Through a Glass Darkly: Oral Histories of Teaching During the Pandemic

Abstract

Professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, American University of Beirut, a US accredited, English-language University in Lebanon, were interviewed about their online teaching experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020–2021 lockdown. Faculty were approached non-systematically and interviewed anonymously in a semi-structured format in person and in writing. Thirteen interviews are included in the chapter. The interviews are briefly analyzed for coalescent and divergent experiences and for insights as to the potential future of higher education.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. First Corinthians 13:12, King James Version

Appendices

Appendix: Interviews

A

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

The pandemic was my first experience with online teaching.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

Not so much prior educational or professional experience as experience watching online streaming platforms that integrate some form of live chat.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

The most remarkable thing was receiving two final assignments in the form of videos—not a medium I had ever considered countenancing (nor had a student ever proposed submitting) previously, but I was blown away by both of these: one was a single-person dramatization of an excerpt from Shakespeare, the other a whole-family dramatization (with animated sections and considerable additional production) of an original condensation of Paradise Lost. A theatrical performance option exists in the Shakespeare class; the first of these videos really reproduced the spirit and work ethic of what I thought could not possibly be duplicated under lockdown.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Forum responses proved to be a good impetus to a kind of informal but reflective writing (perhaps of the kind encouraged by this questionnaire!) that homework assignments for in-class submission sometimes failed to elicit. (What they generally elicit instead is anxiety about being “academic” enough and insistence on rubrics etc.; the confidence to write casually is not widespread on campus.)

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

My classes are seminars, generally about 10 MA students or 25 undergraduates. What I am always aiming for is a sense that a real community of inquiry is coming together—even if only for one term—in which everyone is an equal member although we will express ourselves differently and at different frequencies. This was hard to replicate online. So many cues that underpin a healthy conversational dynamic get lost even when cameras are working. Without them (as was the norm over this period, at least in my classes, where infrastructure precluded streaming video and I felt uncomfortable insisting on the use of an invasive technology), there are practically none. So, my sense at the end of each semester was that while some or many students felt connected, others did not. Perhaps they consciously decided to “coast” without any easy way to help them decide differently; perhaps they had too many other troubles to manage. Either way, I feel bad for being unable to do more to reach them.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

I have mixed feelings. The experience exceeded my expectations in many respects, in that I felt that the classes did draw out a great deal of student effort and helped students produce work of an expected standard (and in many cases imaginative new kinds of work). I found these semesters very physically taxing: teaching and conducting all the follow-up meetings and writing associated with the course from a desk chair became a health issue. And I also was conscious that, while good and average students were generally enjoying the same kinds of value from the course, those who were on the margins of participation, motivation, or concentration were much harder to reach than under regular teaching conditions. Subtle methods to check or re-activate attention that are available in a classroom and on a campus are not on Zoom, and I think the semester marked, in some cases, a regression towards forms of plagiarism that I had learned to circumvent as a face-to-face teacher.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

I became a much more active overseer of the Learning Management Software (Moodle). I tried to use it both as a generative site—especially by posing fresh questions for fora, where students with difficulties connecting to Zoom sessions could feel more active—and as a space of review, where I would post notes or reflections after sessions. I have kept both techniques on return to face-to-face teaching, although devoting somewhat less time and space to both.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

I had what I needed in my office and at home, although in both locations the internet was periodically unstable to the point where streaming video had to be interrupted.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

Generally yes, but I could feel the “pull” of the medium from time to time. When (largely for connectivity reasons) most or all students have webcams off, I think being the only animated figure on screen induced more periods of lecturing than I let myself get away with in a seminar room. I also felt that I became quite adept at following two “channels” of student discourse: speakers and chatters. I would often call out a connection or challenge, or put a quip or reminder into chat while a student was speaking or finishing speaking—that is a real difference from my classroom practice, where I am modeling attention to one thing and generally seek to maintain a single thread of discourse. On the other hand, I can also see it as an adaptation to a new medium of a higher principle to register every voice and keep the discussion active.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

I cannot think of an occasion when I sought help—a flaw of temperament may be involved here, but I cannot recall any major hurdle except the sheer mental strain of engaging a vulnerable group of learners under so many constraints and pressures, which was at least partly relieved by occasionally chatting with colleagues at my own or other institutions.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

There was a lot of communication that helped set expectations and publicize resources; at a technical level these were not impressive, but support from IT personnel and key administrators was full of good will. More important than this, though, was a general devolution of responsibility to departments and individuals; there was no imposition of a uniform style or arbitrary benchmark, but a general sense of trust that teachers would do their best.

Did you get any feedback from students?

I received quite a lot of feedback both during and after the semester. Most of it was positive praise for projecting enthusiasm and providing understanding, of which they felt sorely short. One feature, that some students wanted and would have felt was an improvement but that I did not provide, was access to recordings. This was partly to protect my own sense of privacy (and maybe proprietorship), but primarily so as not to suppress, deform, or otherwise change the sense that we were pursuing spontaneous seminar inquiries whose essence lay in the duration of participation.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

Research went into deep-freeze. Time preparing and following through on teaching took up a lot more time and mental energy, while the peace of mind that is normally a prerequisite for analytic writing was entirely fractured. The lockdown/pandemic was, of course, just one context in Lebanon, where social protest, an economic catastrophe, and the explosion of the port of Beirut massively disrupted most aspects of individual and collective wellbeing. With that said, university service sometimes felt like something that was achievable (sometimes barely) and useful (sometimes barely). University systems required continuous ad hoc adjustment in the face of events and a lot of people needed a lot of personal support. It felt worthwhile to try to affect practices and decision-making during this period.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

I would have some concerns or reservations about attainment and capacity to absorb critique or challenge. I think universities, programs, and instructors have to feel less secure about the level of educational attainment that has been possible across this period, and as I intimated above, I think student accountability may have lapsed and plagiarism risen as an almost inevitable consequence of the “system shock.” Thinking more widely than the pandemic-induced and -enforced remote learning, the experience left me questioning whether the quality of self-directedness that helps create success in online learning might nevertheless leave out (or even accentuate) the experience of negotiating direct challenge to principles or arguments that face-to-face seminars can constructively foster. That said, I am in a writing discipline, and if a student can present a credible account of online studies that produced high quality samples of academic work, I would vote them into our graduate program alongside their conventionally educated peers.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

No answer recorded.

