The challenge In March 2020, we pivoted to working remotely, as the pandemic unfolded itself. As one of the offices nested in the teaching and learning centre in a private research university in the United States, our study skills consulting team at the time was made up of four consultants: three full-time graduate students (including me) and a full-time assistant director as the team leader. We were juggling multiple commitments respectively before the pandemic. However, when we were stationed

more »

... at home, holding appointments with students via Zoom, the change revealed issues we previously seemed to handle well, one of which was communication. The timely casual chats had disappeared since we no longer saw each other at the office. For example, in a face-to-face environment, informing a colleague of project updates could take a few minutes. However, doing so via email could take much longer. Certainly, discussing over Zoom might hasten the process, but that would require additional time and effort to set up such a meeting. Consequently, we seemed to have become solely reliant on verbal communication, including emails and weekly Zoom meetings. Operating remotely largely diminished nonverbal, and put more strain on verbal, communication. Meanwhile, online communication, while viable, had influenced our sense of efficiency and progress. The response My doctoral coursework on learning theories and research offered me some tools to brainstorm possible strategies, particularly the notion of activity system (Greeno and