In Digital Practices & Applications in a Covid-19 Culture, Christina Romero-Ivanova, Michael Shaughnessy, Laura Otto, Emily Taylor and Emma Watson show the difficulties of transitioning from in-person to remote classroom instruction seemingly overnight. In particular, they highlight how various technologies helped reinvent learning in an unprecedented time. 

“Instructors needed to employ an entirely new approach to teaching a class that had been taught in person in a lecture hall for years,” the authors wrote. According to the authors, technologies such as Zoom Breakout rooms, FaceTime, Kaltura, Google Docs and FlipGrid were essential in maintaining the connections between students and teachers to ensure learning could continue. This piece follows the study of one pre-teacher education course at the University of Washington. In this particular course students were recorded saying they appreciated how Zoom breakout rooms allowed them to collaborate on assignments and interact with their peers. They also appreciated the simultaneous collaboration of Google Docs and differentiation of FlipGrid during this course. 

I can’t help but wonder why only one course was studied in this article. The small sample size does not lend itself to generalizability. Would the results be similar if other classes were studied? Also, since only an education class was studied, would results be different for other types of students?

In addition to specific technologies that made education easier over the pandemic, the authors wrote about actions from teachers that resulted in stronger teacher-student relationships. These include teacher empathy, unconditional positive regard, genuineness, non-directivity and encouragement of critical thinking. As a college student during the pandemic, I certainly believe the empathy and genuineness from my professors was vital to my academic success and mental well-being over the last year and a half. 

I was particularly struck when the authors acknowledged “globally students who lived in rural areas, ones who lived in areas that did not have adequate WiFi, or students who could not afford access were often marginalized because of these issues.” They even spoke to a student who was completing a class on cell phone. I can’t help but think about how the pandemic exacerbated inequalities in education in our country. How can we, as a society, ensure equitable access to education despite further unpredictable disruptions?