B

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

I had been making videos for some years.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

Probably presenting professionally and teaching large lecture courses where immediate interaction is somewhat limited: they tend to be more one-way with few opportunities for back-and-forth or side-tracked discussion. Perhaps watching “how-to” videos, but those are limited to learning specific skills and not so much for learning how to think.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

I taught online from a different time zone for a few weeks where I was staying at an acquaintance's and trying to volunteer in a research group. I had to teach at midnight and at 5 am. That was difficult. I would go to bed, wake up for the midnight class with confusion, blurry vision, and a rough voice. Worse and completely unexpected was that I could not fall back asleep until a couple of hours after class ended. It was very difficult trying to live normally during the day while teaching at night. And yes, I taught in my pajamas.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

It is hard to say anything was really improved. Online, students did not distract me by being on their devices etc., did not interrupt, and did not ask me to repeat. I could sit, speak, and use a pen comfortably. I could focus on the imaginary ideal student who had properly prepared and understood everything. I could finish what I intended. I could digress without seeing their eyes glaze over. I did not notice anyone falling asleep. Lectures could be structured and presented knowing that students could rewatch the recording. It is not fair to say those were improvements: they were natural developments of the medium. Now that we are back in person, one real improvement is that I have two semesters of recorded lectures to provide to students who miss class or find them useful as soporifics.

The best experience? When it was over, seeing how happy students were to come to class. The least bad experience was that in one course involving presentations, I had at two or more hours of one-on-one, online meetings with each student. I kept my camera on for students to see my facial expressions and have a live audience, but most students showed only their screens. It was far from ideal, but because they were one-on-one, those sessions approached the effectiveness of in-person meetings.

And of course, online department meetings: just keep the camera off and do something else, but keep an ear open in case of being asked a question.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

The typical struggle in science teaching is moving beyond “how does it work” and “what is the experimental evidence for our current understanding,” to understanding which aspects are generalizable, and how it relates to current questions. Moving beyond requires discussion that did not happen.

In my graduate course, we normally do close readings guided by student questions. Online, the students did not engage: I had to do all the talking. Their learning is severely limited if all they do is listen to me. How can they ever learn to develop their own abilities if they do not practice?

My worst experiences were with assessment. Of my class in the first online semester final exam, on one essay question, two flagrantly plagiarized, and at least a third appeared to have cheated. Worse is now that we are back to in-person teaching, I see dramatically poorer exam performance compared to before the online era. It is as if they did not learn for the last two years.

We have sessions in which students go to the board. Online, it just did not function. Students not having home studios, having poor bandwidth, not wanting to be on camera. It was not worth the time, and I usually converted it to me doing problems they requested. If I asked students questions, I did not get replies. If I called on a specific student, they might take minutes to respond. I gave up.

The optional pass/fail system was imposed on us. The idea that we as instructors could not properly assess did not seem to be considered: it was about whether the student preferred a pass over a numerical or letter grade. We had students with 93/100 choosing “pass” to keep their GPA high in order to graduate with high distinction.

Overall, the worst online teaching experience has been that the students did not learn and apparently cannot learn what they would have in-person. It looks like online caused them permanent damage.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

Much more effort for much less success. We all flailed about, and despite trying our best, it is not clear whether students benefited much.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

The only really new approach I tried was during this in-person semester when I had students who had difficulty coming to campus. I brought my camera to the classroom, which has a large screen. I used a headset and camera so that the students in the room and online could both see and hear me. I would interact with the students in person normally and with some difficulty students online, and I would record the session via WebEx to be posted on the course Moodle site. It was not ideal because the in-person and online students could not hear or see each other, and interacting with the online students was more difficult, but it made the best of a difficult situation. I will consider doing this for students who cannot always attend and as a means to have recordings of the class available, but I would not want it to be a substitute for being there. I tried the chat feature, but I could not monitor the chatting while talking and writing at the board.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

Not really. I did not have a computer at home, and a hand-held device is not a substitute for a professional studio. The department gave me a webcam for my office. There were no cheap, wired headsets available on the market (probably because all the high schools had also gone online), so I had someone bring me one from abroad. My office computer is a hand-me-down because the budget is restricted. Software was normally WebEx or Zoom. Training? The internet, colleagues, and sometimes my students helped when I asked.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

Partially, but it is not about teaching, it is about whether the students learn, and the answer is clear: they did not learn to reason, to explore, or to synthesize well online. You ask the wrong question: the question should be whether there are effective ways for students to learn any subjects other than specific technical skills online.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

A couple of times. Colleagues and students helped. Once, I had an odd technical problem. My WebEx recordings were poor resolution. I called someone who knew how to fix it.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

They failed in so many ways, let me mention just a few: by not allowing faculty to come to their offices, and by letting us rely on our smart phones, irregular electricity, and poor internet overwhelmed by our children’s online school competing for bandwidth at home. Granted that it is probably the administration’s dream, but banning faculty from campus it might interfere with the university’s mission. Graduate students could not enter campus to do their laboratory research. I even had to intervene at the gate to let a doctoral student enter for her defense.

No one ever asked how the university could support our teaching or research. Instead of online laboratory demonstrations, we could have prepared take-away laboratory kits. Instead of encouraging voice-over PowerPoints, we could have had cameras in classrooms for live teaching, simultaneously broadcasting, and recording. They could have provided cameras and headsets for office teaching, or at least sourced models. It is clear that the administration does not care about teaching, learning, and research. They seem only to care about university rankings and other Ponzi schemes.

Did you get any feedback from students?

Yes. Now that we are back in person, I asked my undergraduate and graduates what they thought of online education. Almost universally, they expressed strongly negative opinions about online. One timidly stated that not having to come to campus was convenient.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

My research has hit a brick wall. Though that is primarily due to the financial crisis, not allowing researchers to come to campus was like several gratuitous blows to the head.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

As a scientist, have they had formative laboratory and field experience? As a researcher, have they ever identified questions, chosen methods, and presented to rigorous review? As an academic, are they able to converse intelligently when confronted with new ideas? As a supervisor, can they work with others? No. I would rather wait for the next cohort.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

Yes. The lack of discussion about the failure of online education is alarming. To have voice-over PowerPoints paraded as success stories is demoralizing. If our university teaching is competing with voice-overs, someone needs to raise their sights.

