A publication of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

The Global Citizen

Reflecting on the challenges of remote learning

As vaccination numbers globally continue to rise and despite waves of new COVID-19 variants, many students at institutions around the world, including the University of Melbourne, are returning to campus in 2022.

Our reporters spoke to a group of international students and asked them to reflect on the challenges of two years of online learning and the ups and downs of returning to face-to-face classes.

Reflecting on the challenges of remote learning

Online classes and online socialising. Photo: Vanessa Garcia via Pexels

At the end of 2022, Nadine Garibli, then 22, had been navigating her college experience via Zoom calls and pre-recorded lectures for the past year and a half. Since her move to Imperial College London from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, she prayed that the last few months of her education would return to normal, but she didn’t have high hopes.

“It’s a ghost of what it used to be, and I feel like I’ve missed out on a big chunk of university.”

She wasn’t alone in her experience.

When the COVID-19 pandemic trickled into every aspect of people’s lives in 2020, everything came to a standstill. Hundreds of millions of people were forced to compromise. Students, in particular, were faced with the uncertainty of how their education would change and had to settle for a college experience they probably hadn’t anticipated.

A Socially Distanced Social Life

https://the-citizen-web-assets-us.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2022/04/18194018/photo-1603501266047-f4a2f093503b.jpeg

“Living alone and studying online was quite difficult and felt quite isolating, which can take a toll on your mental health,” explained Nadine when asked what her experience was like living in her college town but studying from home.

In some ways Nadine was lucky, having the small luxury of being near her university. However, international students stuck overseas had no chance to interact with classmates and teachers, which led to many reporting heightened feelings of isolation and anxiety.

A 2021 survey conducted by the Council of International Students of Australia (CISA) on students stranded abroad found that of the 607 participants, about 93 per cent of the participants’ mental health was affected by studying online in their home country.

Read the survey here: https://cisa.edu.au/research/

More than two-thirds of the respondents believed they had depression or anxiety because they did not know when they could return to their campuses and feel a sense of normalcy.

Online classes and online socialising. Photo: Vanessa Garcia via Pexels

Online classes and online socialising. Photo: Vanessa Garcia via Pexels

Even though Nadine wasn’t stuck overseas, she still felt the effects of decreased human contact. She admits she lost focus during online classes and found it difficult to motivate herself from time to time but was always able to get herself back on track. It’s only now that she “can acknowledge it was a lot harder” than she thought at the time.

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Xiaoyi Cheng, a PhD student and teaching assistant at Iowa State University in the United States, painted a more holistic picture. She experienced the learning situation both from the student’s side, as well as the teacher’s, and said she was not fond of online education in either respect.

“I want this COVID and online thing to just go away as fast as possible,” she said.

Lack of Sleep and Lack of Speak

Nadine said she didn’t enjoy Zoom classes because there was hardly any participation from the students.

“Most people had their cameras off, so it felt so impersonal, and I didn’t want to turn mine on because everyone else’s was off.”

Having everything on Zoom made her reticent to ask questions because there was a “pressure” having to do it in front of the entire class, rather than in private with a teacher.

Xiaoyi had a similar experience struggling with participation.

“As a TA, it feels like students can just turn off their video and just don’t learn. And even when I take my class, it feels like I just don’t learn,” she said with a shrug.

Moreover, some people found that online classes meant that international students lost a helpful in-person environment to practice speaking the languages they wanted to learn.

Airong Song, a college student studying at the Tokyo College of Technology and Design said: “I obviously feel that my proficiency in speaking Japanese this year is not as good as last year.”

But students faced more difficulties than just talking less. A very common struggle international students had was navigating online classes with the time difference between the country they lived in and the country they studied in.

Jeet Vijay, a student at Boston University said that while most of his teachers were sympathetic to the nine-hour time difference he was facing, he had friends who had teachers who were stricter.

“I heard from some other students that they’re like: “Don’t take my course if you’re not here, or don’t take my course if you can’t,” he said.

Notices at student accommodation in New York City limiting guests for safety. Source: Aania Tandon

Notices at student accommodation in New York City limiting guests for safety. Source: Aania Tandon

A university room littered with hand sanitiser bottles. Source: Linghong Yu

A university room littered with hand sanitiser bottles. Source: Linghong Yu

But it’s not just doom and gloom

Although many students complained that online learning could be unstructured, in the same breath, they also said they appreciated the flexibility.

“The biggest upside to online education… is all the lectures are pre-recorded so you can just watch them whenever you want,” Nadine explained, which allowed her to make up her own work, social, and educational schedule.

And yet, with the focus on student experiences, it was easy to forget about the bigger players. National economies, particularly those that rely heavily on the tertiary education sector, also struggled. Due to closed borders, many students chose to defer their studies, with the hope that they could save their university experience by attending later on.

Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia, said: “Clearly without any international students coming into the country, Australia’s fourth-biggest industry is in a major crisis.”

As the country scrambles to accommodate students who are eager to return in 2022, Mitchell Institute at Victoria University thinks that the tertiary education sector in Australia will continue to suffer for many years. Their prediction is that the impact of COVID-19 closures will cost the Australian economy $19 billion.

Today, although many students enrolled at universities all around Australia have received the green light to return to campus through a staggered approach, the risk of another lockdown amidst the Omicron wave is omnipresent.

According to Our World in Data, Australia reported over 100,000 new cases on some days in January 2022, with about 98% of the new cases being the Omicron variant, and the remaining 2% being the Delta variant. By early April, a month into the first semester, the national daily numbers were still over 50,000 cases.

You Win Some, You Lose Some…

With months of experience living in this pandemic, universities and students have become adept at handling this situation with ease and proficiency.

Isabella Vagnoni, a Master of Journalism student at the University of Melbourne, said: “I thought the online learning overall was actually a lot better than I expected. I felt like my lecturers put in a lot of effort to create a very good relationship with the students and make us feel supported during the lockdown and via Zoom meetings”.

That being said, she is enthusiastic and ready to return to face-to-face classes as the university prepares to commence the new semester through a hybrid approach. “I’m most looking forward to engaging with people in real life because I prefer that mode of learning.”

Another Master of Journalism student, Sean Ruse, mirrored many of the same sentiments when looking back at his online learning experience.

“In some ways I was pleasantly surprised by how little it took away from the learning itself, going through the class content. But in saying that, there was a lot I didn’t like,” he said.

“There were no opportunities to get to know your classmates and work collaboratively; it was lacking a very human side of it, with everything from getting a coffee after class to discussing during the in-betweens in class.”

Nadine, now in her last semester at Imperial College London, said that having in-person classes since Christmas has boosted her feelings of a general sense of community because she is able to see course mates more regularly.

But students are not out of the woods yet, as universities around the world continue to take stringent measures to maintain the safety and well-being of their cohort.

“The restrictions at my university are that we need to get tested twice a week and still have to wear masks, so it feels like more effort. Before it was quite easy to be there, with no pre-planning, and now you have to think, ‘Do I have my mask? Have I done my COVID test?’” said Nadine.

The last two years navigating education and life amidst the pandemic have accounted for a fair amount of tribulations, but everyone involved has had no choice but to adapt to the learning curve. As universities open their doors to welcome students back in 2022, several cautionary steps are being taken, a clear indication that this pandemic is not over yet. Current and future students will have to continue to be flexible to the ever-changing requirements, as they pass through their education, at a time like no other.

About The Citizen

THE CITIZEN is a publication of the Centre for Advancing Journalism. It has several aims. Foremost, it is a teaching tool that showcases the work of the students in the University of Melbourne’s Master of Journalism and Master of International Journalism programs, giving them real-world experience in working for publication and to deadline. Find out more →

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