Provost Jean Morrison Answers Student Questions about Remote Learning | BU Today

Q&A

With Jean Morrison and Chrysanthos Dellarocas

BU Today: Today students face everything from travel restrictions and delays to the need to protect their health. Many are concerned with how this unprecedented situation will affect their academic work. What would you tell them?

Morrison: We are encouraging faculty to recognize the challenges students face with the disruptions of this extraordinary situation. This is very stressful for many students, and the uncertainties and worries they face daily are challenging and anxiety-producing. We understand this and collectively ask that everyone be patient and flexible—students and faculty alike.

Under the University’s Remote Teaching Readiness Plan, faculty will continue using Blackboard (or Sakai, at Questrom) to host their course materials and receive student work and use Zoom for remote class sessions. How interactive will classes be on Zoom? Is it like Skype?

Dellarocas: Our expectation is that faculty will hold synchronous—live—Zoom sessions at the same days/times as their regular class schedule. Those sessions are indeed like “Skype” conference calls, only better. Zoom technology is extremely versatile and allows interactive learning to take place. Large numbers of simultaneous participants can be supported, and everyone can see and hear one another. Obviously, this works better for smaller classes than for larger classes, but it does work. Faculty can easily switch between showing the students’ faces and sharing any window of their computer with students. This way they can show slides, documents, etcetera. Students can jump in and talk at any time, and there is also a feature that allows them to virtually “raise their hand” so that class discussions can be better coordinated. 

Faculty can divide students into smaller groups for breakout group exercises and “visit” these virtual groups to provide support and answer questions. Lectures, discussions, group exercises, and group presentations are all easily supported. Almost anything that faculty and students do in a classroom—except activities that require interaction with physical objects—can be adapted to the Zoom environment.

I live in another part of the world. Do I have to get up in the middle of the night to attend  classes on Zoom?

Dellarocas: We are encouraging all professors to record their synchronous sessions and make them available to students who are in different time zones, in addition to doing the live, synchronous interaction. We encourage students who need access to recorded class sessions to be proactive in requesting that from their professors.

What if there are technical difficulties?

Morrison: The reality is that converting to remote teaching and learning for all our courses in such a short time presents a number of challenges. There are going to be glitches, but we will provide guidance as we learn what those issues are. Is this going to take patience on everybody’s part? Absolutely.

Dellarocas: When there are tech problems students should reach out to the IT Help Desk

What if Zoom crashes because so many universities will be using it? 

Dellarocas: We have been in constant contact with Zoom, and they have assured us that they are ready to handle the increased traffic and they are proactively monitoring the service and are adding resources as needed. (They have given us a detailed technical explanation of their preparedness that signals to us that they have thought this through.) If necessary, we have other services from Google and Microsoft in use at BU and will recommend and support those.

What if I am taking a lab or studio course?

Morrison: Individual faculty members and their departments are working to determine how best to transition those kinds of activities that do not readily transfer to online. There are going to be some creative solutions. Faculty and departments have the discretion and flexibility to work with their students to find a way to complete their lab requirements.