Doctor Nuran Kumbaraci, adored Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, has been teaching at Stevens for years but has since taken the Fall 2021 semester off from teaching. The COVID-19 pandemic which took a grip over the entirety of 2020 and the majority of 2021, caused many people to take caution when being in public. With the new Delta variant, widespread illness and risk have spiked once again, causing many schools to resort back to mandatory indoor mask mandates amidst public fear and caution. In a phone interview with The Stute, Dr. Kumbaraci explained her experiences with teaching over the pandemic, provided some input regarding online learning, and elaborated on the challenges of the pandemic.
When the COVID-19 pandemic came into full effect in March 2020, students, faculty, and staff were put under extreme pressure to figure out how to learn and teach online, without an in-person. Describing professors’ struggle with the transition to online teaching, Dr. Kumbaraci said, “we never attended our offices” and “without any books, without any notes, we had to redesign our courses and lectures from scratch […] many publishers, textbooks—you know, all my books, all my notes, all my exams—everything was in my office, and we were not supposed to go anywhere.”
While in the midst of being uprooted from the classrooms, professors struggled with making their courses engaging and keeping the students focused. With the added challenge of virtual learning, many professors, including Dr. Kumbaraci, struggled with trying to get their students to learn and communicate effectively in class, as they would if they were in person. Additionally, it was very difficult to get students to engage and participate in classes without the added help of laboratory experiments and hands-on learning. Dr. Kumbaraci claimed that students imagining and planning out an experiment is not the same as walking into a lab, opening an instruction manual, and solving the experiment themselves. Reading how to solve a problem off of a paper is not the same as performing an experiment, but it helped the students show their imagination through their work.
Dr. Kumbaraci further explained, “I tried to reach out to the students in many ways possible,” mentioning that with in-person classes, it is much easier to get students to collaborate, especially with group work. Without having in-person classes, Dr. Kumbaraci attempted to use breakout rooms on Zoom as a way to create a break between the lectures, but she quickly realized students were hesitant to participate in small groups. After some time, they started talking and collaborating, creating an environment similar to that of an actual classroom.
When asked how the pandemic has affected her and her teaching, she responded, “It was a new thing for many of us. It started with March 2020, and we kind of switched all of a sudden. Within two days we were introduced to Zoom; thank goodness, online teaching. And then, I was using some online programs already with my students, but Canvas became the medium to transfer a lot of information.” She followed this by explaining how everyone was learning new technology at the same time.
According to Dr. Kumbaraci, students became accustomed to the video screening app, Zoom and became “experts” with Zoom after only four months of screen sharing, making videos, and creating powerpoint presentations, which was very surprising to see. All students got better at using their computers and different online resources almost overnight, as they had to meet with the growing technological needs due to being trapped inside one’s own house. Even though this was very stressful for students and professors in the beginning, it helped them to lean into the future, especially about becoming accustomed with how the future is based on change. With technology constantly growing and changing, the COVID-19 pandemic showed society how adaptable it can be to change and showed people how they can and will handle the rapidly changing social status in the future.
When I asked about factors that may encourage Dr. Kumbaraci to return to Stevens, she responded that “Everything is helping. It is nice to go back.” Dr. Kumbaraci also mentioned that the cyber attack which hit Stevens three years ago and limited students’ and faculty’s access to the internet, was just as bad as being stuck solely online, since there was no network and class material could not be accessed. The cyber attack caused similar uncertainties to the pandemic, and the Stevens community was still able to bounce back and overcome it. As Dr. Kumbaraci remarked, “the question is again, using and generating technology to bypass the hurdles and anything that is deemed as a problem: try to make the best of it, to turn it into a positive, and see how you can take advantage of that problem.”
All and all, Stevens has bounced back from chaotic issues in the past, and it will continue to stand strong as an innovative, trail-blazing university. Times might look tough and fearful presently, but there is something beneficial that can be taken from each and every conflict. There are always going to be new gateways and opportunities tomorrow.
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