{"id":34015,"date":"2020-03-26T14:24:37","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T18:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=34015"},"modified":"2020-10-05T13:04:26","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T17:04:26","slug":"remote-learning-and-the-coronavirus-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2020\/03\/remote-learning-and-the-coronavirus-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote learning and the coronavirus: what you need to know."},"content":{"rendered":"

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the academic reality for students across the U.S., abruptly driving them into digitally enhanced forms of learning, away from face-to-face contact with faculty, other students and on-campus facilities.<\/p>\n

What does that mean for higher education?<\/p>\n

Although the trend of online classes has been on the rise, the range of student reactions to all-online learning environment may be mixed, explained Ravi Gajendran, associate professor of global leadership and management<\/a> at FIU Business, who has done extensive research on remote work and distance environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will come out is an understanding that there are limits to online education; some classes can be done almost as well, others not,\u201d said Gajendran. \u201cIt depends on the student experience as well as on the professor. Some professors will do better because they have more experience in teaching online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many students like to go to campus, work with others, make friends and understand different perspectives.<\/p>\n

\"Ravi
Ravi Gajendran<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis may not translate very well online, but under the circumstances they have no other choice,\u201d said Gajendran.<\/p>\n

To ease the shift to an online landscape, faculty members have to be on top of their email inboxes, setting up online office hours where they can meet with students via video conferencing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key here is to be more responsive and more available to students,\u201d Gajendran said. \u201cIn the short term, that would make things easier. And if this is going to be a longer process, students know what to expect.\u201d For many faculty members, this could be a challenge at this time, because they may have children and families at home or have to deal with other demands.<\/p>\n

Students likewise have to concentrate on messages from faculty as well as be more understanding of their professors, many who are also trying to learn the skills of teaching online.<\/p>\n

His advice to students dealing with faculty members in the shift to online? \u201cCut them some slack,\u201d Gajendran said with a chuckle. \u201cStudents shouldn\u2019t hesitate to reach out to faculty but do so in a way that makes it easy for them to respond. Be clear in their message, give the professor the context behind the email.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, how will universities know if remote learning initiatives as a response to the crisis were successful?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we see an uptick in the number of students enrolling in online classes next year, over and above what we can expect from past trends, which already show an upward trajectory favoring online education,\u201d said Gajendran. \u201cAlso, if there\u2019s a broader shift to online in professional graduate level courses and a lower enrollment in face-to-face classes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the academic reality for students across the U.S., abruptly driving them into digitally enhanced forms of learning, away from face-to-face contact with faculty, other students and on-campus facilities. What does that mean for higher education? Although the trend of online classes has been on the rise, the range of student reactions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":34035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4611,10],"tags":[388,4387,4389,4483],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34015"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34033,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34015\/revisions\/34033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}