My students’ ability to socially distance themselves is worryingly low



[ad_1]

A workplace is the best place to work: Like so many others, my workplace and my home became the same for the first time. I didn’t anticipate the role confusion that came with that. Sometimes I was in spouse / parent mode while simultaneously answering questions about an assignment. During online learning, if students had to wait until I could be their sole teacher again, they would have been waiting.

Students like to work on computers, and aspects of this way of working should be maintained: Many students who would never have completed a paper assignment were among the first to submit the same assignment via an online tool or questionnaire. Those students are sending us a clear message: in 2020 we must do more to accommodate the tech student.

Students must know the concept of transferable abilities: They may have perfected selfies, but they have a long way to go when it comes to taking a photo of written work. Their mastery of filters means that they themselves can look so perfect that they are unrecognizable (often literally) and yet the task comes sideways or slanted, and is almost certainly not fully readable.

Some students have emerged from the shadows: As the more socially oriented struggled online, a whole new regiment of dominant students appeared who were prepared to write contributions in the chat box that they would never, ever have dared to say out loud in class. Similarly, the shy students engaged with the camera off in a whole new way and, for the first time, they were the ones who thrived. I hope we don’t lose all of that now that we are back in the classroom.

[ad_2]