HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Beginning March, many schools around the nation began to move all their classes online due to the virus outbreak. Depending on your major and class, this transition may have affected students and faculty at varying degrees.
25% of classes at Sam Houston State University are already offered online.
“The rest of the courses that we transition which are about 3,000 courses are placed synchronously…they’re taking place on zoom on other platforms like blackboard collaborate,” said Sam Houston State University Distance Education Associate Vice President, William Angrove.
Synchronous tools like zoom and blackboard allow for all students to meet together at the same time and same place with their faculty member.
But, this sudden transition from classroom settings onto a virtual platform may have not been an easy one for all students
“It depends on what kind of a student you are. One reason I like online learning is because students have more time to work on their assignments and work on their papers during the week…they have more time to make comments and discussion boards that might be more reflective than they might be able to make in the classroom," said Angrove.
For some, this may be the first time they used Zoom.
“It definitely has been a challenge, because I’m a learner, I enjoy being in a traditional classroom setting so going from that to everything being on zoom and online, it’s a bit like the necessary decision for the colleges and universities to make in order to slow the spread and exposure," said SHSU junior Beeminet Andabo.
And for others, some classes are difficult to take virtually.
“The biggest change so far is that the class I was taking, it wasn’t designed to be taken online, so there’s change to that to make it an online course, so people in that course was just kind of struggling," said SHSU graduate student Eric Payton.
With all classes now being online, it may also be difficult to maintain a school mentality.
“I guess it’s more of a challenge than getting the work done. Because when you can go in person, she can kind of sit there and explain it for you and help you understand but when everything changes online, it’s just kind of that distance you know," said Payton.
Without any other options for universities to carry on as normal during this pandemic, online education has opened up doors for future conversations about what schooling may look like.
“I think that we live in a world today where we shop online, we bank online, we talk to our families online, we do our grocery shopping online. Taking an online class or two or four during a semester, it’s just a natural progression for what we do in our lives, because we’re online all the time already, so I do think that we’ll see an increase in our online education across the country," said Angrove.
Sam Houston also has a 24/7 help desk to takes calls from students and faculty during this time.