Written by Emma Roberts, Photos courtesy of Curtis Bartone and Michael Anderson
In 2020, nearly 65% of colleges reported that they were using some form of digital learning for their campuses. With that comes a lot of students and professors in a brand new learning environment. Teaching virtually, especially with subjects that involve a lot of hands-on work, can prove especially challenging.
Curtis Bartone, who teaches a variety of printmaking classes at SCAD, had to cut several of his planned courses because they simply could not be done. “It wasn’t until fall of 2020 that I went back to teaching printmaking, but virtually. The lithography classes were impossible to run without access to the shop,” Professor Bartone said. “So they, along with our etching classes, were temporarily dropped from our course offerings.”
Other challenges presented themselves almost immediately. One was that with the printmaking shop, there was, according to Bartone, “a cross-pollination of ideas and technical information” amongnovice and experienced students that he said could not be replicated virtually. One solution Bartone came up with was to have more advanced students working in the shop and classes could watch certain processes in real time.
There were some surprises that came with the switch to a virtual classes, however. One is that printing in a home studio presents some practical advantages. “It’s possible to actually print different areas in different ways to create depth — something very difficult to do with a press,” Bartone said. Furthermore, often students don’t have access to expensive equipment when they graduate, and this knowledge allows one to make prints in a DIY setting.”
Communications professor Michael Anderson also offered some similar insights into teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Typically, the public speaking class would involve giving speeches in front of a live, unmasked audience, which could not be done virtually. The switch to an online class experience led to leaning heavily into video speeches and essays.
“The future truly is Zoom interviews, video resumes, video cover letters, and Instagram stories,” Anderson said. “So now we spend a good deal of the classes talking about lighting our videos, framing our videos, what to have as our background and how to edit our videos.”
Teaching virtually and having pre-recorded videos does present different challenges than giving a speech in front of a live audience. There is no pit in your stomach, no stage fright, instead there is video anxiety. “Instead,” Bartone said, “We focus more on how to manage the anxiety we have about watching ourselves and recording ourselves.”
Another challenge Anderson mentioned was keeping things fresh and energized during long classes. “Zoom fatigue is real, which means I might do more breakout sessions, or group work, or watch even more student speech samples to keep the class engaged with the material,” Anderson said. “Sitting in front of a screen for 2.5 hours is quite different than sitting in a classroom for 2.5 hours. It’s often easier to create that buzz in a classroom than through Zoom.” Anderson did say, however, that he welcomed the challenge. “[It] forced me to get more creative with my style, the class activities, the assignments, the discussions, really everything.”
Though fully virtual classes may become a thing of the past, the lessons and experiences gained by them don’t necessarily have to go as well. Virtual classes have taught us to problem solve and get creative, students and professors alike.
