Teaching in the COVID-19 Era: Personal Reflections, Student Surveys and Pre-COVID Comparative Data

Abstract

Online teaching has emerged powerfully worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper recounts the personal experience of the author teaching his first full-time virtual course online in a synchronous fashion. The author provides back reflection on his Fall 2020 course enumerating advantages and disadvantages for virtual teaching versus in-person teaching. The author also gathered student feedback in the form of a survey on their first fully-immersed COVID experience as a full online live course. Data comparing the pre-COVID course grades and course evaluations to the COVID outcomes are also provided. Based on the survey and grades/course evaluations comparisons, it is concluded that the shift to pure online teaching was successful.