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Six weeks into the fall semester, while some graduate students and teaching assistants said making connections with their students online has been challenging, they are using the obstacles brought on by the coronavirus to explore unique methods of teaching.

Online and hybrid-style teaching, during which some students are in the classroom while others attend class online, is an obstacle professors and students have had to overcome together, said Zoe Davis, who has worked TA for the past three years in the Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Though she is experienced in her role, new course formats have presented a “learning curve,” Davis said.

“It’s not ideal, but I feel like it is working as well as it can work,” said Davis, who is a TA for a multimedia storytelling class and a multiplatform reporting class. “A lot of people are working really hard and putting in a lot of hours, especially TAs.”

Stephanie Hilliard, who is in her third year as a writing instructor and has spent the last seven years working in writing centers, teaches her classes fully online this semester.

“Not only is it my first time teaching online, but I am teaching asynchronously,” Hilliard said. “I have no mandatory contact with my students beyond what I put on Blackboard and what they turn in.”

While Hilliard likes the human element of being a TA, connecting and communicating with her students is now lost to a virtual substitute, she said.

Hilliard said she often emphasizes self-care for students during class but has found this especially hard to replicate in an asynchronous format, where students never get to interact with Hilliard in real time.

“I do a lot of self-care and community support in my courses normally,” Hilliard said. “We start off the week by going around the room, and if anyone is having a personal issue that they feel comfortable sharing, we will crowdsource and find a solution.”

Hilliard is teaching an introductory writing course this semester, and one of the focuses of the course is music. Hilliard has found a way to connect the class by having her students send her songs to develop into a class playlist.

For Davis, making sure students are up to speed with the lesson has been “somewhat of a disaster.”

“I don’t really know if people are lost sometimes,” Davis said. “Every couple seconds you have to really stop and make sure everyone is caught up.”

However, teaching via Zoom has some advantages and has helped make Davis a better instructor, she said. She is explaining course concepts better given the nature of the online course, she said.

Graduate students also said teaching and meeting with students online has increased their class’ flexibility for students and gives them more opportunities to interact with professors.

Hilliard lets students choose how they receive feedback on assignments. They can either opt to conference with her or turn in a draft for written feedback.

“I find that (giving students an option) tends to work pretty well,” Hilliard said.

There is also a benefit to being able to attend class without physically being in the classroom, said T Passwater, who is in their fourth year as a TA in the writing studies department.

“It’s better for students that are located in different geographical areas,” Passwater said. “A lot more instructors have easier access to support structures for teaching online in a way they didn’t before.”

Though the online model of learning has not been ideal for students or teachers, the challenges presented by the pandemic and public health guidelines have encouraged some instructors to reconsider the way they teach, Passwater said.

“I’m learning to think on my feet and be flexible in ways that I haven’t been before,” Passwater said. “It is challenging my preconceived assumptions about what teaching needed to be and look like.”

Published on September 30, 2020 at 10:48 pm

Contact Dominick: dpfister@syr.edu