I miss my students. Today I had a meeting with three students doing a reading course. We all know each other and have shared several classes together. The interaction online is easy—not exactly like being in the same room but we trust each other enough to make mistakes and not worry about what we say. It was a lovely, collaborative session. I almost didn’t want it to end.
My other class today…not so much. I work to maintain interactivity and engagement. But with only two students sharing their videos, the only visual cues I have as to if the task is on target is whether I see the top of two heads or two faces. Is this representative of the class? Are these the quick students? The slow students? Or the middle of the road students? I. HAVE. NO. IDEA.
I have taken to sending them off to breakout rooms. Perhaps the best interaction was after a mini lecture on computing determinants by cofactors expansion, I sent them off to 5 breakout rooms for 4 minutes with the instructions that they had to come back with a question. And they did.
Math in the Time of Corona 