C

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

Absolutely none. I am technophobic.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

I am a member of a large common research group run abroad with 25 researchers working together. We are transnational and used Zoom pre-COVID. I also learned in this group how to bring people together who were not physically in the same place. When the Thawra and COVID came, I was on leave, so I did not have that sudden abrupt transition: I had some warning from my colleagues.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

That I had to talk all the time. Normally, it would have been mostly discussion: I would be speaking 20 of 75 min, and the students would be speaking the remaining time.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Not much. A few things were interesting. The chat feature on Zoom and WebEx was useful. Students sending notes without interrupting. Student participation was improved, but it meant I had to multitask. In my first course after a few weeks, a colleague suggested that I split the class into two halves and spend one day a week on each. I shifted to this and found we could have more conversation. I was reluctant and worried about contact hours, but it seems we could do more. It took more effort.

The best experience was when we switched to smaller groups, from about 25 to two groups of 13. I discovered we could have a discussion, and that was exciting, but the excitement faded, and we got tired.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

Human contact was lacking. The technology was lacking: students kept their cameras off, they had connection problems, students were reluctant. Once toward the end of the semester, I went to a demonstration and a person approached me and said they were my student. I did not know what they looked like.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

It took quite a bit of effort. I am used to having a set of questions to discuss rather than a prepared lecture: I had to prepare enough for me to be speaking the whole time because there was not a discussion among students and the students needed me to ask questions and guide them. It went from me speaking 20 of 75 min to 60 of 75 min, and it was structured about me speaking rather than a discussion.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

The chat feature and dividing the class into two groups. Dividing worked, but I would not do that in person. Online chat during in-person teaching would be interesting. Especially as I had a student who stuttered: for them, the chat feature was much better.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

I had a camera and headset already for calls. When we could not come to our offices, I had to purchase more equipment and had to use 3G on my phone.

I had no training. I had one WebEx training session at the university, but I learned by myself with students and my kids’ help. I learned in the classroom.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

No, not compatible. I want students to participate. Teaching students to write takes much interaction.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

IT was helpful. They were always available. My kids knew how to do things.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

It did a really poor job. I had no access to my office. Information was limited. We did it on our own.

Did you get any feedback from students?

Not really, little. I usually have good contact with students, and this remained the case. I write recommendations for them. Students were very happy to return to in-person classes.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

I was on leave and supposed to write my book. Year 2019 was very distracting. I had to work very hard, and my kids were at home, so I would wake up at 5 am to write. It was finished, but it was very tough, and I had to push myself very hard. I have not been able to do anything since.

My service had lessened and is still diminished. Everyday worries and everything.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

I would be concerned. We have a small program, and the cohort is a close-knit community. I feel they each reinvent themselves: that transformation cannot happen online. The student experience is lacking. The transformation that happens to undergraduates in college is about, indeed requires, being in a community of learning, and that learning journey is about discussing with other students. What we lecture is not the main part; it is the interaction, the relationship.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

No answer recorded.

D

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

No.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

Best was having been an organizer because teaching is example of organizing. Making documentaries and writing fiction are relevant. Any new medium, no matter how dark, is a means to communicate. Using a new method and being critical of it is not new experience, rather both a Godsend and shackles.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

The fact that it does not work. It may work if someone has bandwidth. I am now very sensitized to the phrase, “Can you hear me?” It is like nails on the blackboard. Internet providers do not know what they are doing, and it does not work. There is any number of things that can go wrong. The Lebanese experience is not online teaching, it is online reaching.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Something is better than nothing. We are humans, and it was a means to tell stories, but we are not two-dimensional screens, and that missing component is very important. I do not know if I am talking to people: it is not possible to know how to conduct a workshop. Breakout rooms are not a solution for many aspects, such as spontaneity. Normally, I would see and raise an eyebrow: I cannot see that online. The students might not have electricity. But it is better than nothing: we learn in real time. In my teaching, we used a different system, Discord, not WebEx or Zoom to have better bandwidth.

Best experience? The best of bad was that at least we could continue the process of teaching even if we do not know how to do it. Students were there: Avatars were sometimes rude, and how to have a real conversation with a strange avatar? Best is that it happened because the alternative was being nothing, especially with the COVID context. We will never get rid of online. Do not fight it: we need to use it to our advantage. I am not a Luddite: technology does not replace humans.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

Humanities are about human emotions. How do I find this, how do I extract this from an avatar of a duck? Even if there is power and bandwidth, there is a lack of humanity. The classroom should be a place of drama.

There were lots of worst experiences. I did not who was there. They may or may not be there. How do we discuss anything, if when I call on someone and it takes three minutes: there could be a valid reason. They are not in the classroom: they are not there. Where are they? Not in the place of learning: they are struggling with living, and the family home can contradict learning.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

We got through, so it was a fantastic success by a very broad sweep of measurement. It is remarkable even if students accomplished half what can be expected in a semester with no bandwidth.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

I used to do make-up classes if I traveled. This time, I would give advance classes before travel and use the students’ choice of software, Discord, that is excellent and worked much better, and they chose it. I was so worried about physical security in Lebanon, I was planning to meet students off campus where it was an easier and safer place for students to reach. And I had them use a pen. I will always offer off-campus options, and will anticipate crises, and give sessions in advance.

I also learned that I am a teacher and not an undertaker, and I will not act as an undertaker. The only thing I have for students is time, so I had a Write-a-thon on a Saturday. This was new, and it worked so well that I will do it again early in the semester. In response to the Lebanese crisis, I gave them my time and did not worry about the minimum number of sessions.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

I already had my own equipment. They would not give us a Zoom license. I had no training and would not have had. I learned on the job and put faith in the students to teach me.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

I adapted with ups and downs. I do not use a manual for creative writing, so I only give feedback and got the students to give feedback to each other. Sometimes we could meet, but sometimes we could not. I set my office hours as standard, and made myself available to students based on their schedules.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

Yes, I required assistance and got help from students for technical issues in class.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

I do not think they did. The department helped me with some things on campus, and also IT did when asked.

