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Sustaining the gains and building on the good outcomes associated with higher ed's response to COVID-19 can enhance the quality and distribution of online teaching and learning, build up resources and infrastructure, and ultimately save institutions valuable time and money.
Dr. John Nworie, currently an independent researcher concluded, To say that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly interrupted the normal operation of educational institutions worldwide is a huge understatement.
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| Photo: Infobond / Shutterstock.com © 2021 |
According to UNESCO, the educational experiences of nearly 1.4 billion students—of all ages—were disrupted.Footnote1 In an uncharacteristically swift action for higher education, the COVID-19 pandemic forced colleges and universities to move their courses online while faculty, administrators, and staff worked remotely in order to protect millions of students and themselves. Since then, remote courses, remote student support services, remote graduation ceremonies, and remote campus tours became the new norm, all aimed at controlling the rapid spread of this deadly virus.
The attendant challenges initially stemmed from logistics, inadequate hardware and software, and curriculum and assessment adjustments. A large and varied number of faculty and students were unprepared to teach or learn remotely. Lack of access to digital devices, to the internet, and to sufficient bandwidth further exposed the lingering issues of the digital divide. Many institutions lacked robust online programs, sufficient instructional design and technology staff, appropriate course-development processes, and/or adequately structured student support mechanisms.
With emergency remote teachingFootnote2 as the only option, even the online education doubters and naysayers had no choice but to jump on the bandwagon, applying teaching strategies that mimicked classroom instruction in an attempt to enable students to move to the next level or even graduate...
What's Next for Faculty?Before the pandemic, information on how to teach remotely, across all disciplines during an emergency, was limited. While there have been previous disruptions because of earthquakes, tornados, the H1N1 pandemic, and other natural disasters, nothing compares to the magnitude and intensity of COVID-19. It would be a mistake to assume that all faculty suddenly developed essential skills or an enthusiasm for online teaching as a result of the emergency remote teaching...
Final ThoughtsThe pandemic tested the resilience of colleges and universities as they executed online learning on a massive scale by creating online courses, adopting and adapting to unfamiliar technologies, engaging faculty en masse in remote teaching, and successfully meeting the instructional needs of students. Those experiences and lessons should not be discarded. The next phase for higher education in a post-COVID-19 world is to harness what worked well during the emergency response period and use those experiences to improve institutional practices for the benefit of both internal and external constituencies in the future.
Source: EDUCAUSE Review
