It’s Not Laziness — It’s Just a Change in Environment
By: Juan Basualdo
Tags: Covid 19, Remote Learning, Professor, College, Higher Education

I don’t think anyone was prepared for what happened. I remember a student asked in January what I thought about the virus. I said that I wasn’t a science person and that we’d all have to wait and see what would happen.

Well, we all know where that went.

I’m an adjunct professor and I teach English composition.

Before the university’s closing, I attended a staff meeting in which we discussed how we would go about remote learning. One professor worried that the virtual environment would encourage cheating. I had similar worries.

Later that day, I overheard a student outside of my office jokingly suggest that with the university going remote, he was going to finally make the Dean’s list.

This will be advantageous for me,

I thought.

With the likelihood of an increased GPA, students will be more engaged and active.

Unfortunately, I found that keeping them motivated was actually one of my biggest battles.

Like most instructors, I had about two weeks to adjust my lessons.

I emailed my students assuring them that I would do everything I could to make this transition as stress free as possible for them.

The first thing that I did was remove all of the unnecessary readings. Then, I spaced out all of the assignments as much as I could. I had to improvise, so I added more writing workshops.

I foresaw a lack of participation and tried to combat it by having students reply to each other on discussion board posts.

These changes were well received by my students.

I am making this course as easy as possible,

I thought.

There is no way that my students can’t succeed now.

Then, I started my actual teaching.

I did all of my classes “live” using Webex — a software that the university had recently purchased. I didn’t have any technical difficulties, which pleasantly surprised me.

Each class seemed to go well. I thought that everyone was engaged.

I had succeeded.

I was feeling so good that I started to offer extra “office hours” via Webex and FaceTime.

Nevertheless, it seemed that in each conference a student would say:

Professor, I just don’t feel motivated to get my work done.

At first, I didn’t understand this.

I questioned why they didn’t feel more motivated, especially now that they were able to complete exams, quizzes, and essays from the comfort of their own home.

I questioned why they weren’t more motivated to do the work when I gave them so much extra time and lessened the workload.

Why do they need ‘motivation’ to do a simple discussion board post?

I asked myself.

Initially, I attributed their comments to laziness, especially since most of them had been followed by extension asks (to which I always complied). But then I began to notice that every time I got online, the morale was getting lower and lower.

This was more than just laziness. It was a real concern.

I made it optional to use a webcam. For the first few classes, however, so many students were using webcams that I couldn’t see everyone. As time passed, though, fewer students used their cameras. In fact, during our last class, not a single student had their camera on.

It got to the point where even I felt awkward keeping my camera on.

The same happened with participation. During the first few classes, so many people were talking that I couldn’t tell whose voice was whose.

During the last class, however, only two students opted to use their microphones. A few others decided to say their farewells in the chat — but a majority of them signed off when I said “Well, it’s been a great semester . . .”

I remember thinking that they hated me. I questioned what I did wrong.

How did they go from being so cheerful to leaving before even saying goodbye? Why had my students suddenly grown to resent me?

I did everything that a good instructor would do; I cut readings, spaced out assignments, went over more writing techniques to help them, and even gave extensions for simple low-stakes assignments.

Was there something that I missed?

I was well aware of the end-of-semester burnouts, but I had never experienced such a dramatic decline in morale.

A few weeks later, I got the results of my course evaluations. I was scared. I had just seen my students storm off Webex during the last class. I pondered whether or not I should even open them, but I knew that I had to.

I knew that, with times uncertain, I needed to see where I could improve with remote instruction.

To my surprise, my results were great. I was above average in most categories, and there were less “mean” comments than previous semesters. Students even praised me for making their remote experience easier than most of their other professors had.

I was confused; I began to question why my students had acted the way they did if they had actually enjoyed my class.

Then it hit me. When my students were telling me that they didn’t feel motivated to do their work, they were asking for help. They were looking for my advice.

This was a cry for help that I never recognized.

I realized that they weren’t talking about just my class; they were talking about all of their classes at the university.

I understood why.

When you’re on campus, you’re forced to walk, talk, and interact. More importantly, you have a professor in front of you. You have the motivation to do your class work.

As professors, we may have an intimidating presence, but we garner respect and admiration from students. Many of them feel the need to impress us. When we are behind a computer screen, they feel that they can no longer do that.

For decades our students have had an instructor in the room with them — someone who would watch them to assure that they were doing their work. Someone who would answer their questions in class and stay afterwards if things were still unclear. Someone who would physically grade their assignments and point out their mistakes on paper.

They had a tangible learning experience, and in an instant, this was all taken away from them.

While we know that in-person instruction is not perfect, it subconsciously motivates our students to show up to class with their work done. In-person instruction is something that has been ingrained in their minds since they started school as children — and getting them to adapt to an entirely different mode of learning is a big ask.

I think that many professors, including myself, expected students to instantaneously adapt to an entirely different system.

But we need to realize that this is not possible. Our students need time to adjust, so we must be patient and help them however we can.

We need to understand that when students tell us that they don’t have the motivation to do their work, we are dealing with a real issue that goes beyond our individual classrooms.

As we struggle to find the happy medium between remote and in-person instruction, we need to motivate and work with our students.

At the same time, we need to acknowledge that while being at home may seem like a luxury, it is not an advantage for all learners.