I have been a California community college educator in both face-to-face and online classes for the past two decades. As the Covid-19 pandemic began, the community colleges in my state began the urgent shift to fully online offerings in order to service the needs and goals of our students. Now here we are, having completed three-plus semesters, and moving into a fourth semester under pandemic conditions.

So, what is being written about the online teacher and student experience during the Pandemic? Having an interest in online education, and being a scholar myself, I think it is important to share, if only in a summary form, what is being expressed in the body of literature.

It is no secret that widespread distance learning has increased the workload of teachers. There has been significant training and resources dedicated to supporting instruction to develop their online instruction. Some teachers report emotional exhaustion and burnout. What resources are being dedicated to assisting the teachers in handling the exhaustion and burnout I cannot comment on, I simply haven’t seen the research on that yet! However, stresses reported by teachers have included:

· difficulty in making their face-to-face content fit the virtual setting

· time-consuming creating assignments & prep

· feeling inadequate due to asking for tech support because of technical problems

· redesigning content for the unseen audience

· doesn’t play to their strengths – it is not what they trained for

· concern for how they are being understood

· concern for how the students are coping

· self-recording video lessons is stressful and time-consuming

· the need to be extra motivational to the students

It is reported by many teachers that through all of this they are thankful for the patience and understanding exhibited by the students. It is also reported that support of the faculty by their institution is critical in terms of faculty development programs and incentives. Effective communication among all parties is critical to faculty satisfaction and student success.

Students have also been challenged in this new online world, and some of the challenges reported by students are:

· interaction within the class

· technology difficulties and accessing technical support

· engagement with the instructor

· less satisfied with online than face to face

· time to download resources

My own experience has been positive, but that is mainly due to the fact that I am a technology geek teaching technology in a space that I have been comfortable with for a long time. Meeting the requirements to be an “online teacher” during the Pandemic was somewhat different and more challenging than the requirements pre-pandemic. I am sympathetic to the teachers who have had a steeper learning curve than I. I am very proud of my students who adjusted and succeeded in their fully online environment, but I am confident that they would have been just as successful in the face-to-face classroom. I know though that they welcomed the opportunity that the flexibility of online classes has afforded them.

If you are interested in reading more about this topic, I encourage you to take a look at the research study that has just been published by Elshami W, Taha MH, Abuzaid M, Saravanan C, Al Kawas S, Abdalla ME. “Satisfaction with online learning in the new normal: perspective of students and faculty at medical and health sciences colleges.” Med Educ Online.

The study is loaded with information, analysis, and recommendations 🙂