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As we gear up (did we ever gear down?) for fall semester to begin, it is increasingly clear that formal education will be relying more than ever on online teaching and learning, and within our online offerings, once again, it's apparent that many teachers will lean heavily on synchronous classes (a.k.a. Zoom). The intent of this essay is not to debate the benefits of synchronous and asynchronous approaches. I've spoken on that at length, and my take continues to be that synchronous teaching should be the ketchup and asynchronous the burger. Less confident, untrained, unsupported, understandably stressed and exhausted teachers tend to flip that equation. Those of us who work with online faculty development will continue to encourage folks to think intentionally about their pedagogy and to ask education leaders to give teachers at all levels the training, time, and support they need to better understand the affordances and constraints of online pedagogy.

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash
My intention here is to specifically address the question of engagement in the synchronous session, or Zoom class, because this issue continues to present itself in my travels and talks with teachers. Most teachers and faculty I work with want to know that their students are engaged in Zoom, but many aren't quite sure what that means or how to do it, and that leads to frustration for teachers, students, and admins. A knee-jerk reaction to this desire is to require students to be on-camera, as if that is a panacea that will solve all manner of engagement and attention ills. Spoiler alert: it's not.
Image source: https://liforme.com/blogs/blog/triangle-pose-trikonasana
I've written about why forcing students to turn on their cameras is a really bad idea from a trauma-awareness and equity perspective. Here, I want to really zoom in (pun intended) on what I see as the primary motivation for teachers to force the camera issue: because teachers care about their students and want their students to pay attention and be engaged, they are relying on what seems like the most obvious and best strategy to make that happen: requiring students to turn on cameras. Administrators who are even less aware of online pedagogical strategies further complicate this issue by putting policies in place that require teachers to meet synchronously with their students with all cameras on. Unfortunately, this approach can have the opposite of the intended effect.

When I was studying to be a yoga teacher, my own teacher constantly reminded us that our goal was not to get our students to make a shape in our classes. If we were to look out at our class, and see ten cookie cutter clones of some idealized, Instagramized version of triangle pose, for example, we had missed the mark as teachers. Instead, she told us, we would know that we had done our job if we saw ten different expressions of triangle: some using blocks or straps, some with the lower hand touching the floor and others with a bent elbow resting gently on the thigh, some with eyes cast toward the ceiling, others with eyes closed.

My job as a yoga teacher was never to get my students into a shape; rather, my job was to invite students to explore what a posture revealed about their body, mind, and spirit.
Here are some practical strategies specific to the Zoom platform that can help you do that:
Downward dog is one of the most typical images branded into yoga students' minds. Everyone wants to make that perfect inverted "V" shape and get their heels planted flat on the floor. I will forever remember the first time a teacher of mine cued us to bend our knees in downward dog and to forget about our damn feet; I experienced the pose in a completely different way, using gravity to create space in my spine as my hands pressed into the mat. Now, whenever I feel my persistently pinched nerve acting up, I find my bent-knee downward dog. I wouldn't have learned this medicine if I'd insisted on continuing to make a shape like what I thought downward dog should look like, rather than using it as an opportunity to deepen my relationship with my body.

Many teachers have a shape that they think attention and engagement look like, and they work very hard to get students into that shape.

I am an excellent case study. I make a great paying attention shape. I can smile and nod with the best of them. I can get called on, have no idea what you just asked me, and share an intelligent remark that masks my confusion. But when I'm truly engaged, it doesn't quite look like what you think it should. My paying attention is chaotic, messy, moving in my chair, playing with stuff on my desk, and backchannel chatting in the Zoom chat and via text.

If you focus on having your students make the shapes of what you think attention and engagement should look like, you're going to lose them, and they're going to lose valuable opportunities to express their curiosity and enjoy learning. Instead, I want to invite you into the alternative of creating spaces for your students to express their learning in a way that is meaningful for them. The best way to do that is to give students options to engage in your synchronous sessions.

Zoom has several tools for quick audience participation including the option to raise/lower your virtual hand, answer yes/no to questions, or sharing emoji reactions (clapping hands, thumbs up). Make sure you have turned on nonverbal feedback in your Zoom account first. At the start of each session, review these options with your learners and encourage them to test them out. Don't assume students know how or when to use these tools; teach them. If you aren't sure how to use them, ask a friend to invite you to a Zoom meeting so you can practice.

