{"id":56711,"date":"2021-04-03T08:00:59","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T15:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=56711"},"modified":"2021-04-02T12:52:53","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T19:52:53","slug":"does-the-body-still-have-its-place-in-distance-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/does-the-body-still-have-its-place-in-distance-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the body still have its place in distance education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Apart from a few face-to-face return attempts which remain in the minority, we have been teaching at a distance for a year now, in the French university context. The majority of higher education teachers, who had to be trained quickly and imperfectly, find that the bodies are affected.\u00a0Students and teachers spend long hours sitting behind their screens, stretching their legs during breaks to go to the kitchen for coffee.<\/p>\n

Beyond the need for exercise which is increasingly felt in our numb bodies, it is all the elements of communication usually transmitted by the body that are upset.<\/p>\n

Enter the frame<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Like the actor, the teacher uses his body to bring his educational discourse to life.\u00a0He produces hand gestures to facilitate understanding of what he is transmitting.\u00a0The positive effects of pedagogical gestures have been demonstrated in particular for\u00a0the learning of foreign languages<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0mathematics<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n

In addition, he also uses his facial expressions, his movements or his gaze to animate the class, evaluate the interventions of the students and create a climate of confidence.<\/p>\n

However, when we go into videoconferencing, the use of the webcam imposes a certain number of constraints on the body.\u00a0First of all, there is the immobilization on either side of the screen.\u00a0The teacher must remain seated and ensure that he is well framed.\u00a0His gestures must be seen by the students, forcing him to produce gestures towards the upper body, close to the face, which is not natural.\u00a0Foreign language teachers, who often use pedagogical gestures to facilitate the understanding of the language by learners,\u00a0play a lot on this framework<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n

In addition, teaching by videoconference brings about an unprecedented situation for the teacher: he sees himself in the process of teaching.\u00a0His image constantly appears on the screen, and he looks at himself to check his framing or quite simply the image he gives of himself.\u00a0This constant mirror makes us video conferencing Daffodils and is one of the factors in online interaction fatigue, called\u00a0Zoom Fatigue<\/a>\u00a0(named after the most widely used video conferencing system today).<\/p>\n

However, the teacher’s gaze is not always fixed on himself or on his supporting document.\u00a0Indeed, he must also give the impression to the students that he is watching them.\u00a0However, when you are online, to show the interlocutor that you are watching, you have to look at the webcam and not the screen.\u00a0Only, the interlocutors, they are visible on the screen and not on the webcam.\u00a0It is therefore necessary to make a choice of gaze orientation or alternate gazes towards the camera and gazes towards the screen to see the students to whom you are speaking.<\/p>\n

Perpetual representation<\/strong><\/h4>\n

See his students\u2026 They still have to be visible.\u00a0In recent months, most of the higher education teachers who teach their courses online have observed the same thing: students are in hiding.\u00a0Few of them turn on their cameras during lessons.\u00a0There are many reasons.\u00a0We can of course evoke those who connect to make an act of presence and go to do something else during the course but it seems to me that they are few.<\/p>\n

A second reason is the fatigue of being online all day which forces you, if the camera is on, to be in some form of perpetual representation: looking attentive (and not yawning or doing anything else) , seated (and not slumped in your sofa which is tempting when you don’t move from your chair all day) and therefore probably scrutinized by the teacher and the other students.<\/p>\n

Finally, if, as a teacher, we tend to imagine our students well installed at their desks, in a calm working environment, this is far from being a reality for all.\u00a0Having regularly encouraged my students to turn on their webcams through fun activities for which they had to be on the screen, I was sometimes confused by what I saw around them: some were eating, others with children or roommates passing by to take a look at the screen.<\/p>\n

However, the absence of the bodies and in particular of the faces of the students is not without consequence on the course of the course.\u00a0On the one hand, it deprives the teacher of essential feedback signals (frowns, nods, smiles, etc.) which indicate that the students receive the pedagogical discourse and understand it (or not), which makes it possible to adjust the course thread.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, for a teacher, being alone in his office, facing a screen, and talking to a set of small black rectangles bearing the students’ names is highly depressing.\u00a0Teaching these invisible bodies is thus destabilizing for the teacher and has a negative effect on group dynamics.\u00a0How, indeed, to construct the identity of a disembodied class-group?<\/p>\n

Renew the link<\/strong><\/h4>\n

All is not lost, however, and educational techniques exist.\u00a0From a distance and in the current context,\u00a0work on group dynamics<\/a>\u00a0is more important than ever because the students did not have the opportunity to get to know each other on the benches of the university this year.\u00a0To want to show off, you have to feel confident and take the time to get to know each other.<\/p>\n

Icebreaker activities<\/a>\u00a0can be set up at the start of the semester and even at the start of the course as a warm-up.\u00a0We can also offer virtual fund contests on an imposed theme where each student must turn on his camera and present himself in front of a photo in the background, which is easy to configure in Zoom.\u00a0This activity went so well with my master’s students that one day they suggested that I go further and do a virtual carnival.\u00a0We all appeared in disguise during the following course, which revitalized our discussions and gave a visible and assumed place to our bodies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Finally, the work in sub-groups in virtual rooms is also very appreciable, it offers the students the opportunity to reflect on a document or an exercise in groups of 4 or 5 and we often find that it is easier to switch on his camera in this more intimate setting.\u00a0These playful and dynamic activities, which will perhaps be judged as a waste of time in the university context, are on the contrary essential to rediscover the interactivity, verbal and non-verbal, so necessary for educational exchanges.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Marion Tellier is a University Professor in Language Teaching at Aix-Marseille University (AMU)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apart from a few face-to-face return attempts which remain in the minority, we have been teaching at a distance for a year now, in the French university context. The majority of higher education teachers, who had to be trained quickly and imperfectly, find that the bodies are affected.\u00a0Students and teachers spend long hours sitting behind […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":56712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15645],"tags":[366284],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-56711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-pedagogical-gestures"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDoes the body still have its place in distance education? - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/does-the-body-still-have-its-place-in-distance-education\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does the body still have its place in distance education? - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Apart from a few face-to-face return attempts which remain in the minority, we have been teaching at a distance for a year now, in the French university context. 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