Zoom Class: Should Students Keep Their Cameras On?

I teach a first-year seminar each fall. Last year we met remotely—via Zoom during regularly scheduled class times. I wrestled about the ethics of requiring students to keep their cameras on. I decided to strongly encourage my students to keep their cameras on during class. It seemed to work out well. Students felt OK about turning their cameras off briefly while they took a bathroom break, got a snack, and so on. But they pretty much kept their cameras on all the time. Students reported that they enjoyed seeing their new colleagues, and that our class was pretty much the only one where they saw other people. For students in their first semester, seeing each other on Zoom may have been an important way to create a sense of community and belonging. My course evaluations were good, and we were able to tackle the technological problems that some students experienced.

My situation now: Most classes this fall will be held on campus, but I’m staying remote. Why am I holding class via Zoom again? First, as an insurance policy against having to re-adjust to a new outbreak mid-semester. Second, because student surveys on my campus have shown that students appreciated the remote format—meeting in real-time but via Zoom. Third, because I want to see if all the new things I tried last year will work again.

My question: Should I still strongly encourage, or require students, to keep their cameras on? Things are different now, and I’m doing some rethinking.

On the positive side or requiring video, there are the course evaluations, the sense of belonging, the integration of these new students into the academic arena, the feedback we get when somebody makes a point or tells a joke. But let’s not be too hasty. Here are (only) three considerations.

First: Students’ situations will be different this fall, as some or most of their courses will meet on campus. Thus, they will be interacting live with other students. Therefore, the necessity to see each other all (or even most of) the time might be diminished.

Second: Stress and Zoom fatigue were two major problems identified by Tabitha Moses last fall. She argued that for these and other reasons, students should be allowed to “keep their cameras off during Zoom classes.” What is the stress and fatigue situation going to be this fall? It is possible that Zoom fatigue might be less of a problem because of the variety of meeting patterns students will have. It is also likely, however, that students may experience more anxiety and stress as they adjust to this variety—on top of the stress (including positive stress) of readjusting to post-pandemic life.

Third: There are research findings, summarized in a recent article by Monica Torres, that call into question some of the assumed benefits of video for remote meetings. She cites research by Kraus (2017) that demonstrated that people were more accurate in their empathy when presented with only voice cues rather than both voice and facial cues. Torres: “This finding underscores that vocal cues are more critical to helping us understand emotions than facial cues.” She cites another study (Tomprou et al., 2021) which demonstrated that group problem-solving during video conferencing was not enhanced, and may have been reduced, when people had visual cues in addition to voice cues.

Business meetings are not necessarily that similar to college classrooms, and group problem-solving and empathy are only two aspects of my first-year seminar—there are others. However, these findings point to some potential benefits of voice-only interactions. Some combination of on- and off-camera activities might work best. For instance, Torres tells us of a company that has “recently designated Fridays as ‘camera-free' days for work meetings.” Maybe I need to explore voice-only class periods or exercises.

My bottom lines:
(a) I cannot simply assume that conversations on Zoom are equivalent to face-to-face interactions.
(b) To maximize the advantages of Zoom, I need to fine-tune my approach.
(c) As is often the case, there might be effective alternatives to an “all-or-none” approach.
(d) A question for the future: What am I going to learn from my remote experiences that I need to take back to the classroom next year?