Online Teaching: The Professorial Opinion By: Entao Xie
The entire college experience has been redefined since the pandemic forced students and professors out of their classrooms. Many would argue its impact is here to stay long after the pandemic ends, for better or for worse. As we come to face the new reality of the so-called Zoom University, students aren't the only victims of its adversities. After speaking to my professors about how teaching went this semester, they relayed to me the challenges they faced in having to reconstruct a modern college classroom within the confinements of a 14-inch screen. When asked what the most challenging obstacles were for this year, one of the common answers was technology. It won’t come as a surprise that not every professor is a tech genius. On the contrary, a lot of them had to start anew, forcing them to reinstate their teaching flow in new territory, and familiarizing themselves with Zoom isn't even the most challenging part. Since professors are deprived of all the tools that physical classrooms provide to better engage with their classes, they resort to other apps to facilitate their teaching. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out, and oftentimes the effect isn't quite as effective as they expect. Once they start to overcome the kinds of inconvenience bestowed by technology, bigger concerns lay ahead. The word "energy," and its significant lack thereof, was constantly brought up. Especially for the language department, the process of learning requires more than the mechanical work done by mouth. The teaching of languages requires professors
