The SENSE Ed Special Interest Group for educators has been meeting up online every Friday since the end of March. These weekly meetings will soon be coming to an end, so if you'd like to join the final session on 29 May, don't forget to log onto the website and register via the Events page. To help you decide whether you’d like to join in, here’s what SENSE member Ann Bless has to say about the meetings.
I joined this Zoom group with fear and trepidation, since I had very little experience with online teaching and had the feeling that everyone was far more experienced than I was.
How wrong I was! Indeed there were people with more experience but I soon felt that I could ask any question without feeling stupid. In all the 30 years that I have been running courses on scientific writing, I had never dreamed that I would one day have to teach online, so hearing other teachers’ failures and successes was very helpful.
Every Friday from 14.00–15.00, about 10 of us meet up under the patient leadership of Sally Hill, who has to cope with a group of rather chatty teachers sharing their views on online teaching. Most of us use Zoom. We not only share information on technological subjects, such as break outs, how to show a PowerPoint and when to use Canvas, but also talk about how we feel about teaching to faces only. How far do we have to adapt our courses? Do we enjoy teaching online? Do we long to go back to normal teaching, and what help do we get from the institutions we work for?
A bonus for me is that I meet up with SENSE friends and colleagues again; I left the Netherlands in 2003 and now live in Switzerland. Even though I try and attend SENSE meetings when I am in the country, a weekly meeting with colleagues and friends is a real treat. I have the coronavirus to thank for that. When we are back to normal I shall miss you all!