Did you get any feedback from students?

I asked students what I did wrong. This time students considered that we could not do some media demonstrations because of bandwidth. I felt bad about this, but nothing could be done.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

Negative impact. I was not able to meet colleagues and collaborators for discussion, but there were some advantages. I am used to organizing events and discussing when authorities monitor, and I learned to speak in code. I am so used to difficult situations when communicating and used to making do. I am not speaking to you, I am speaking to Big Brother, and while you can listen, technology is playing with us. So, we learn to speak in code.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

I would have to meet them. I would be concerned that they would not know where the toilets are, where to get fed, that the cats are not wild, the basics of people, how to read faces. I would worry about getting them to be human. Nothing has changed from kindergarten. If you remove the human element, you dehumanize them, and we have to resist it.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

No answer recorded.

E

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

I had used Zoom for fitness since the very beginning of the pandemic, and to attend talks, and had a collaborative in-person exhibit that went online. I am part of a collaborative interactive practice group with weekly meetings that went online.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

Being a parent, organizing birthday parties, the ability to read faces to manage interpersonal exchanges, negotiating with children. There was nothing digital, but knowing about Zoom and conference calls was helpful.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

Teaching anthropology when I was no longer physically located in the same space as students opened up cultural questioning without a common ground and no “Lebanese hegemony”: the “we” no longer existed, no longer would one assume Lebanon was the context, especially as now we have diverse students from outside Lebanon. Students and I did not assume we shared a culture with the people in the screen. That was an advantage because normally, it is a barrier in anthropology.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Cultural anthropology in an introductory course was improved online by freeing us from the Lebanese hegemony. It was easier to connect concepts and theories with the urgency of reality, to accept that the world is going to hell. The apocalyptic discourse and world crisis helped them to be critical. “Why are you here, and what do you want from this course?” was no longer melodramatic.

The best was giving a writing workshop, three-hours weekly, to graduate students: we need to have graduate students writing, and me being abroad and in relative comfort, I was able to help students develop realistic expectations and help them form a community.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

The technical, especially for students. How do you call them to the blackboard? How do you make up for weak connections? Also, they needed help to negotiate boundaries to have time for class even while home. The administration totally failed by not addressing that students might not have internet and electricity, and they do not have home offices. I tried WebEx, and it was horrible. I bought Zoom personally and shared it with a colleague who could not afford it.

The worst experience was trying to look like an adult while staying at my parent’s house when my father would intrude on camera. That lack of control over the professional space was frustrating, embarrassing, and distracting.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

It was exhausting to prepare and to be “on.” To have eye contact on the screen was draining. It took more emotional labor. Success was less. I lowered expectations and spent more time thinking about how I was teaching, and the discussions were not as wide ranging. It was hard coming up with exercises that could give students a sense of anthropology as a living science conducted amongst people in their familiar spaces.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

I tried breakout rooms online. Usually in physical classrooms, I put students into small working groups, but the classroom acoustics interfere. Breakout rooms are isolated from the noise and distraction, so that was better. For a few collaborative exercises, my control over the timing and pairing for student encounters improved their grasp of concepts. I would like to try confronting the Lebanese hegemony in person. Also, I had close readings with undergraduates online, by sharing PDFs on my screen and reading and annotating word by word, and I am hoping to keep this.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

A relative gave me an extra screen, I bought a camera, I had earphones, and bought a headset to avoid losing my voice. A relative who is a teacher helped with tips about additional software, but I did not have time to develop them in my teaching.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

No. I had to adapt. Teaching is performative, dynamic, and responsive. There was no board, no physical space, I overworked my voice. Facing blank squares sometimes with names like “iPhone,” I tried to pick up on student cues by word choice, but that was very difficult and exhausting. The activities with the informal, weekly, (extracurricular) colleague group gave me the experience to engage the limitations more productively, but then, nothing was at stake in that extracurricular setting.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

My family helped. For online exams, IT was essential to set them up and walked me through it (on WhatsApp). However, the grading component of the online exam was useless, since spelling mistakes and idioms prevented the computer from recognizing answers. I had to regrade everything.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

The institution did not support at all. I felt like it was on another planet. But the department did by advocating for a shared Zoom account, at least, and providing a site for commiseration and brainstorming.

Did you get any feedback from students?

I had structured requests and surveys asking what worked for them. These were helpful. The graduate students were good and gave feedback, but established interactions for feedback were fewer. I had high attendance in my undergraduate courses, which surprised me.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

I cancelled research trips, cancelled interactions with colleagues. It was really hard to produce writing when it felt like the world was elsewhere (or just ending), but I got my book out. I was confined to the desk, so I could not conduct fieldwork. I had longed for extra time to focus on processing my findings and reading background literature, but I discovered that it was not to be without unstructured collegial interaction. You need input, feedback, daydreaming, and reassurance from colleagues who are not all watching their lives fall apart.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

For hiring, I would be concerned by their ability to address and to be alert to everything that cannot be digitized. For recruitment, I would like to hear how they can read texts together. I fear having to judge.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

The transition back was extremely jarring. It was unclear what expectations for participation and timely work could be, and I think that vagueness left everyone undermotivated. Also, I realize how much I had become unused to all the information conveyed by in-person: one’s physical mannerisms, one's bodily style. I must have been projecting much on students when I could only see faces and hear warped, echoey voices. What physicality, locatedness, social belonging I was filling in: I had not realized until they came into the classroom with different bodies and beings that, already a month into classes, I had to reassess. Everyone went from having equal space (all had their cameras on) to half faces (covered by masks) and no convenient name tags. Usually, I have a survey about student backgrounds and interests whose answers I draw on throughout the semester to incorporate the students’ fuller lives in the classroom. This time in-person, I could not assimilate it, and I feel much less that I know them, I feel less able to let them all be their different selves to produce together the specific cases and concepts in class. Usually, the class comes together, but this semester I did not feel it happened with my either of undergraduate section.

