SCAD professors reflect on how virtual learning will impact their on-ground classes
Written by Vinay Ranganathan, Photos by Nick Thomsen and SCAD
It has been more than a year since professors and students learned that SCAD was shifting to online classes. While students’ learning was affected, so were professors’ daily lives and teaching.
One professor affected by this was interactive design and game development and immersive reality professor Cyril Guichard. He teaches a few on-ground courses and several virtual courses. “I was a little bit worried when they first announced it, but I think after a year it has been a good combination with the in-person and virtual,” Guichard said.
Drawing foundations professor Joe Tsambiras echoed a similar sentiment. “On one level things didn’t change very much, because me and my wife both were able to continue doing what we do, as far as work and, being an artist working from home that’s kind of what I do anyway,” Tsambiras said.
Despite the shift from on-ground to virtual, both professors had to deal with their share of challenges. Tsambiras said the lack of interaction between students presented a barrier.
“Students, they see other students’ work — I make sure to share it in discussion forums and Blackboard critiquing,” Tsambiras said. “But working next to another student and having that even if you’re not talking to the other students, just having that space to be able to just glance over and see the hard work right next to you and see what their process is. There’s just something different going on there that I think it’s different than online.”
Guichard had similar thoughts in terms of interactivity. In order for him and the other students to be more connected in real time, he created a Discord server. “I actually barely ever used Discord before. When I learned I was teaching online, Discord was the most obvious one because it’s real-time,” Guichard said.
Guichard said he had a specific struggle with teaching online. “To me, the biggest, biggest, biggest drawback on teaching online is it’s a real struggle to get students to turn on cameras and this is depressing to me. I hate teaching to a bunch of black squares with names in [them],” Guichard said.
Although both had to deal with struggles while teaching online, they spoke about how some teaching methods will change for the better. “I will still keep the Discord server because it’s a good way to keep contact,” Guichard said.
He also described the usefulness of recorded videos and keeping those available. “I’ll basically give students access to those videos, and the fact that those videos are there — you can replay them and pause them, if it goes too fast, they can rewind. All that type of stuff, I think has been extremely helpful and I’m going to keep some of those tools alive, even when I’m back on the ground,” Guichard said.
Tsambiras echoed how this past year’s new way of teaching has changed how he will teach in the future. “As far as use of technology, it is so much stronger and now there’s many more options when we go back on-ground [in terms of] how I want to incorporate technology into my classes,” Tsambiras said.