Use formal or informal polls. A colleague of mine loves using formal Zoom polls; I don't. I find there's just too much going on, and I get easily overwhelmed. I prefer informal polls where I ask for short responses in the chat. For example, I typically start sessions these days by inviting my learners to share one or two words to express how they're feeling in that moment.

Punctuate your session with questions. I always ask my learners (whether they're faculty, students, or admins) what they already know or feel about a topic before I give them my take on it. Ask students what they know and have them share their responses in the chat. Keep asking informal questions throughout and encourage students to use the chat to engage with you and their peers. Students will often share ideas or resources that you haven't thought of. Students know things!

Most of us teachers have been taught that sometimes we might have to endure some uncomfortable silence before students will respond to our questions. It's okay to pause in our Zoom sessions to give students time to think and answer.

Invite students to share out via audio and or audio/video in addition to answering in the chat. This should be optional and encouraged, not forced. If this doesn't fly at first, shift to encouraging responses in the chat, but don't give up on encouraging audio and video participation. Sometimes, it takes a bit of time for students to work up to this.

You have the option to do a private chat in Zoom. Sometimes, if I sense a student has something to say or I want to encourage participation, I'll send a private message to the student asking them if they want to share out. Again, I encourage them: I don't force.

Some students are hesitant to be on-camera because they are scared and nervous. No one has taught them yet how to be on-camera in a Zoom session. Maybe you can teach them how to do that. If possible within your own time and energy constraints, invite students to a one-on-one meeting to practice their on-camera skills. You could also hold a "Zoom Practice Session" for students just for the purpose of helping them get comfortable in Zoom.

Normalize the fear of being on-camera to help students overcome it. If you've experienced that fear, share that story with your students. If not, I know for a fact that someone in your life, whether they're a teacher or a student, gets nervous being on-camera in Zoom. Ask them how that feels so that you can communicate that to your students. Remind students that learning new things often brings about some anxiety. Let them know that while you won't force them to be on-camera, you want to encourage them to try so that they can build this important success skill.

If you need an example of overcoming fear, share this video of Keala Settle from The Greatest Showman performing "This is Me." It gets me every time.

Tell a story of a time when you were scared to try something, but you did, and now it's old hat. Students (and their brains) love stories.

Ask for student input about your sessions. You can do this within a session, in an asynchronous discussion, via email, or in an anonymous survey.

If you're a confident Zoom user, try using breakout rooms. You can split students into multiple Zoom rooms to work on a collaborative project (perhaps via Google docs) or to discuss a topic as a smaller group. I am not a heavy breakout room user, because just like with polls, I get a bit overwhelmed. That said, they are a great option to switch up the energy of a session and can be useful for creating a less intimidating space for introverted students to share out.

Set the tone for engagement from moment one. I can't tell you how many Zooms I've attended that start with ten minutes of introductions from the presenter or presenters. When we start our sessions that way, we clearly communicate who is the center of that session (the teacher). Instead, begin your sessions by welcoming your learners and encouraging them to get active in the chat. Let students know that you are there to learn along with them, and that their peers can learn from them too. Make the chat the heart of your session.

By using these practical strategies, you'll notice all sorts of attention and engagement happening in your synchronous sessions. Students will make all kinds of shapes when we create space for them to do so.

One more yoga story: once, during my yoga teaching practicum, I came to the end of class and cued my students to enter savasana. A young woman in the front row did not lie on her back and close her eyes like the others. Instead, she sat in the front row, eyes wide open, fidgeting and staring at me. I was incredibly uncomfortable. All sorts of thoughts and judgments began racing through my mind. What was wrong with her? What had I done wrong? The other students experienced the world's shortest ever savasana because I couldn't stand my own discomfort. I hurried them along and ended the class.

Weeks later, as I got to know this student a bit more and gained her trust, she disclosed to me that she was a trauma survivor, and that savasana wasn't in the cards for her. For her, to have come to a yoga class and stayed through the end was a victory. Lesson learned for me, the teacher, taught to me by my student. Savasana, like any other posture, is not about me getting my students to all make the same shape.

Build your synchronous teaching toolbox and use the practical tools at your disposal. Teach and model being an online learner and participant for your students. Encourage their attention and engagement. Offer varied ways for students to express themselves. Accept that what looks like engagement might not be. Celebrate that the student who you assume is disengaged might just be expressing their engagement in a different way than you're used to. Be human and know that your students are too.