F

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

Only online professional talks and workshops, nothing systematic.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

I had pre-academic experience with media, TV, and I consider myself media literate, but nothing had prepared me to teach online.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

The most remarkable online teaching experience was seeing the effort of students to overcome the alienation induced by technology, where communication takes place through a standard interface. In the second semester, it was rewarding seeing the natural collaboration efforts amongst students to overcome the limitations of online education.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

I managed to retailor my courses to be more accessible to undergraduate students and lowered my expectations about their ability to retain, especially non-majors. I normally assign several writing assignments through which students perform critical commentaries on assigned texts, as well as develop argumentation and synthesis. Normally, by the end of the semester, I notice improvement in their writing skills. However, this time I did not see that. So, in the second semester, I lowered the pace of the course, made sure to pause on various assignments and provide more comprehensive feedback before we would advance to another topic/assignment. Given the problematic nature of assessing presence and participation with so many issues with electricity and internet, I introduced a mode of assessment from the post-Soviet system: oral exam interviews.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

What was lacking was a phenomenological dimension of the teaching experience: to sense the classroom, from the students’ mood to their preparation, their reaction to material, and whether lecture affected them. It was more difficult to overcome the gap between the communicated course material and the students’ reception of it. With all the other crises in the country and globally, students’ experiences are more fragmented. Learning in isolation was not conducive to communication. The worst was during the recent political unrest when students joined online from the classroom because I was unable to exit my neighborhood due to violence. I was teaching neo-Kantian aesthetics from the hallway of my apartment under gunfire and RPGs. This seemed untimely, and we changed the conversation to discuss the contemporary political and social life in Lebanon and the way it affected the students. It was useful to be able to switch the students to addressing the conditions in their own historical moment.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

A lot of effort is spent to deliver online, to create synergy and sense of community, to keep students’ attention. It was difficult to retain during online courses given that students probably have several other screens and tabs opened—social media sites, news, and so on. There is a specific economy of attention brought about by the fact that the online course is just another thing on the screen. Students did not have the physical transition to campus environment, neither did they have a separation between private and public lives.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

I held oral exams and conducted exercises that promote collaboration during online learning. For instance, we collaboratively developed an online dictionary of key concepts that students were responsible for writing up. This is continuing. Another exercise that I am still using, was to have them take the “minutes” of the course: one student would take notes and share them with the class.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

I had an old laptop that was insufficient, and the Faculty provided a better one. I had my own headset. I had no training but caught up quickly.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

Yes, sufficiently so. I could switch back and forth, though I would prefer that students turn on their cameras, and always had some with cameras on. Last spring, I had so many plagiarized papers, even by senior student who had high GPAs. They claimed to be overwhelmed, especially Architecture and Graphic Design students. I had never seen so many plagiarized papers.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

No, and I did not approach anyone for assistance.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

They supplied the laptop, and on campus, there was guaranteed electricity and internet. IT gave support for the battery and equipment.

Did you get any feedback from students?

I held feedback sessions, as always, at the end of the semester. All students were displeased, all were dissatisfied. They claimed they had to spend more time and could not focus.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

My research required psychological adjustments. My service was productive. Performing minor tasks was therapeutic. Because of the difficulty of paying attention to productive research, I spent time on minor service tasks. I took much time and effort to help adjunct faculty. We had a departmental forum for teaching online, and it was really excellent. We shared experiences and recommendations. That is not continuing: we are more fragmented because of Lebanon’s situation and wanted to focus on graduate students making up for the lost time.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

For hiring, if I had any concerns, it would be the ability to foster interpersonal relationships, especially with students and to have a participatory classroom. For recruitment, not really. Museum visits and practical activities were not available, but international museums launched online exhibitions.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

Online experience made in-person teaching much more valuable. The students came with anticipation and appreciated courses. They did not take classes for granted. I found it much easier with students who already had experience with in-person learning in the university, especially graduate students.

I fear this forced experience will accelerate certain processes of delivering packaged content in higher education, creating technologically mediated teaching environments where the medium itself is more valorized than the content. Some of the demands—such as posting lectures online-further accelerates the commodification of higher education.

G

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

Not at all.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

I never taught online and never took an online course.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

I was happy with the student interactions: attendance was better, and they were more interactive, especially on the chat feature. I left student microphones open for students to ask questions.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Because they were at home and the lab courses were online only, I asked them in the lecture course to make use of household items to demonstrate concepts to self, parents, family, and friends, and send a video to me. It is difficult to do technical activities at home, but we managed to measure the speed of light with microwave ovens and convert their computers to oscilloscopes using a simple circuit, microphone input, and downloaded software. I would share the recordings with the class. I asked for 5 or 6 at-home experiments. It took creativity to have them do demonstrations at home with what was available. Beforehand, I used to do in-class demonstrations. So not to replace live demonstrations, but in addition to them, I did all the normal demonstrations live online and had them do extra demonstrations at home. The home demonstrations were very successful. The value was in having them explain them to their families. That was very useful. The students were very happy, and it was reflected in their course evaluations. The experience was good.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

Most difficult was how to fairly assess. Testing was difficult, and there was no good system of proctoring. The worst experience was a technical failure of the online lecture platform, and I needed better camera for demonstrations. I always had my camera open so that they could see me, but the students kept theirs off.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

We had plenty of time and so channeled it into teaching, and it was worth the effort.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

The at-home demonstrations. I encouraged them to do them this online semester without requiring them, because with in-person teaching, they were not worth the effort. I am considering using them in the future. Recording and sharing recordings was a new approach. I share old class recordings in addition to live.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

The department brought me a camera, and I bought my own headset. I never had training. From the department, I had technical support for demonstrations, such as a camera stand, but not all departments would have such support.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

Yes, I managed well.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

I did not ask for any assistance; I managed fine.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

WebEx.

Did you get any feedback from students?

I believe the feedback was positive. Several students appreciated how active I was.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

Research has been very hard, I could do very little to no research. I had to ask permission to come to my office. It was the most ridiculous thing to have to ask permission to come to the office to teach considering the bad internet at home. Not allowing us on campus was the most ridiculous decision. They abused faculty by insisting that we enter only from Main or OSB Gates. I was refused at Sea Gate, and was told that none of my colleagues complained, but entered anyway.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

For hiring: Do we have a choice? I would have concerns as to the training they had. For recruitment, it is hard to say now. I have the feeling from this in-person semester that students are more relaxed in a bad way, that their level is lower. It might have a component of other crises in a difficult combination.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

Overall, it was not a bad thing. The experience was a new, strange experience. I never imagined it would go so far online. Overall, I think we managed pretty well.

