The "Class Meeting"

In college teaching, the “class meeting” is very important. It is this meeting at a specific time and in a specific place that proves that we have “taught” and that the students have “learned.” Although a class meeting does not verify any of these things, perhaps we can agree that the class meeting is a ritual, a gathering. The class meeting is more than a ritual activity that occurs in a specific place. The class meeting is a space. True, the typical class meeting includes gatherings inside the official “class time” in a specific place but it also includes gatherings outside the official class time. Discussion forums, small groups, and engagement with course materials almost always all occur outside of the official class time. With the exponential increase of remote and online courses due to COVID-19 virus, our traditional perception of the class meeting is changing. Indeed, it must change because the traditional structures simply are no longer feasible at this time. The class meeting is more than a ritual activity that proves that teaching and learning is occurring. It is a pedagogical location of incubation, cultivation, and development. At the same time, it is an unstable space. what happens during the class meeting is unstable because there is a constant movement, flow, and exchange. The meeting encompasses the expression of knowledge, ideas, thoughts, beliefs, values, attitudes, and emotions. Ideas, knowledge, and emotions move, flow, and change. Although what happens within the class meeting is unstable and moving, what is constant is the fact of the class meeting. College teachers will be able to manage the assault on their common notions of the class meeting and what it means. They will be able to manage this new way of thinking because they will see that it was never just the fact they met in a specific classroom at the specific time. College teachers will realize that it was always about the movement, flow, and exchange of knowledge, ideas, thoughts, beliefs, values, attitudes, and emotions no matter when those interactions and engagements occurred.