Zoombies

The dictionary tells me that I can describe someone as a zombie if their face or behavior indicates "no feeling, no understanding, or no interest in what is going on around them".  Well, I've certainly seen a few zombies in the classroom over a few decades of teaching.

But thanks to COVID-19, I now feel qualified to add to the zombie section of the dictionary.   After collecting many hours of data, I can confidently identify someone as a Zoombie if all cues traveling across Zoom -- the once just a video platform but now emergency on-line teaching rink -- fail to indicate interest, understanding, enthusiasm, or engagement of any kind.  While it is challenging enough to accurately judge student engagement when students are sitting in the classroom in front of me, it's next to impossible to make those kinds of judgements when students are scattered in the wind, hiding behind blank thumbnails or head shots taken at a time when education was much more ordinary and smiles were far more commonplace.

On the one hand, the Zoombies are a terrible threat to my teaching prowess (ha).   While normally I would feel comfortable taking a few cracks at how profoundly exciting the engineering topics I teach are (not), it's nearly impossible to be funny while teaching engineering via Zoom.  Most attempts at humor zoom in one ear and out the other.   And, for me, the unfortunate consequence of having humor fall flat time and time again is that I have become the professor that I swore to never be.  With the greatest of ease, I too have become someone who can put students to sleep as quickly and effectively as many of my professors did during my undergraduate education.  This newfound talent makes me cringe and cringe again.   But, the cringing I do... I do with my video turned off, so that if a student just happens to be paying attention, he or she can't see me fold under the weight of my own self-acknowledged boring delivery. 

All is not lost with the emergence of the Zoombies however.  The lack of any human activity emerging from a gallery of thumbnails on my computer screen is at its best -- devoid of distraction.  And, undistracted, I can take a deep dive into Nerdville and stay there.  Focused and immersed in one equation, derivation, or another, I make far fewer mistakes than I would in an ordinary classroom.  Without facial cues, emotional expressions, and other indicators of what's going on with my audience as my lectures, examples, activities, and other stabs at engagement ebb and flow, my head is almost entirely occupied with delivering content at a steady, accurate, and clear pace. 

Woo Hoo!
I may put 'em to sleep, but I sure don't fill their dreams with technical errors.

On a sincere and serious note, though, I would like to apologize to all my Zoombies for putting you to sleep (well -- to those of you who actually woke up to attend class in the first place).   I appreciate that your thumbnails feign interest and that you log into Zoom at the appropriate time to simulate attending class.

But, most of all, I'd like to thank the Zoombies that come to office hours.  In office hours, I am blessed with web cams that are much more frequently turned on than left off.  And, as the questions and interaction ebb and flow during office hours, I see that you are not Zoombies at all.  Instead, you are as I suspected -- human beings striving to learn and committed to doing well even during this odd Zoom-centric life we find ourselves navigating together.