H

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

No.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

As an undergraduate student, lecture-based courses were based on the professor just speaking in a very structured lecture. It does work, and I am familiar with it, even if students are not. Classes can be in a non-discussion format and function.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

It was traumatic to teach without seeing faces: it was teaching to the void; there was no traction.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Nothing. Sometimes the students arranged to all turn on their cameras together. It was emotional.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

I could not see them. From semiotic anthropology, we know that communication takes place at, and involves, several levels simultaneously. For example, the words one uses are constantly contextualized by the expression on one’s or the addressee’s face. Gestures, posture, eyes, faces, aspects of communication, which are typically below the threshold of consciousness but fundamental. Almost all of that was taken away and missing.

I have come to believe online teaching cannot work because teaching requires an element of live performance, theatre, if you will. Even the old-style, non-interactive lecture functions because it involves many levels of communication beyond the words. Take even a star researcher’s lecture online, it simply does not have the same impact on your mind. Try it: it does not work; it is boring. We need the physical presence.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

It took more effort to achieve less.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

Not really. I tried discussion forums, but students did not use them, so I gave up. If I want to have it work, it will come at cost of great time and other learning. Assessments stayed the same, but assignments were shorter.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

No, and I still do not: only a laptop and my field recorder rerouted as a microphone. No training.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

No.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

I did not require much assistance, when needed I would turn to my colleagues for help.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

Very little. We had to share a Zoom account between ourselves, and it was a fight to get even that.

Did you get any feedback from students?

Yes, via official and personal means. Students really appreciated courses, even if they learned less. There was a mix of appreciating the efforts, enjoying the course, and learning. So, there was a discrepancy. It was not possible to learn the same, but it was not just theatre. I told them I understood the situation was terrible, how tragically unfair it was that their student years be taken away from them in this manner, and they appreciated that I did not pretend everything was good.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

My discipline is fieldwork-based, so it was a disaster for my research and that of our graduate students. I had leave with pay to start a second project line. I did launch and conduct this project, but it was very difficult, constant improvisation with the changing circumstances, and the planned collaboration with colleagues in other disciplines was impossible to implement. The research grant we had lost 80% of its value with the collapse of the currency and banking sector, making it very difficult to get even simple equipment or to hire the research team we counted on. There was a psychological impact as well, namely, a chronic depression getting much more severe and no access to treatment. It was painful to get little recognition from our employer for our efforts in this period, a sense that they expected us to conduct business as usual, and I found myself withdrawing little by little from all service outside the department.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

We see this year, two years into this crisis, how different, poorly prepared, the freshmen are. They have poorer skills and serious problems of attention and focus. I teach in a way that requires students to do a reading before every class session. Now they do not read. Many of them seemed not to have the capacity to spend an hour with a text, and, what is worse, they do not even seem to perceive or fully grasp that something is amiss if it is the case. I give five very simple, short quizzes over the course of the semester at the beginning of class, as a way to keep them on their toes in terms of doing the reading before class. They are supposed to be unannounced quizzes, but I quickly realized this year that I had to warn students by email to read the text before each quiz. For the first time ever, they wrote to me, as a class, to ask me to delay the quiz until after we had discussed the material in class, as if the whole point—having a quiz to help them find the motivation to read 20 pages from one week to the next—made no sense to them, or was unreasonable. They seemed confused and unaware of what is a reasonable effort to ask of them as university students. I do not blame them, not at all. Knowing what is a reasonable effort to ask of yourself is something that has to be learned, and they were deprived of an environment in which they could learn that, and we were deprived of an environment and means to adequately teach them that. They were robbed by circumstances of a life environment conducive to developing important capacities. It is awkward to feel that university administrations minimize or ignore what a massive disruption it has been, the scars it will have left. As long as this disruption has not been properly acknowledged and reflected upon, as long as we have not taken the time to draw the lessons we can gather for it—and this needs time—it is a shame to see the university jumping to promote online teaching and online degree programs. We all, teachers and students, learned it does not work, or at least that online teaching is a degraded form of teaching, and a degraded form of learning. To pretend innocence and to describe it as positive that we learned these online skills is deeply cynical. Were we even asked for feedback about these techniques, as those actually doing the work of instruction? To not discuss, instead to promote, is contemptuous. Some very specialized programs could work, but not to acknowledge the problems and limitations? Teaching is not a form of content delivery, teaching is a rich and subtle form of social interaction. Online, the conditions only allow for content delivery.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

No answer recorded.

I

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

No, yet the Thawra should have prepared me.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

I took an online course in coding about five years ago, but it did not prepare me for online teaching. I also took the two-week ASU course (Arizona State University Master Class for Teaching Online) that helped me keep students engaged. Because students kept their cameras off, I felt I was talking to myself, and the ASU course gave me ideas to use the chat feature, etc.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

We had a big online exam with breakout rooms for proctors to watch students better. It was a disaster because one could not go back to the main room from the breakout to admit other instructors. Some rooms did not have proctors. All these settings and unexpected problems! Trying to be creative for an exam was not good, and even though we had run a pilot, we did not find that problem.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Nothing was improved, though it was convenient to wake up and teach. There was no specific best experience, but it was easy, and time management at home was quick and easy especially when students became used to online and became engaged. The most important improvement is that I became more comfortable managing the needed online platforms, which made the whole online experience much better and nicer for the students. The last online semester worked well: students asked questions et cetera, but still almost never showed their faces.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

At first, student engagement was lacking. There was no feedback, and I cannot see if they understood or not. Even at the end, there were many unresponsive students that I could not see, and I did not feel I really knew them. I am used to observing students to see if they understand.

