TA in the lectures (AKA lecture TA). When I had a lecture TA, I would have the lecture TA manage the zoom discussions. In my opinion, this is the best option. It's hard to manage the zoom discussions and in-person discussions (for me and my context of large classes). Having a TA dedicated to working with the online students worked best, and it's what I recommend if possible.
In some of my classes, I did not have a lecture TA, and in that situation, I am not be able to monitor the zoom class as much. I did try having students work in breakout rooms, via selecting their own group or assigning students to groups randomly. Some groups worked on the problems, and other groups were less active. My sense is that for each class of students there may be different levels of participation depending on the specific people in the class, and there isn't a single strategy that works for all situations. My approach is to go in with a strategy to encourage student engagement, and select from a list of strategies to see what works. As I get more experience, I may be able to say more and find ways to refine my teaching so that I can check in on the zoom students more frequently.
One advantage for students on Zoom is chat. Chat is the most used feature and I engage with students in class on Zoom via chat. The chats would range from welcoming students at the start of class, asking 3-2-1-go questions, soliciting responses to math questions, and answering questions. When I give the class a task to work on, I use part of that time to check on the chat, switching between chat and visiting students in class.
Padlet/Google doc is one way to help students in both groups to share in a single space. I have had mixed success with this. Moving to an app on a phone or switching to another browser is an extra step. That extra step is enough to see a drop in participation. Instructions have to be clear and direct, where we ask each group (pair) to share their thinking. (One idea I may try in the future, is to ask students in-person to have one group member join the zoom meeting with video off, in order for the group to access the class chat. Another suggestion I learned about is to use Discord/Slack during class, but that also requires using another app.)
Why post a recording? Some students truly benefit from a recording, particularly some students with disabilities. Recordings allow students to stop/start/review the video enabling them to to stay focused on the content, see the live transcript, etc., where they might otherwise get lost in a live class. This is the main reason to post recordings.
There are other reasons to post recordings. If you teach a multi-section course, perhaps only one of the classes needs to be taught in dual-delivery mode. For example, some instructors may not have the skills yet to teach via active learning and dual delivery, and the recording can be used by students from any section. Sometimes students need to revisit an idea or want to review, and having a recording is helpful in these cases. Students who get sick may not feel well enough to join synchronously, and having options for catching up. I am sure there are more reasons, and this is merely a list from my experience.
The most common reason I have heard against posting recordings stems from a deficit mindset. The reasoning is more or less boils down to concerns that some students will become lazy and not attend class, if a zoom recording is available. Therefore, their reasoning is to not offer class recordings in order to force students to attend class. But let's be clear. The needs of students with disabilities should always take priority over something like attendance policies. One of my former students said it best.
"Accessibility should never be a bargaining chip or an afterthought. It's about making something that isn't possible for someone possible, and that's not nothing for people who are disabled—it's absolutely everything, it's the whole wide world." - anonymous student, University of Toronto
What's hard about dual delivery? It's more work, and involves a lot of juggling. Ideally, instructors should be provided with enough TAs/learning assistants to manage the in-person and online activities. If you have small classes, then it is more doable without TA help. For larger classes, having extra help makes a bigger difference.
I did teach a large class (enrollment 140) in dual delivery without any TA support in lectures. It's not easy, and you have to make choices with how you use your time. What this meant in practice is that I did not have the time or resources to check on the zoom breakout rooms often. I primarily used chat to communicate with the online students, but was not able to manage group dynamics regularly. During group work time, I would visit students working in pairs in the in-person portion of class, and the timing of in-person group work tends to go faster than online groups, which is another factor to consider. One way to mitigate all this is to be sure that students knowhow class is structured, and they could still ask questions via chat or take their questions to their weekly 2-hour tutorial/recitation section or office hours.
Students are nearly universally understanding. In most of their courses, they do not have an online option. Thus, the existence of something and knowing that you are trying your best with the time and resources you have is well-received. The point here is that students understand when resources are limited, and offering something and knowing you are doing your best is appreciated, even if it is not ideal.
The big institutional limitation is lack of support for the extra work this takes at the present time. There exists solutions to helping a broader range of students in all our classes that can be implemented now. Institutions should provide the TA/LA hours, the gear, and any necessary training and support for more instructors to do this effectively. It's something I will be advocating for going forward so that dual delivery will become more widespread.
Technical stuff Audio is the biggest tech challenge, especially if you need to be mic'd up for a large lecture hall. The fix is to either use two mics, or to use a line splitter. I chose the latter.
- Rode Wireless Go transmitter on my shirt sends the audio signal to the receiver.
- The receiver sends the audio signal to a line splitter. You then need two more cables to connect one line to the AV system in the classroom and another line to your computer. (The cable to my computer requires a TRS to TRRS adapter.)
- Good audio makes a big difference for video or zoom, so I suggest investing in a lavalier mic or wireless lavalier mic system. When audio is poor quality it can make the videos much harder to learn from.
Technical setup time is about 5 minutes to get the AV system on, mics on, iPad and zoom meeting up and running and then all the window management that comes with zoom. With repetition it gets easier, but it's a lot of setup time and you do have to double check each day that you have all your gear ready, batteries charged up. It's a production I repeated for each and every class meeting this year.
I should note that there are other ways to setup your tech. What I described is a bit ad doc, based largely on the equipment I already had and what I am familiar with. If you try something like this, your tech setup might look different.
Assessment Another piece I'll only mention briefly is standards-based grading. This topic deserves its own blog post. What I'll share is that equity and accessibility also intersects with assessment, and having flexible due dates and opportunities to resubmit work is another piece of the approach I am using. Given the turmoil of going to college during a pandemic, students getting sick, etc., having a flexible assessment system keeps more students moving forward in their education. I didn't have to deal with tons of emails about needing extensions or petitions for missed midterms, etc. The assessment system was designed so that students were encouraged to learn, get feedback, and continue learning.
Summary Now that we have the tech, skills, and experience, more of us can move forward with reaching and supporting a wider spectrum of our students. It's more work, and it'll require some training and investment from our institutions to help us manage an appropriate workload and do it well. The big benefit will be in creating a more humanistic educational experience for a wider range of students.
Dual Delivery + Active Learning + Standards Based Grading + Humanity
The pandemic is not over yet. No matter how badly we want it to be over, it's not over, especially and particularly for marginalized people. In fact, with the way public health measures have suddenly disappeared this year, at-risk people are possibly in a more dangerous time now than in 2020. Further many student needs (students with disabilities) will continue to exist even after the pandemic is in the past. Thus, providing dual delivery gives students the freedom to manage their risks and make decisions that work for them. Rather than going with a one-size-fits-the-able-bodied students as some of us are being encouraged to subscribe to, we can instead use what we learned to show grace, kindness, empathy, and humanity and teach all our students.
