Educators Worry About ‘Zoom Fatigue’ In Students, Recommend Innovative Teaching Techniques

March 24, 2021 – Educators must come up with ways to enhance the online learning experience or students will end up suffering from “Zoom fatigue” and falling behind, the Broadband Breakfast live event heard Wednesday.

David Weinberger, senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, said students suffer from staring at a screen all day – “Zoom fatigue” — and need to be stimulated with higher-quality education. He said he hopes and expects distanced learning technology will improve the digital experience, which is an endeavor that requires more resources.

And students want high-quality remote learning, said panelist Charles Severance, clinical professor of information at the University of Michigan School of Information. That means that if demand is not met by educational institutions, then virtual learning may not be here to stay – potentially hobbling the system once again in the event the nation would need to reinstitute at-home learning.

But lawmakers and parents are seemingly waiting for the opportunity to have students return to in-person classes, a call that assumes students are better educated in the physical setting.

Educators on the ground, however, know that some students do better with – and in fact prefer – virtual learning than they do with in-person learning. In an interview with Broadband Breakfast on Monday, William Jeffery, the assistant principal at Columbia High School in the Columbia-Brazoria Independent School District in Texas, said students should therefore have a choice between virtual and in-person learning.

That hybrid model was also recommended on Wednesday’s live event.

Lori Williams, president and CEO of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements, said different populations have different needs, and said many large institutions will continue instructing online, while others may stick with hybrid models, and some will try to go back to the traditional in-person method of teaching.

Regardless of what the institution chooses, she said students should be able to choose their own experience. The decision is no easier to make on a higher-ed level than it is for K-12 public schools.

Severance said that over just one weekend, the University of Michigan went from having about less than 1 percent of its credit offerings being online to the entire school’s offerings moving online, as it made the decision to shut down last March of 2020.

He said the school has historically been opposed to online education, and that though many of its faculty struggled with being forced to go digital, Severance saw it as a seriously challenging, yet huge opportunity to adapt and still give a quality educational experience.

But that shift requires money. As the country has dramatically shifted its education systems to virtual learning platforms, money and resources are needed to support the unforeseen demand. That’s why some say programs like the $3.2 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit program funded by Congress in December 2020 will see strong demand and will likely see all its funds spent.

Author and e-learning professional Badrul Khan, who was a panelist in the event, said education should be cost-effective and accessible, wherever it is happening.

Our Broadband Breakfast Live Online events take place every Wednesday at 12 Noon ET. You can watch the March 24, 2021, event on this page. You can also PARTICIPATE in the current Broadband Breakfast Live Online event. REGISTER HERE.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 12 Noon ET — “The State of Online Higher Education”

• It was one year ago this month that our nation shut down because of the coronavirus. Broadband Breakfast Live Online launched on March 13, 2020, as a way to connect people about the solutions that broadband could provide to the trials raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our first episode was on “Broadband, the Coronavirus and Education,” and in this session, we’ll check in with experts on the state of online higher education – one year in.

Panelists:

• Dr. Badrul Khan, Author and E-Learning & Instructional Design Professional
• Dr. Charles Severance, Clinical Professor of Information, University of Michigan School of Information
• Dr. Lori Williams, President and CEO of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA)
• Dr. David Weinberger, Writer and Affiliate of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
• Drew Clark (moderator), Editor and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast

Dr. Badrul Khan coined the phrase Web-based instruction with his 1997 best-selling Web-Based Instruction book which paved the way for the new field of e-learning, Recognized as the founder of modern e-learning by 2014 NATO e-Learning Forum, he was inducted into the United States Distance Learning Association Hall of Fame. He has authored or contributed to fifteen books and over 100 manuscripts in e-learning, his Managing E-learning book has been translated into 23 languages including Bangla. He is the host of KDW TV show on FOX 5 PLUS Washington, DC. and is the founder of GyanBahan.com, a micro-learning based Knowledge Carrier Platform.

Dr. Charles Severance is a Clinical Professor and teaches in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. He teaches over popular Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) including Python for Everybody – the most popular online programming course in the world on the Coursera, edX, and FutureLearn platforms. He is also a long-time advocate of open source educational technology and open educational resources to empower teachers. Previously he was the Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation and the Chief Architect of the Sakai Project. Dr. Severance has written several books including “Using the Google App Engine”, “Python for Informatics”, “High Performance Computing”, and “Sakai: Free as in Freedom”.

Dr. Lori Williams is president and CEO of NC-SARA and has over 25 years’ experience in education. Prior to this role, she served as vice president at the WASC Senior College and University Commission. Dr. Williams has spoken at national and international conferences about adult and online learning, and served as professor, thesis advisor, and mentor. She holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Education Leadership from Union Institute & University, an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Saint Michael’s College, and a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University.

Dr. David Weinberger writes about the effect of technology  — particularly the Internet and machine learning  — on our ideas and lives. Most recently he was a writer-in-residence at Google AI, and before that he co-directed Harvard’s Library Innovation lab. Dr. Weinberger has long been affiliated with Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center and has been a philosophy professor, a Franklin Fellow at the US State Department and a book editor. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Toronto.

Panelist Resources

• E-Learning Remote Learning Framework and Models, Badrul Khan
• Everyday Chaos, Media, Excerpts and Videos Featuring Dr. David Weinberger
• See “Broadband Poised to Change the Fabric of Higher Education, Say Panelists at The Cable Show,” Broadband Breakfast, June 8, 2012
• See “Broadband Breakfast Live Online: Coronavirus and Education,” Broadband Breakfast, March 16, 2020
• See “With the Coronavirus Reaching Pandemic Proportions, Teachers Across the U.S. Are Frantically Converting to Online Courses,” Broadband Breakfast, March 12, 2020

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As with all Broadband Breakfast Live Online events, the FREE webcasts will take place at 12 Noon ET on Wednesday.

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