There is a widely held misconception that presumes that classroom teaching is fundamentally a passive form of information consumption by a largely captive audience. Those ‘in the know’ – the lecturers – merely transfer their knowledge to those willing to listen – the students. The biggest threat, it is additionally assumed, lies with student indifference.
When viewed against this fallacy, the recent COVID-19 outbreak and the widespread societal self-isolation is assumed to have merely necessitated the accelerated adoption of technology as the solution with which to offset the enforced distance between lecturer and students.
Such a myopic viewpoint fails to perceive the various complex factors that define contemporary, successful and effective pedagogy. Furthermore, it overlooks the need for a whole range of personal traits and skills that need to be applied by the lecturer within a dynamic environment that is increasingly putting demands on the instructional methodologies that need to be applied when teaching modern, often intricate, subject matters.
When set against this background, technology is not the solution but the means, the tool and the channel that supports the right environment for quality teaching.
The modern lecturer should strive to be part-tutor, part-storyteller, part-actor, and in today’s digital world that is constantly vying for attention, also part-entertainer. Additionally, s/he needs to act as a mentor, share real-world experiences and participate in a joint journey of continual discovery. As an instructor, s/he is the catalyst for interactivity, seeking to convey enthusiasm and persistently challenge ideas in order to maintain attention, nurture interest, and stimulate curiosity.
In their book Acting Lessons for Teachers: Using Performance Skills in the Classroom, Robert Tauber and Cathy Sargent Mester describe how “A good teacher is not simply one who teaches, [much as] a good actor [is not] simply one who acts”. This is largely because “in teaching, if knowledge transfer occurs from teacher to student in a meaningful, credible and memorable manner, the teacher [can be deemed to have] excelled”.
Deep in every lecturer’s heart, there is undoubtedly a desire to become the real-life John Keating, the main protagonist in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, and challenge students to abhor conformity, metaphorically stand on their classroom desk, and believe that “No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
But is this ideal possible in a time of online and ‘distance teaching’?
The answer is rather intricate, mainly because teaching in a ‘live’ classroom environment is not quite comparable to communicating remotely from behind a computer screen.
From the outset, distance or remote teaching somewhat deprives the lecturer of that critical face-to-face, live, sentient and communicative audience. A significant part of traditional classroom ‘communication’ is based on non-verbal, facial expressions and gestures. Although distance teaching can still provide didactic cues, such as tone of voice, the lecturer would still have lost a number of key indicative signals.
The modern lecturer should strive to be part-tutor, part-storyteller, part-actor, and in today’s digital world that is constantly vying for attention, also part-entertainer
In cases where students decide to switch off their computer-embedded camera to avoid embarrassment or even mute their in-built microphone, the situation is made even more difficult. It is not just a question of drawing distracted students back into the virtual-classroom fold, but more importantly, how can you detect this happening when all you can see are static images and muted microphones?
All too often the lecturer is forced to resort to a different strategy, often based on asking a set of questions and awaiting some form of encouraging response. At other times s/he can even attempt to induce some form of classroom debate, technologically challenging as this may be. However, the relatively prolonged and expectant silence caused by individual students needing to switch on their respective microphone is often frustrating, frequently leading to doubt whether technology has failed, and this fact having gone unnoticed at some prior point in time.
Some may suggest that the lecturer ought to ask students to leave their microphones switched on throughout the lecture session to facilitate interaction. However, with students needing to remain at home, such an approach risks drawing in all the sounds of plates and dishes in the close-by kitchen, the whining hum of the vacuum cleaner in the next room, the dog barking angrily at the postman, or, as was recently my experience, the unwitting, amplified, rustling of a biscuit packet’s wrapper being heard loudly across the four corners of the island.
As we are all too often aware, at home the disturbances take all forms and shapes. It is no wonder that this has been labelled as ‘the golden age for pets at home’.
However, one could argue that this situation is largely the outcome of the haste and unexpected circumstances with which we have all had to self-isolate, and consequently, the current ‘teething problems’ should not deter from the potential for online and remote classroom interaction and contact.
With the passing of time, we will undoubtedly adapt better and modify teaching behaviours, but this will not be an overnight transition. It is more of a long-term process than a technology-based decision.
Notwithstanding, distance teaching will, for the foreseen future, remain a relatively inferior type of pedagogy. Ross Baker, the distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University, recently described it as “…disembodied, soulless and quirky, and I have not yet experienced the worst of it, because I did have seven weeks of live classes during which I experienced the joy of personal connection with students. Come September, if we are still on lockdown, I will encounter students only through the mediation of the internet.”
And yet, for me, the situation is not without its fair sense of irony and humour. Take the fact that for many years, I have politely requested classroom students to avoid opening their computers during lectures in order to maintain a degree of face-to-face contact and reduce the temptation of distraction. It is rather ironic to now have to lecture from behind the very same screens that were, until recently, perceived as a challenge to classroom interaction.
The optimists among us tend to talk of ‘when all this is over, and we return to normality’. It is the hope that comes from an expectation of a better future. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?
I would like to imagine that someday, students may recognise how challenging distance learning initially proved to be. Who knows? I live in the hope that they too will one day stand on their desks in sheer appreciation – hopefully after having removed their rather brittle computers away and not attempt to stand on top of them too.
Hadrian J. Sammut is visiting lecturer at the University’s Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences.