Five Minutes After Class

One change I’ve noticed with having remote rather than in-person classes: Students only come to class a minute before on on-the-dot when class begins. Some no longer need to come to class early if they want to get the best seats – usually closer to the front because my handwriting on the board is not the largest. It’s also less noticeable if you’re a minute or two late online; there’s no opening and closing of doors with a bunch of people (and the instructor!) looking at you if you’re late. Aiming to come slightly early precludes that.

 

This means I no longer get my five minutes before class to chat with students, learn their names, and make an in-person connection. With Zoom, I no longer need to ask students their names since those are listed alongside their video. Most of my students turn on their cameras so I’ve been able to match names and faces. However, to make sure I pronounce student names correctly and to make a personal connection, I require all my students to visit with me for a 3-5 minute chat in office hours in the first several weeks of class. Hopefully this makes them more comfortable participating in class, and also ensures they know when my office hours are and how to visit via Zoom.

 

Instead, I’m now having a subset of students stay on for five minutes after class, usually to ask questions. This is also a welcome change. Previously I might have only one or two. In-person, we need to vacate the room before the next class comes in. Students who have classes right after my class have to get to their next classroom and have to account for walking time. But with being able to instantaneously leave one class and hop on to the next, students seem to be more willing to spend a few minutes after class and ask additional questions. This is particularly true of my 8am honors G-Chem class, and most of them have a 9am class right after mine (the paired bioenergetics course I’ve mentioned in previous posts). I also know most of the students well, since I had them in the honors class last semester. On the other hand, not many stay back from my larger regular G-Chem section, probably because it’s lunchtime. I’m hungry too at that point!

 

It’s a good thing that my classes are automatically recorded since some of the questions are excellent and they get me talking about things that would benefit all the students. When this happens (as it did on Wednesday), I e-mail the class and encouraged them to watch the extra 8 minutes of video from the after-class discussions. This made me think that perhaps I should regularly aim to end class five minutes early, although I should think of a way to encourage everyone to stay while we do Q&A. Perhaps a “muddiest point” end activity could do this, although that usually involves rehashing something already said in class and might preclude some of the more interesting questions I’ve been getting which are follow-ups or extensions of what we talked about in class – usually related to applications of the material that the students find curious.

 

I’ll have to keep an eye on this as the semester progresses. I don’t know why I didn’t realize this last semester, but it hit me on Wednesday that I can learn something from the five minutes after class that I’m experiencing with the students!