Falling Asleep in an Online Class
Students falling asleep in class can be rather common in my profession. I would like to believe I am by no means a boring lecturer. But hey, even my dad jokes do fall flat on deaf ears, or should I say, non-dad ears? hahahaha... No? Not funny? Fine.
But, imagine my surprise when a student recently fell asleep IN MY ONLINE CLASS! Now, that has to be a first for me.
How It All Happened...
I was conducting a class via Google meet and sensing that the students were growing a bit passive, I decided to call each student up to ascertain if they were listening. It was all going well until I reached one of the students. We shall call him Adi.
So Adi was initially unresponsive. I thought, perhaps he was just taking a leak. So I went on asking his friends to respond. I circled back to Adi a few more times and once again, no response. His friends did not know where he went as well. That, or they did not want to sell him out.
Later after class was over, he texted me indicating that he had fallen asleep during my class. Well, at least he was honest. I gave him some advice on managing his sleep before making promise that he won't do it again.
Maybe Some are Not Ready for the Freedom of Online Learning.
As much as I would love to believe that my students who are college level kids are ready for all the freedom that online learning gives, it seems that they may need a lot more supervision that face to face classes provide.
I don't blame them really since they were taught to and trained to operate in a very spoonfed manner from high school. Perhaps one day they may change. Perhaps with enough training and life experience, the students may start to be better independent learners.
As for me, I will be implementing more hands on activities to prevent this from happening again.
That has been a little funny, for many students the online classes are something totally new and it has cost them to get used to it, I think that as you did it is necessary to be a little patient with it and more if the boy was honest and told what really happened to him, thanks for sharing this experience, greetings @alvinauh
@alvinauh, I understand it can be frustrating that your student has fallen asleep, but it's not always the teachers' fault. Unfortunately, teaching behind a monitor is not easy, students cannot interact as if they were in the classroom, they learn the notions passively and then the light of the monitor certainly doesn't help concentration and tires the eyes. But this pandemic forces us to change our habits and students will soon learn to manage their attention during these 3.0 lessons.
To a point I appreciate him been honest with you. Perhaps he was stressed out which make him fall asleep
Greetings, your contribution is great and you have all the knowledge. Not all students are familiar with this type of distance learning, as he says, it is good to innovate learning strategies that stimulate more students.
Dear @alvinauh
Interesting choice of topic. I never thought about it before. I remember falling asleep number of times during regular classes .... I cant imagine how difficult it would be to stay awake if same classes would be conducted online.
Are you a teacher?
Your story made me realize how difficult it may be to wake up someone during such an online classes. In real life it would be easy and would take you seconds (and teachers often take this opportunity to humiliate student in front of the class). Teaching online ... wow. Things surely may be different.
Stay safe and have a great weekend,
Yours, Piotr