Looking back at the first week of the course and the Manifesto (Bayne et al. 2020), reminded me of a discussion that has been ongoing within some of the sessions our Programme does with GP Teachers. The sessions we do are lunchtime discussions really with different groups of the GP Teachers, some of whom have really struggled with the switch to online teaching and the technology that goes with it. One of the things that comes up in almost every one of these sessions is the issue of having cameras during online teaching. Many of the students, it seems, are reluctant to use their cameras when they are being taught and the teachers feel this makes their teaching a lot harder. The discussion in the Manifesto is of course about face to face teaching versus online teaching and the idea that online teaching is somehow less than traditional teaching partly because the teacher and students are not in the same room together. The discussion we have during our sessions about using cameras is almost an extension of this; we are no longer teaching in the same room, but it can be argued that we are still face to face, using cameras (Fawns 2019).

So the question remains the same, whether we are in the same room or using cameras; is face time over valued? I think, similarly to being in the classroom, that presence with a camera does not equal engagement or useful feedback for the teacher. Tom Mullany created a video of himself so that you can practice speaking to people who have a ‘resting scholar face’ while they listen to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEEYBG5Duds

This seems to support the idea that even when you are teaching face to face, it’s difficult to gage engagement with your talk and I think you can argue that it is no different with cameras. During our CEP online sessions, we don’t ask our students to activate their cameras unless they want to and even if they do want to, we sometimes recommend they turn it off if the camera function takes up too much of their bandwidth. This doesn’t alter the interaction during the sessions in a noticeable way; most of the discussion takes place with microphones or in the chat box and our sessions get excellent feedback specifically for being interactive and promoting discussion. We also make use of the whiteboard option in Collaborate, which lets participants add text anonymously to contribute to the topic we are discussing, this is a great tool, partly because it is anonymous and therefore lets everyone contribute. It is also a great equalizer to promote participation amongst those who have lesser bandwidth, are unable to speak because of their environment or are using inferior equipment.

I think in the case of the GP teachers teaching their medical students that there is a knowledge gap when it comes to teaching online. They have been asked to convert their teaching to an online environment during the pandemic and this has been rushed and wasn’t particularly well supported at the start. A lot of their teaching was effectively ‘made online’ without looking at the opportunities and possibilities as well as differences that come with online teaching. As time goes on, these teachers will hopefully be able to use the other forms of interaction online which make for very interactive sessions, regardless of the use of cameras.

Bayne, Sian, et al. The Manifesto for Teaching Online, MIT Press, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ed/detail.action?docID=6317960.

Fawns, T. Postdigital Education in Design and Practice. Postdigit Sci Educ 1, 132–145 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-018-0021-8Do

Online teaching and face time / Femke Morrison / An introduction to digital environments for learning (2020/2021)[SEM2] by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0