PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (April 9, 2020) – The COVID-19 pandemic has uprooted the lives of everyone, from young children in elementary school to workers across nearly all industries, and even students, faculty and staff at Prairie View A&M University. Many people have fortunately been able to work and study from their own homes, which is the case for most of the PVAMU community. While working and learning from home has many benefits, it can also come with challenges for some people.
Michael Nojeim, Ph.D.
Michael J. Nojeim, Ph.D., professor and program coordinator in PVAMU’s political science program, is one person who’s been fortunate to have a smooth experience with the transition. Nojeim, who teaches courses in American government, Texas government, international relations, Middle East politics, U.S. foreign policy, and global issues, has been teaching for 30 years total, including 16 at PVAMU.
However, one reason teaching online has been a mostly smooth transition for Nojeim is because he has been doing it since 1996, when he was teaching at Ohio University’s Eastern Campus, before platforms like Blackboard or Moodle even existed.
This term, Nojeim is only teaching one class (POSC 3543 International Politics), which has made the recent transition a bit less overwhelming. He had planned for course load reductions because of other administrative duties, such as serving as program coordinator and one of three of PVAMU’s SACSCOC (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges) Core Team Editors. He has been adjusting to synchronous instruction over Zoom, which he had not used before.
“It takes a much different energy than being in front of the class face-to-face,” he said. “I’ve tried both WebEx and Zoom and personally find Zoom more ‘user friendly,’ especially for instruction. I’ve communicated with colleagues at PVAMU and elsewhere, and they have all said they prefer Zoom.”
Nojeim noted that a challenge with Zoom has been hosting longer sessions, which has made him lean toward hosting shorter separate sessions. Other features he has found helpful include the ability to mute participants’ microphones, requiring students to turn on video to note their attendance, and giving classes a 10-minute break session during class.
“I also prefer to reserve the first few minutes of the Zoom session for processing everything from due date reminders to how students are coping with the virus,” he said. “I try to get them talking about anything they want to process and be mindful about the extra challenges they’re facing, considering that adjusting to the remote format can be very stressful for them.”
Nojeim offered the following tips for other professors adjusting to online teaching:
- Consider extra flexibility on some due dates.
- Consider offering extra office hours, including scheduling separate Zoom sessions.
- Consider offering alternative attendance opportunities, such as recording Zoom lectures and uploading to YouTube or eCourses so they can be viewed at a later time, and creating a discussion board in Moodle that is linked to the Zoom video lecture.
“Another option is to have students post one or two messages to the discussion board based in the video and count that as their attendance (and participation),” he said.
Other tips Nojeim offered include dressing appropriately, as he would for a traditional class, and modeling professional behavior, regardless of the medium of delivery.
“Assume everything you say or do is being recorded,” he said. “Imagine your mother has logged into the Zoom session.”
As far as technical tips, Nojeim always makes sure to remind his students
that the chat feature in Zoom defaults to everyone, which means the instructor can see their comments, and that screen- and mouse-share are also helpful tools, but it’s important to clear your screen of any personal windows and documents first.
“I was forgetting to record the Zoom lecture sessions at first, so now, I have a sticky note on my curser pad and near my laptop’s camera that says, ‘Record!’” he said. “I also have revised the top of each lecture outline to include that reminder, as well as emailed students asking them to offer the same reminder (to themselves).”
Nojeim is also a fan of the Remind app, which allows students and instructors to message each other while letting phone numbers to stay private.
“I find students do not log into their PVAMU email accounts as much as they check their phones, which is where they’ll see reminders from me about due dates,” he said.
Nojeim noted that student response to online learning has so far suggested that students are adjusting well, although some students expressed concern about Zoom sessions being hacked by intruders.
“Even so, they are very mindful of each other; they all want to help each other, so I need to find more ways to unleash that type of energy,” he said. “I ask them for help on Zoom, I ask them for suggestions on how to run the class sessions and assignments better, since their collective knowledge and wisdom far exceed my own, so they make me a better teacher.”
As a result, Nojeim plans to hold more virtual office hours that include a visual component in the future.
“Seeing my students’ faces, their reactions, etc. is critical to informing me of what they are really feeling and thinking—it will help me serve them better, as their advisor and as their instructor,” he said. “I think this experience will help in different ways such as personal and professional decorum and laptop hygiene, and reaching out to ask for assistance in multiple, non-traditional ways.”
For anyone finding online teaching/learning to be challenging, Nojeim urges them to continue to persevere and try.
“There is almost always a work-around—if you can’t find one, your students will,” he said. “They are my partners in education.”
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By Emilia Benton