Amuunaa Zulkhuu, Communication Intern for The Wheel
Student Perspective: Reflection of Online Courses Taken
Dear Faculty,
This article was written by Amuunaa Zulkhuu, a communication intern for The Wheel. Amuunaa Zulkhuu, a writing intern for The Wheel, is currently a 3rd year at UC Davis and is pursuing Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and French.
What do a communication course, a nutrition course, and a beer course all have in common? At UC Davis, all three can be taught with just a computer and an internet connection. As more remote and online courses are being offered at UC Davis, instructors may be curious about my student experience taking these three very different online courses. Overall, I learned that with flexibility, patience, and planning, the online format can work for instructors and students.
My first encounter with online courses began my first day of college. During my summer pass time, I was not aware that Intro to Communication (CMN 010) would be taught entirely online. I’m not sure how I didn’t add two and two together upon seeing “Online Learning Activity” in the course description and a “TBA” in place of the hall name. As the start of classes approached, I finally emailed the course professor asking just where on earth his class would be held. I’d like to say from then on, it was smooth sailing, but as with any class, I had to figure out the nuts and bolts of the syllabus, and then gauge the professor’s expectations. Because instructional technology has remained an integral part of my generation’s education starting back in middle school, most of the features felt familiar aside from the extra time saved from physically attending lectures, and pre-recorded lectures that I could view on my own time, rather than synchronous lectures.
Exactly a year later, during the fall quarter of my sophomore year, I found myself taking Discovery and Concepts in Nutrition (NUT 010), a favorite class that I’ve taken here at UC Davis. Although it shared a few elements with my first online course, video lectures and office hours via Zoom, NUT 10 used proctored home exams and an online textbook. I thoroughly enjoyed the online textbook because I prefer reading online, and the textbook itself clearly presented an easy-to-follow progression of print lessons alongside the lectures. As for the proctored home exams, using my laptop webcam to expose every corner of my room to a stranger who would be watching my intense thinking face for about two hours, to ensure I would not cheat, made me laugh. This may sound perfectly normal to some of you, but holding my laptop and walking around my room, like some tourist recording with a ridiculously large iPAD, took some getting used to. The exams did force me to tidy up a bit; I thought of exam day as cleaning day. Also, the test proctors were always pleasant and much less menacing than the FBI agents that one imagines are sitting behind all our cameras. Forgetting that I was being monitored, I quickly felt comfortable making all of my bizarre concentration faces and mutterings.
I took my third and latest online course last winter quarter of 2019: Introduction to Brewing and Beer (FST 003). I should have been an expert at maneuvering these courses by now, and in some ways I was. Features like Zoom, online quizzes and proctored exams had become familiar to me, and thus easy to use. Though as with any class offline or online, the professors and TAs have their own teaching methods, expectations, and class design. For example, I went to in-person office hours for both my Beer and Communications courses, but Nutrition office hours were primarily held through Zoom. All three courses featured weekly quizzes covering both lecture and readings, but I had to study for them differently because of the quiz format and because of what I was expected to retain. In these ways, the individual teaching style of the professor is preserved and even further developed due to the specific expectations communicated by my instructors.
I registered for these online courses expecting them to follow the same teaching format, only to realize that instructors customize their online courses as they see fit. With so many tools to help with the teaching, instructors remain in command of the educational content and the ways it is taught. I had to adjust to the styles and expectations of each of my professors in the same manner as I do in face-to-face courses (remember those?). As a student, I believe in the value and opportunity of online learning that allows for time flexibility and that makes instructors and students alike become innovative, proactive, and successful.
This article was written by Amuunaa Zulkhuu, a communication intern for The Wheel. Amuunaa Zulkhuu, a writing intern for The Wheel, is currently a 3rd year at UC Davis and is pursuing Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and French.
What do a communication course, a nutrition course, and a beer course all have in common? At UC Davis, all three can be taught with just a computer and an internet connection. As more remote and online courses are being offered at UC Davis, instructors may be curious about my student experience taking these three very different online courses. Overall, I learned that with flexibility, patience, and planning, the online format can work for instructors and students.
My first encounter with online courses began my first day of college. During my summer pass time, I was not aware that Intro to Communication (CMN 010) would be taught entirely online. I’m not sure how I didn’t add two and two together upon seeing “Online Learning Activity” in the course description and a “TBA” in place of the hall name. As the start of classes approached, I finally emailed the course professor asking just where on earth his class would be held. I’d like to say from then on, it was smooth sailing, but as with any class, I had to figure out the nuts and bolts of the syllabus, and then gauge the professor’s expectations. Because instructional technology has remained an integral part of my generation’s education starting back in middle school, most of the features felt familiar aside from the extra time saved from physically attending lectures, and pre-recorded lectures that I could view on my own time, rather than synchronous lectures.
Exactly a year later, during the fall quarter of my sophomore year, I found myself taking Discovery and Concepts in Nutrition (NUT 010), a favorite class that I’ve taken here at UC Davis. Although it shared a few elements with my first online course, video lectures and office hours via Zoom, NUT 10 used proctored home exams and an online textbook. I thoroughly enjoyed the online textbook because I prefer reading online, and the textbook itself clearly presented an easy-to-follow progression of print lessons alongside the lectures. As for the proctored home exams, using my laptop webcam to expose every corner of my room to a stranger who would be watching my intense thinking face for about two hours, to ensure I would not cheat, made me laugh. This may sound perfectly normal to some of you, but holding my laptop and walking around my room, like some tourist recording with a ridiculously large iPAD, took some getting used to. The exams did force me to tidy up a bit; I thought of exam day as cleaning day. Also, the test proctors were always pleasant and much less menacing than the FBI agents that one imagines are sitting behind all our cameras. Forgetting that I was being monitored, I quickly felt comfortable making all of my bizarre concentration faces and mutterings.
I took my third and latest online course last winter quarter of 2019: Introduction to Brewing and Beer (FST 003). I should have been an expert at maneuvering these courses by now, and in some ways I was. Features like Zoom, online quizzes and proctored exams had become familiar to me, and thus easy to use. Though as with any class offline or online, the professors and TAs have their own teaching methods, expectations, and class design. For example, I went to in-person office hours for both my Beer and Communications courses, but Nutrition office hours were primarily held through Zoom. All three courses featured weekly quizzes covering both lecture and readings, but I had to study for them differently because of the quiz format and because of what I was expected to retain. In these ways, the individual teaching style of the professor is preserved and even further developed due to the specific expectations communicated by my instructors.
I registered for these online courses expecting them to follow the same teaching format, only to realize that instructors customize their online courses as they see fit. With so many tools to help with the teaching, instructors remain in command of the educational content and the ways it is taught. I had to adjust to the styles and expectations of each of my professors in the same manner as I do in face-to-face courses (remember those?). As a student, I believe in the value and opportunity of online learning that allows for time flexibility and that makes instructors and students alike become innovative, proactive, and successful.