Prof. Wilkinson: Community Supersedes Learning in Virtual Classrooms
In BU Digital Learning & Innovation’s new Voices & Reflections series, BUSSW professor Geoff Wilkinson shares his experience with remote teaching amid the coronavirus crisis.
Excerpted from BU Digital Learning & Innovation:
As someone with online teaching experience, I was familiar with working with Zoom. For many of my students enrolled on the Charles River Campus and in an off-campus program for part-time MSW candidates, it was not. The technical challenges of online learning and teaching have gone smoothly. Our IT help desk and the administrators and staff of SSW’s online and off-campus programs have provided fabulous support and deserve our ever-lasting gratitude. What I’ve found more difficult is not only adapting materials and shortening lesson plans for the online platform but, more importantly, adapting to the different learning needs of students.
Many students are handling tremendous stress, including loss of employment, food insecurity, unstable housing, and concern about vulnerable loved ones living elsewhere in the country. Maintaining a focus on learning has been challenging for them; some even question the relevance of their educational programs at this time. Other students actively miss being together in person and have insisted they want more time online than program administrators initially recommended for Zoom sessions.