Harvard grad students say remote teaching leads to "workplace abuses"

[Mark Crispin Miller]

Such overwork is typical of the electronic workplace; so "online learning" tends to

be a rip-off for the teachers and the students, as it's a lousy substitute for learning

face-to-face, in person. 

MCM

Harvard grad students say remote teaching during coronavirus pandemic leading to ‘workplace abuses’

Tentative agreement reached in contract negotiations would limit teaching fellows’ workloads, but bargaining stretches on

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/20/nation/harvard-grad-students-say-remote-teaching-during-coronavirus-pandemic-leading-workplace-abuses/

By Katie Johnston Globe Staff,Updated April 20, 2020, 2 hours ago

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Chance Bonar, a PhD candidate at Harvard, taught an online class from his dorm room in Cambridge on Thursday.BLAKE NISSEN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

A month ago, Chance Bonar had never even heard of Zoom, let alone taught a Harvard class using it. He’d never had to answer questions from students on an online chatboard during class, or edit a professor’s recorded lecture to post online.

But now the Harvard PhD candidate is doing all those things and more as he navigates the world of remote teaching during the coronavirus pandemic. And that includes helping professors who are relying heavily on him and other graduate student teachers — known as teaching fellows — to help them figure it out, too.

“There’s this expectation that the younger future professors ... have a better grasp on this technology than they do,” said Bonar, 27, who helps teach three courses at the Harvard Divinity School. “Especially in a time of a pandemic, it’s very obvious how much of the burden of teaching and scholarship falls on the teaching fellows.”

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