The worst was assessment: cheating was terrible. After an exam, a student accidently told me that during the exam, the group chat had the wrong answer. Even those did badly as group. After that, we used Respondus and large question bank, and interviewed students suspected of cheating.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

Efforts were small in teaching and large in assessment. It was not so successful, but improved much over time.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

Not really, just the use of Zoom and Notability. I do the same thing online; it is just technology. It worked, but not as well, not as interactive. Motivated students managed fine, and the recording is useful, but other students did not manage well. In the future, I will use the question bank and the computer for half of in-person exams.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

I had an iPad that I had been using to write in lecture halls that did not have a whiteboard.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

Yes, pretty much.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

I figured out everything by myself with some help from my spouse. It would have been helpful to have had training (the training offered was the blind leading the blind).

How did your institution support your online teaching?

Not really. The WebEx platform was very bad, so I bought my own Zoom subscription.

Did you get any feedback from students?

The students did not like online education. They liked having the recording and the notes together with live teaching, which I did not have before.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

Positively, as I was able to manage my time better. I published three papers during this time. Service was a problem, as IT is needed, and I had to hire my own people because the university IT was so busy.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

For hiring, I would prefer not to, being worried that they did not learn much. For recruitment, I might consider.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

I cannot remember well; it is fading like a nightmare.

J

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

No.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

I had used PowerPoint.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

For the first time, I gave take-home exams of 24 to 48 h. This was the first time that students had enough time. It was different; it was good because it reduced cheating and was less stressful to monitor an online exam. Students also came with new ways of presenting their answers without copying each other as any similarities in answers reduced the evaluation.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

My own time management was improved: I was always on time. Teaching online was less stressful than in person because there were no interruptions. Students asked questions in the chat feature, which is less disruptive. Also, I did not have distractions from students talking in class. If the internet connection were good, it would be convenient to teach from home and never be late. Having my classes recorded was good too, as it worked as reference material for students and reduced the number of students attending the office hours. When a couple of students missed a lecture due to other circumstances, they could also follow the material easily afterwards.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

The students access because of power outages and poor internet was very bad. At first, Zoom only allowed 40 min, WebEx was problematic, and sometimes it could not be used. Some bad students were not there or not paying attention: only the good students paid attention. Also, some faculty cheated by using recorded classes from previous semesters.

A major disaster was students cheating during online exams in any way they could. The more precautions we took, the more students found new ways to cheat, even using smart glasses. We had a mid-term exam with poor performance followed by a final exam with very high performance and many students alleging that cheating occurred, yet no conclusive evidence was available.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

About the same effort, though in large classes, many separate emails made more work than addressing a group during office hours. The good students learned, but not all students did. Now that we have returned to in-person teaching, we see that students did not learn what they needed in the prerequisite courses.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

I assigned take-home work and exams for undergraduate students. I asked graduate students to prepare their own questions and answers: they did it once for midterm exam but later complained to not have it in the final exam and in another course, as it needs lots of efforts from them. I will still use take-home exams for graduate students, but not for undergraduates, and maybe in senior electives because class size is smaller.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

I used my laptop. I was given no extra equipment, not even a headset. I had no training.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

Yes, it was much the same online with PowerPoint as in-person.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

I needed help with online exams via Moodle, and I got it, but I was limited when I was doing things from home because of the time required and connection.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

The Moodle team supported my exams, and we were provided WebEx (which I did not like) and a Zoom license for the department, though only one class can use it at a time.

Did you get any feedback from students?

I got mixed reactions: good students were happy, but many of them were concerned about grades rather than learning. If the grades were not good, they complained more, but that is all.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

As an experimentalist, difficulties were in funding and purchasing imported goods. My graduate students could not come, but it was not as bad for me as for some others. My service was manageable.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

For hiring, yes, we do not have a choice. For recruitment, if there were a choice, I would worry about the laboratory experience and validity of grades.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

Online, I did not have contact with colleagues: that was a mix, some good, some bad. I learned how to work from home and realized that I do not have to come to office to get work done. I got used to communicating via WhatsApp with students in general and my graduate students. Some of these are indeed helping now: I am still communicating more online with my students, research assistant, colleagues, and service-related work using WhatsApp, email, zoom, etc., and sometimes I feel it is not necessary to visit the office unless it is needed, especially with the COVID situations not yet over completely.

K

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

Not really, other than during the Thawra.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

Nothing really.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

I had 3-h lab activities live online, and I needed a restroom break. When I returned, I overheard students discussing the course, “I like it because we do not have to memorize much, and once I get it, it is straightforward.” So, I made my presence known before any other students expressed their dissent.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Lab activities were improved. My computer-based activities are better online: instead of walking around to each laptop, everyone could see and participate, if they chose; everyone learning from each other’s problems. I did not have to repeat myself, instead, we had useful follow-up questions. Also, there is a recording that students might use, and the recordings could be used in the future as a resource.

Monitoring participation was easier in lecture because when I ask questions online with the chat feature, I can see everyone’s private answers instead of a few vocal. Even the shy had to ask questions. Instead of students acting like lemmings, I could see the variety of questions and see how they clustered: I could see better what lacks of understanding needed to be addressed. I saved all the chat files for review for the next time.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

Not having immediate feedback through seeing the students faces looking bored, confused, or angry (it could be a positive not seeing students bored or apathetic). Having an audience is energizing: online it was flying blind.

The worst experience was not major event. I forgot to turn on my microphone, and students made fun of me on the chat, “LOL: is he talking?” after five minutes.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

About the same, I cannot say it was worse online. It was less lively and engaging, but I do not see a decrease in student learning. It could be that my courses are computer-based and adjust well.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

Using private answers with the chat feature, and I adjusted to ask different questions and gave more questions. It worked so well that I want to adopt it in face-to-face teaching with smart phones.

I also tried 24 to 36-h take-home exams allowing all resources other than live people. The exams were designed to take two to three hours, but they were not limited. It worked very well. I was worried students would collaborate, but only the bad collaborated with bad, so it was not a problem. The logistics of scheduling were easy, and no one complained they did not have enough time (The only time I saw some level of cheating was in a graduate course and complaints when the exam was too hard and took too much time). The take-home, long-duration format allowed me to ask better questions with higher-order thinking. Students were not limited by access to background factual knowledge: they could look it up, and I could see more clearly what students learned. The biggest advantage was that students could see where their deficiencies were: after the exam, we reviewed the deficiencies in class and that was very valuable for students. I am using this now for in-person teaching. Also, I could ask the same questions in different form in the mid-term and final exams, and I can see that some have learned. It is easier to have more involved questions in a take-home format, and student do not have the stress of a proctored exam room.