How will you know if you've succeeded? Some students will have cameras on and will volunteer to share out. Others will never turn their camera on at all, but they'll respond in the chat and make ample use of the thumbs up emoji. Another student you won't be sure of, so you'll follow up with an email to see how the session went for them. They'll respond that they're still getting used to this whole Zoom thing, and that they really appreciate you checking on them. In the next session, you'll be thrilled to see their camera turned on, though they'll stay quiet for the entire class.

In short, students will make lots of different shapes in your Zoom classes, and you will continue to create the space for them to do so.

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As we gear up (did we ever gear down?) for fall semester to begin, it is increasingly clear that formal education will be relying more than ever on online teaching and learning, and within our online offerings, once again, it's apparent that many teachers will lean heavily on synchronous classes (a.

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In an effort to understand this new fatigue that may tax the more than 300 million daily participants of Zoom 2,3, experts representing diverse disciplines including acoustics, business, and the social sciences have contributed their explanations. For instance, audio has been proposed as the main reason that video meetings are draining. It turns out that millisecond delays in virtual verbal responses negatively affect our interpersonal perceptions, even without any internet or technical issues. 4,5

Other explanations attribute the fatigue to an underlying predisposition painted by the pandemic backdrop, such as increased financial stress and unemployment. Cognitive factors are also likely to contribute to fatigue, as an increased ability to virtually multitask threatens our attentional capacity. Exploring such multifactorial etiologies has delved us into a deeper understanding of the fragile intricacies that make up the precious in-person social interactions we had before COVID-19.

What is the psychological explanation of Zoom fatigue? Wecan start the exploration by revisiting the process of mental fatigue. A core psychological component of fatigue is a rewards-costs tradeoff that happens in our minds unconsciously. ⁶ Basically, at every level of behavior, a tradeoff is made between the likely rewards versus costs of engaging in a certain activity. ⁷ Even minor decisions, such as pressing the "Delete" versus "Backspace" button to erase a typed word, are made on the basis of these unconscious estimates to maximize reward (eg, time) over cost (eg, effort). ⁸ The link between this reward assessment and fatigue then comes here: activation of the dopaminergic pathways in brain structures associated with reward (eg, ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex [ACC], amygdala) increases subjective alertness, energy, and motivation 9,10 -the opposite of fatigue.

Is a lack of perceived reward relative to cost during videoconferencing a primary psychological mechanism of Zoom fatigue? Indeed, social interactions are very much associated with our reward circuits, as oxytocin-the hormone involved in social bonding-modulates these same dopaminergic pathways involved in reward processing. ¹¹ Moreover, how that social interaction happens seems to matter. For instance, functional MRI data reveal that live face-to-face interactions, compared to viewing recordings, are associated with greater activation in the same brain regions involved in reward (ie, ACC, ventral striatum, amygdala). ¹² So, more active social connection is associated with more perceived reward, which in turn affects the very neurological pathways modulating alertness versus fatigue.

This neuropathophysiology may explain Zoom fatigue. For example, if the audio delays inherent intechnology are associated with more negative perceptions and distrust between people 4,5, there is likely decreased reward perceived when those people are videoconferencing. Another example is direct mutual gaze. There is robust evidence on how eye contact improves connection-faster responses ¹³, more memorization of faces ¹⁴, and increased likeability and attractiveness. ¹⁵ These tools that make interactions organically rewarding are compromised over video. On video, gaze must be directed at the camera to appear like making eye contact with an observer, and during conferences with 3 or more people, it can be impossible to distinguish mutual gaze between any 2 people.

Not only are rewards lessened via these social disconnections during videoconferencing, but there are also elevated costs in the form of cognitive effort. Much of communication is actually unconscious and nonverbal, as emotional content is rapidly processed through social cues like touch, joint attention, and body posture. ¹⁶ These nonverbal cues are not only used to acquire information about others, but are also directly used to prepare an adaptive response and engage in reciprocal communication, all in a matter of milliseconds. ¹⁷ However, on video, most of these cues are difficult to visualize, since the same environment is not shared (limiting joint attention) and both subtle facial expressions and full bodily gestures may not be captured. Without the help of these unconscious cues on which we have relied since infancy to socioemotionally assess each other and bond, compensatory cognitive and emotional effort is required. In addition, this increased cost competes for people's attention with acutely elevated distractions such as multitasking, the home environment (eg, family, lack of privacy), and their mirror image on the screen. Simply put, videoconferences can be associated with low reward and high cost.

