Teaching From Home–Day 10–When Remote is Really Remote

For the last several years I have had international students in some of my classes. Most from China but also South Korea, Viet Nam, and Cambodia. This year I have had two from China who have gone home already because of COVID-19. Both of them joined today’s class from hotel rooms in China where they are in quarantine. It has been interesting to talk to them about their returns to China.

They haven't seen their families yet for one thing. One student told me that a bus meet him at the airplane and took him directly to the hotel. He was the only passenger on the bus.

Because of the 12 hour time difference they are sleeping late and going to bed late. Effectively its like they are living on Eastern US time. It will be interesting to see how long that keeps up when they get out of quarantine.

Having them is class is not really any different for me than it is having my US students in class. It speaks to the wonders of technology for sure. I still miss seeing them in persona and talking to them outside of class.

We had a brief class conversation after students finished today’s quiz. It started about the quiz itself. They say it was too easy and seeing the grades they are either right or they cheated. I choose to believe it was too easy. Though I do worry a lot about cheating. See yesterday’s post about back channels.

The most interesting thing said though was that students were finding fewer distractions taking class at home.That seems counterintuitive to me as their rooms, from what I see in the cameras, appear to be full of distractions. I think the real distractions are the other students in the class though. The poking and joking and chit chat that students seem unable to stop when they are together. I suspect that when the crisis is over young people are going to be gathering in record numbers to actually be together in real life.

Well, one more class and week two of remote teaching is in the record books. Stay safe everyone.