{"id":2624,"date":"2021-01-07T19:06:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T19:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/?p=2624"},"modified":"2021-01-07T19:10:38","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T19:10:38","slug":"ohio-state-professor-connects-with-students-beyond-bagels-amid-online-semester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/2021\/01\/07\/ohio-state-professor-connects-with-students-beyond-bagels-amid-online-semester\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio State professor connects with students beyond bagels amid online semester"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, one of Brad Bushman\u2019s favorite parts of his job took place out of the classroom. Bushman would chow down on bagels with students at an assortment of local cafes near his classes to take a break from teaching them and learn about their lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But this fall, the tables remained empty and Bushman, a 10-year professor at Ohio State, taught his students from the comfort of his own home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bushman used these meetings \u2014 dubbed \u201cBagels with Bushman\u201d \u2014 to form connections with students. But he said a semester compromised by COVID-19 made face-to-face interactions few and far between.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI miss it [Bagels with Bushman] very much,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, the reason I decided to become a professor is because I love students, and I really enjoy teaching.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bushman said he taught Communication 3442:\u00a0 Violence in Society and Violence in the Media online from home this semester. His wife, Tam Bushman, has rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia \u2014 illnesses that put her at a greater risk for health complications if she contracts the coronavirus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though he loves teaching, Brad Bushman said he cannot endanger his wife\u2019s life to hold in-person classes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new platform was challenging, but Bushman said he enjoyed some aspects of online classes. Students who might have been scared to participate in class and ask questions now could through the chat function on Zoom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I ask in [person] class, \u2018Does anybody have any questions?\u2019 it\u2019s usually the same people who are pretty extroverted who ask the questions,\u201d Bushman said. \u201cIn Zoom, anybody can type out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, Bushman said Zoom\u2019s breakout room feature allowed students to work in groups with different students every time, something that would have been harder to accomplish if the class were in person.<\/span><\/p>\n

But he said the platform comes with its disadvantages as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bushman said he estimated that 95 percent of his students muted themselves and shut off their cameras during class, which made it difficult for him to interact with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to gauge their level of engagement, actually, on Zoom. So, I don\u2019t like the mute,\u201d Bushman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alongside changed levels of engagement, Bushman said he was more flexible with his grading this semester. If a student missed a quiz or an assignment, he emailed them, asking how they were doing. He also provided TED talks about handling stress and reminded his students about mental health resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite his challenges with student engagement, Bushman said his decision to teach remotely was the safest not just for his wife, but also his students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that it\u2019s really important to be safe,\u201d Bushman said. \u201cSo I think it\u2019s much safer for our students and for the instructors to teach online at least this semester and probably next semester, and at least until they get a vaccine, an effective vaccine for COVID-19.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though he loves teaching, Brad Bushman said he cannot endanger his wife\u2019s life to hold in-person classes. The new platform was challenging, but Bushman said he enjoyed some aspects of online classes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4077,"featured_media":2440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[193],"tags":[],"coauthors":[196],"class_list":["post-2624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faces-of-ohio-state"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/files\/2020\/02\/Jessica-Langer-2.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2624"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2627,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions\/2627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}