Further yet, there are undoubtedly many other factors contributing to Zoom fatigue. The biopsychosocial model commits our field of psychiatry to holistically consider all the hidden influences that make up our experiences. Biologically, videoconferencing is confounded by a more sedentary daily rhythm experienced during the pandemic. Notably, physical activity is associated with about a 40% reduced risk of fatigue. ¹⁸ Psychologically, a filtering of our stimuli through a fundamental rewards-costs analysis may explain how our dopaminergic pathways contribute. Socially, a perfect storm of vast unemployment, school shutdowns, racial injustices, political divisions, physical distancing, and loneliness predisposes everyone in our nation vulnerably.

The purpose of the biopsychosocial formulation, however, is to guide the treatment plan. Although the factors contributing to Zoom fatigue are complicated and multidimensional, a closer examination can lead to hope. The contributing factors, depending on their adjustability, serve as potential therapeutic targets to alleviate fatigue and salvage the aspects of social interaction that were once unconscious and taken for granted. Exploring alternative and more explicit ways to improve perceived reward psychologically during virtual communication may be a therapeutic approach for not only Zoom fatigue, but the mental and physical toll that come with it.
Dr Lee This article was originally posted on June 27, 2020, under the title"A Psychological Exploration of Zoom Fatigue," and has since been updated. -Ed References is Assistant Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California at Los Angeles and the Directorof the Pediatric Consult-Liaison Service and Pediatric Emergency Psychiatry at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital. She has nothing to disclose regarding this article.
1. Wolf CR. Virtual platforms are helpful tools but can add to our stress. Psychology Today. May 14, 2020. Accessed October 19, 2020. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-desk-the-mental-health-lawyer/202005/virtual-platforms-are-helpful-tools-can-add-our-stress

2. Patnaik S, Malara N, Mukherjee S. Zoom says it has 300 million daily meeting participants, not users. Reuters. April 30, 2020. Accessed October 19, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zoom-video-commn-encryption/zoom-says-it-has-300-million-daily-meeting-participants-not-users-idUSKBN22C1T4

3. Zoom Company News. 90-Day Security Plan Progress Report: April 22. Accessed October 19, 2020. https://blog.zoom.us/90-day-security-plan-progress-report-april-22/

4. Roberts F, Francis AL. Identifying a temporal threshold of tolerance for silent gaps after requests. J Acoust Soc Am. 2013;133(6):EL471-EL477.

5. Johnson. Why zoom meetings are so dissatisfying. The Economist. May 16, 2020. Accessed October 19, 2020. https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/05/16/why-zoom-meetings-are-so-dissatisfying ​

6. Boksem MA, Tops M. Mental fatigue: costs and benefits. Brain Research Reviews. 2008; 59:125-139.

7. van der Linden, D. The urge to stop: The cognitive and biological nature of acute mental fatigue. In: Ackerman PL, ed. Decade of Behavior/Science Conference. Cognitive fatigue: Multidisciplinary perspectives on current research and future applications. American Psychological Association; 2011: 149-164.

8. Dix A, Finlay J, Abowd G, Beale R. Human-computer interaction. Prentice Hall; 1993.

9. Lorist MM, Tops M. Caffeine, fatigue, and cognition. Brain and Cognition. 2003; 53:82-94.

10. Lorist MM, Boksem MAS, Ridderinkhof KR. Impaired cognitive control and reduced cingulate activity during mental fatigue. Cognitive Brain Research. 2005;24:199-205.

11. Donaldson ZR, Young LJ. Oxytocin, vasopressin, and the neurogenetics of sociality. Science. 2008;322:900-903.

12. Redcay E, Dodell-Feder D, Pearrow MJ, et al. Live face-to-face interaction during fMRI: A new tool for social cognitive neuroscience. Neuroimage. 2010;50:1639-1647.

13. von Grunau M, Anston C. The detection of gaze direction: a stare-in-the-crowd effect. Perception. 1995;24(11):1297-1313.

