In-person classes

I look forward to teaching you. I do not want to overpromise and underdeliver. Covid is posing many challenges that we have never faced before and there are no perfect solutions. I am trying my best.

You are not required to attend any class in person

You are free to choose whether you want to be in-person or remote and you can change that decision from class to class without informing me in advance or seeking my permission. There is no penalty for attending remotely.

For those attending in person

Interacting with students who are attending in person will be challenging because of the following reasons:

  1. Teaching while wearing a mask is tolerable but not fun.
  2. It is a bit difficult to hear student questions or to see their expressions. However, it is tolerable.
  3. I am more animated while teaching in person.

For those attending remotely

All classrooms have been set up to work via Zoom as follows:

  1. I will start a Zoom session at the beginning of each class. You will login as you normally would.
  2. You will be able to see the class video as a Zoom video and see the screen I share with you.
  3. It is very difficult for me to read your text/chat while teaching via Zoom when I am sitting on my computer desk. This will be virtually impossible to do when I am teaching in person away from my computer desk.
  4. Your oral questions via Zoom will be broadcast live to the classroom via the classroom speakers, and I will respond to them. Otherwise, you can send the question via text/chat and ask someone in class to alert me that you have sent a text.
  5. You will have a hard time hearing what in-person students are saying in class. There were requests that I repeat every student comment in class. This is not feasible. I will try to summarize what they are sayng.
  6. Assuming all of this works correctly, taking an in-person class remotely should be somewhat inferior to attending a Zoom class because I will not be next to the screen watching you. Instead, I will be facing the classroom.

NYU has exerted an incredible effort to make in-person classes work. Let us give it our best shot.