While the right decision, Laurentian University continuing to offer classes mostly remotely via the online application Zoom through the winter of 2021 has come at a cost to both students and faculty, said a Laurentian professor.
Cynthia Whissell, a professor of psychology at Laurentian who’s also that department’s chairperson, made the comments at the Oct. 20 Laurentian Senate meeting where the decision was made.
“It is a huge impact, it is a grinding impact and it is grinding on both students and faculty,” she said. “I agree this motion is just about the only way to go, but I want students and faculty to be recognized for the extra work they’re putting in to make this run.”
Whissell said students often don’t have maximal technology or they’re not in maximal locations to obtain course materials.
“They get pitched out of courses halfway through,” she said. “They cannot get online because they are too distant from a main centre. It gives a lot of frustration to students.
“It is also asking students to do things in different and new ways with which they are not familiar. We have to recognize that students are bending over backwards in order to make this work.”
Faculty have also been “bending over backwards” to make the new course formats work, Whissell said.
“Many things have kind of been ‘Here you go, do everything the new way,’ and faculty are not prepared, do not even know the right questions to ask in order to improve their teaching performance …
“And as I’ve heard from faculty in my department, re-preparing a course to present by Zoom is almost as bad as preparing it brand-new. So every faculty member is being faced with a large number of the equivalent of new preparations every term.”
Whissell also said that presenting courses via Zoom has some limitations for professors.
“Often what faculty can and cannot do in their classes is often driven by the technology,” she said.
“You call into IT and say ‘How can I do this on Zoom?’ And they say ‘Oh, you can’t do that on Zoom.’ I’ve heard colleagues in other departments saying ‘Oh, I need to show my students this, that or the other. It’s a key part of my lesson, and it takes 20 minutes to load up. And sometimes my students can’t see it.’”
Technological issues aside, Marie-Josée Berger, Laurentian’s vice-president, academic, said at the Oct. 20 meeting it was necessary to make a decision on the format for the winter semester now for the sake of students and faculty.
“Some students must make decisions about whether or not they can move to Sudbury for face-to-face,” she said.
With many parts of the province still battling the pandemic, Berger said it was imperative Laurentian notify students, faculty and other service providers early enough regarding plans for the winter 2021 semester.
Whissell’s comments about the impact of what is being referred to online as “Zoom U” prompted Sudbury.com to reach out to Laurentian students through social media on their thoughts about classes continuing to be delivered largely online next semester.
A few students said they’re actually enjoying remote learning, although they do miss their friends and the campus environment. Another said she’d rather deal with issues such as Zoom fatigue than potentially be spreading a virus.
Rory Whitehouse, a fourth-year Laurentian political science and law and justice student, said he’s found his classes rather “hit and miss” since they went online due to COVID-19.
“It’s either really good, like the professors have really taken it in stride and gone to great lengths and effort to make the class really good, or they’ve done the bare minimum and have just essentially ‘died,’” Whitehouse said in a recent phone conversation with Sudbury.com.
By “died,” Whitehouse means that some of his professors essentially just post all of their assignments and lectures online, and don’t do live lectures.
He said he was “pretty disappointed” by Laurentian’s decision to continue remote delivery due to the pandemic, although he too understands why the decision was made.
“I wasn’t expecting them to put the 150-students science class lectures in, but I was hoping that some smaller classes that more go around discussion based would be allowed to go in in some larger classrooms,” Whitehouse said.
Katharine Champaigne, a third-year Laurentian gerontology student, said in an email to Sudbury.com that she’s struggled to learn via Zoom.
“For me personally, I have had my fair bit of struggles adapting to online learning as I am someone who learns better in class as well as being in a school environment,” sh said.
“However, having courses delivered remotely this school year was the right choice, although our new norm of online learning comes with its moments of difficulty and frustration it is better to be safe than sorry.”
Champaigne said she thinks the new format has also been a “major adjustment” for professors, “especially the ones who have have not been familiarized with the ins and outs of Zoom.”
She said she thinks the cost of tuition should have been lowered this year, including add-ons for student services that aren’t accessible due to the pandemic.
“It just does not make sense to have various costs included in tuition when students are not even on campus to use them,” she said.