14. Mason MF, Hood BM, Macrae CN. Look into my eyes: gaze direction and person memory. Memory. 2004;12:637-643.

15. Nurmsoo E, Einav S, Hood BM. Best friends: children use mutual gaze to identify friendships in others. Dev Sci. 2012;15(3):417-425.

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A Neuropsychological Exploration of Zoom Fatigue

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In an effort to understand this new fatigue that may tax the more than 300 million daily participants of Zoom 2,3, experts representing diverse disciplines including acoustics, business, and the social sciences have contributed their explanations. For instance, audio has been proposed as the main reason that video meetings are draining.

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At this stage of the pandemic, it's surprising to exactly no one that spending lots of time on Zoom can be exhausting. The problem is so common that it even has a catchy name -- Zoom fatigue -- and an avalanche of articles suggesting fixes and workarounds. What's often less well understood is that not everyone is equally at risk of Zoom-related mental exhaustion.

A new study recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology showed that women and newer employees were more likely to feel exhausted by too much time on video calls. The reason helps to both illuminate the causes of Zoom fatigue and how we can all avoid it.

Zoom fatigue affects some employees more than others

To dig into who is most affected by Zoom fatigue, a team of researchers out of the University of Arizona monitored the video calls of just over 100 employees at a heavily remote company over the course of 19 working days. By asking participants to sometimes switch their cameras off or on and questioning them about their level of fatigue each day, the researchers were able to track the mental effects of time spent on camera during calls.

Their first finding was not exactly shocking: More time on camera increases your risk of feeling mentally exhausted at the end of the day. But when they looked closer at the data, the researchers noticed something less intuitive. Women and newer employees felt the effects of lots of Zoom time more strongly than more senior or male employees.

"The relationship between having the camera turned on and fatigue was stronger for women than men, and for those who were new to an organization compared with those who had been there for a longer time," the British Psychological Society Research Digest blog sums up.

They're not the first to notice this gender gap. Stanford research earlier this year also found that women and younger employees were more likely to suffer from Zoom fatigue. And that people of color were also at slightly higher risk.

What that tells us about avoiding Zoom fatigue

Why do these groups suffer disproportionately? That question is still under investigation, but the authors of the latest study have some ideas. They speculate that the explanation is self-consciousness. Those who are more worried they will be judged for their appearance, professionalism, or degree of engagement with the call spend more energy monitoring their own image during video calls, which leaves them feeling more drained afterward.

"Women often feel the pressure to be effortlessly perfect or have a greater likelihood of child care interruptions, and newer employees feel like they must be on camera and participate in order to show productiveness," explains study co-author Allison Gabriel.

The findings might provide some comfort to female or junior employees who were feeling alone in their struggles with Zoom fatigue. But they also offer actionable insight to just about anyone who spends a fair amount of time on video calls. The researchers note that simply switching off the camera, hiding your own image, or opting for a voice call can fight exhaustion, so if your workplace culture allows it, consider taking these steps when you start to feel tired.

The biggest lesson of all, however, might be for leaders who see video calls as the best way to keep tabs on out-of-office employees. You might feel more secure monitoring your people this way, but your insistence on always using video is likely having the unintended effect of sapping the effectiveness of your team, the women, young people, and people of color in particular.

Simply stating that you support the right of your employees to choose when they switch on the camera, cutting unnecessary meetings, and making sure to schedule adequate breaks between calls can go a long way toward preventing burnout and getting the best out of your people.

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Why Women and New Employees Are More at Risk for Zoom Fatigue, According to New Research

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At this stage of the pandemic, it's surprising to exactly no one that spending lots of time on Zoom can be exhausting. The problem is so common that it even has a catchy name -- Zoom fatigue -- and an avalanche of articles suggesting fixes and workarounds.

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, faculty members have been forced to move to online pedagogy, many with little or no preparation. They must now teach using Zoom, Google Meet and other software. While this technology provides opportunities for instructors to engage student learning in the midst of a global crisis, they are finding challenges with the platforms.

A number of articles and online postings have begun to emerge addressing concerns about teaching with video software and students' use of cameras. Many of the commentaries articulate a discomfort on the part of instructors when students do not turn their cameras on during synchronous class sessions. Consciously or unconsciously, the need to have cameras on -- while considered by many instructors as pedagogically sound -- is actually indicative of an attitude toward teaching that positions students as docile bodies in need of constant surveillance.