I will also continue one-on-one meetings with students about their projects and record even though in person, so it will be available to other students as a resource, and they can see the diversity and learn from others’ projects.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

I had a little private corner that I could set up: it was far from ideal, but it sort of worked. I had no training.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

Yes, somewhat.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

Not really.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

They provided WebEx and Moodle.

Did you get any feedback from students?

No.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

My research was not affected since it relies on online data. Online committee and department meetings had the problem (and sometimes advantage) that meeting members can tune out. Interviewing student applicants online did not work well where we asked students to explain concepts on the whiteboard. However, even in normal times, international applicants were interviewed online, in that sense the pandemic erased the advantage of local applicants.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

For hiring, I would worry they may have muddled through because it was easier to cheat. Opportunities to interact were probably limited. For our graduate program, I would consider, as some subjects are less worrisome.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

In an online exam, I saw a code that had been copied. That was not so much a problem, but I then asked about the very specific, small steps that the student could not explain. Thus, if the student copied and cannot explain how it works, that is problematic.

L

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

No.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

None.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

There was nothing remarkable.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

I found there were stages to online teaching: in the beginning, I hated it: it was tiring. By the end, it was easy, but I cannot say that I like it. At first, I based my classes on PowerPoint presentations that contain the material I want to go over. I used to show the presentation as a full screen and without my face. The students did not show their faces either: this it was strange. Then, I showed my face and felt human, but students still did not show theirs.

Another improvement was that I found my presentations do not have to be polished. In my in-person classes, I tend to use PowerPoint in lower-level courses, but I always use the board in senior courses, where ideas needed to be worked out. I did not have the patience to learn how I can do a similar thing online. I nonetheless started to use non-polished PowerPoint presentations, where I would start with a blank or minimal things on a screen and add to it words and figures one by one, so making it similar to what I would do in-person. That greatly helped.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

How I perceive teaching is that I need to have students work in class, in order to observe them and give them feedback during in-class activities. I tried to do this online, but it did not work. Students need to see how I think, and I need to see how they think.

I tried filming myself at the board, recorded it, and placed it online. I watched it and found it strange, not good, and did not use it.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

In the beginning, I put lot of effort in preparing for each class, only to get moderate success. This happened because I was trying in providing well-polished and informative PowerPoint presentations. Later I started to make my online class closer to in-face class in the sense that I introduce things on near blank slides. This still required effort, but the classes were more successful, at least from my perspective.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

I did not really try anything new, but it did evolve to where I added showing my face. Now that I am used to this way, I am unlikely to try more new approaches.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

My only equipment was my laptop, which I already had. I had no training, so I figured it out myself, which is why I used Zoom.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

Online was compatible in part, and I adjusted my approach, but certain activities cannot be done online.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

No assistance.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

No support.

Did you get any feedback from students?

Students complained about internet lagging. I do not know if students watched the recordings online.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

It did not affect my research very much because I am not an experimentalist. I am not so involved in service in any case.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

Very reluctant.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

Earlier, I would have dreaded online teaching, but now I am used to it, and it is fine.

M

Had you any relevant experience with online teaching?

No.

What prior experience, of any sort, as a student or instructor had prepared you best for online teaching?

None: I had not used even Skype.

What was the most remarkable teaching experience you had online?

The department provided a writing tablet, and at my desk, writing one place while looking at another, the screen, and not paying attention to how I was setting (being focused on explaining the material), damaged my back so that I could not walk properly for a couple of months.

What was improved? What was your best online teaching experience?

Nothing good except that students were not shy and asked many more questions than usual. I have an undergraduate course of about 100 students, and the pre-pandemic class asked far less questions than when the course was online.

What was lacking? What was your worst online teaching experience?

I could not see the faces of the students, and hence I could not tell if they were really getting the material.

What was your overall experience in terms of effort and success?

Big and little, respectively.

What new approaches did you try, and how did they work, and which might you use or adapt in the future, online or in-person?

In my graduate course, I gave easier homework and exams than usual because the students would not be able to handle the usual level.

In the undergraduate course, we redesigned our examinations against cheating. Students had two cameras each to see their desks, hands, and whole faces, and they were asked not to touch the keyboard during the exam. They wrote their exams on blank paper and scanned them with their student IDs at the end. We used many live online proctors, and no one could leave before they show on camera the same ID that they had scanned.

Did you already have the equipment and training necessary for teaching? How was your access to hardware, software, and training for teaching?

I had no training. The department gave me a web camera and the writing tablet.

Did you find online interfaces compatible with your teaching approach?

I used to watch students; online I was blind. No, it was no way to communicate, the showmanship was not possible, it was like stand-up comedy without an audience. So, not even close.

Did you require assistance, and if so, how did you receive help?

I trained myself, and my kids helped.

How did your institution support your online teaching?

I think the pandemic changed things too fast for institutions to adapt smoothly to the resulting constraints.

Did you get any feedback from students?

They were sympathetic, but they provided no substantial feedback.

How did the lockdown affect other aspects of your professional life, especially research and service?

In 2006 and 2008 (the July 2006 war and a period of civil strife in May 2008), I worked well, but during the pandemic lockdown I was not productive; I felt my intelligence had diminished.

What would be your concerns when hiring someone whose education was mostly or entirely online? Would you recruit someone to your graduate program whose entire undergraduate education was online?

I would be mainly concerned that students did not learn what they need for graduate school or professional careers. I would be very hesitant until they prove that they in fact attained the needed knowledge.

Are there experiences related to this subject that you would like to recount?

The case of British Airways Flight 38 in 2008 is relevant. Two years of investigation to discover that cold temperatures during the flight caused ice crystals to clog the tiny tubes of the fuel heat exchanger, and the engines could not provide sufficient thrust. This example is meant to illustrate that things evolve to reach a level of sophistication where even the tiny details matter in a big way. Established methods of teaching have evolved to such a level of sophistication, and hence many little things matter that changing them defies prediction.