This pandemic undoubtedly makes all of us feel uncomfortable and out of control in many different ways. Searching for the familiar is a common approach to coping with these uncertain times. Staring at an empty box or just a name seems to make many instructors uncomfortable, yet feeling such discomfort does not give them the right to demand entry into students' private spaces.

Many people seem to believe that turning cameras on is a pedagogical necessity and indicates more engaged students. They assume that seeing students' faces during distance learning is a sign of participation and, conversely, that cameras off is an indication of disengagement.

Certainly, the concerns that instructors have about legitimate participation of their students in an online classroom are valid. But the ideologies of "cameras on" are incredibly problematic due to their racist, sexist and classist undertones. In this essay, we highlight and challenge the pathologizing of students that undergirds an instructor's necessity for cameras on, and offer alternative views that center empathy, flexibility and trust.
Why It's a Problem
Some instructors encourage students to turn their cameras on, while others penalize them for having their cameras off. Both approaches are an attempt to exert control over the bodies of their students, and few people question the premise that having cameras on is a necessary requirement for participation. Yet a cursory search of the literature shows research relating to communication, technology and the use of cameras as data-gathering tools but none on the necessity of cameras for learning or engagement. And, in fact, the added anxiety for some students who are asked to turn their cameras on may actually diminish their participation, as they feel a need to monitor their home, their family members and their intimate spaces while attempting to attend to classroom interactions.

Requesting or requiring students to let you inside their homes and private spaces can be culturally insensitive and ultimately racist. Students have the right to control their presentations of self and their intimate spaces. Demanding cameras on protects white racial privileges and traditional Western hierarchies of culture.

Why? Because, even in face-to-face settings, traditional markers of engagement are highly cultural. For example, maintaining eye contact as a sign of respect or engagement is a norm that some cultures do not practice. Instructors should not demand the right to claim unrestricted visual ownership of students' bodies and spaces. Asking students to allow you into their private spaces potentially has significant cultural implications. Many students' homes may have cultural artifacts and spaces that students do not want to share outside of their sociocultural groups.

Even assuming students have a space and technology that's their own is classist. Cameras off may be a function of bandwidth as much as privacy. Multiple family members may need computer bandwidth in one household. Most important, students often share homes -- they may have children, partners, extended family members or pets that make them uncomfortable turning their cameras on.

Students may also have legal and protective reasons for not showing themselves or their family members on camera. Out of respect for their family and sometimes even for their safety, students do not turn their cameras on.

Being "camera ready" may be highly gendered, as well. For some women, the need to look a particular way may be important to their presentation of self in a public forum. They may feel that they need to dress, fix hair and apply makeup in order to be camera ready. With caregiving and other demands at home, this may prove particularly challenging. Thus, many women may decide to keep their cameras off, which instructors often incorrectly perceive as demonstrating they're not academically engaged.

These are all critical equity issues that instructors should consider.
What Are the Alternatives?
For instructors, rather than focus energy on how to manipulate students to turn cameras on, we can concentrate on presenting the course content in ways that students can relate to. Some things to consider are:

Lean in to the discomfort you may have about teaching online and examine it.

Consider critical equity issues regarding race, gender and class when establishing your camera policy.

Learn to trust in your students to be in charge of their own bodies, spaces and learning.

Find ways to develop your virtual presence to show students that you are invested in their success.

Offer alternative ways for students to demonstrate their engagement that don't require cameras, such as using the chat function, organizing small group discussions and providing an online annotation tool for students to share their views.

The work of teaching requires the development of mutually respectful, trusting and supportive relationships. Respect and trust must extend to understanding students' needs for privacy and the safety from surveillance of their private lives. At the same time, as professional educators, we must attend to student learning and proficiency. But learning and proficiency do not necessarily go hand in hand with a camera turned on.

We have multiple ways as instructors to create structures for students to demonstrate their learning. Rather than force old practices of face-to-face interactions into virtual spaces, each of us needs to understand the discomfort and demands that our students encounter when forced to turn cameras on.

The gaze of the classroom may become an impediment to engagement, and while looking at students may be comfortable to instructors, for students, it can be an alien experience. And it may also be an even greater block to learning.

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Why it's wrong to require students to keep their cameras on in online classes (opinion)

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Requiring students to let you inside their homes and private spaces can be culturally insensitive and ultimately racist, sexist, gendered and classist, write Margaret Finders and Joaquin Muñoz.