Last week, I wrote about some of the lessons I have learned from experiencing the mass migration to online learning that was required in the face of COVID-19. These lessons included a lack of preparation, concerns about equity, and finally some real skepticism about delivering education online. This week, I would like to talk about how we might be prepared for the fall, address some issues of equity, and do a good job of blended learning environments. Here we go.
Be Prepared
Preparing for fall 2020 is preparing for a great deal of uncertainty. While some campuses are boldly stating that they will be fully on-ground, and others are declaring that most things will be online, for many of us, the plan is shaping up to be some combination of those things, or what we have been calling a hybrid campus. After a first round of conversations with faculty and staff, and while we are waiting for system and state-level guidance, WCSU is working on a plan that reflects a campus prepared for a changeable reality.
Step one: Every course and all student support systems will be ready for online delivery. We hope to not need this measure, but it is easier to switch from online to on-ground than the other way around. This way, we will actually be prepared to continue education, uninterrupted in the fall.
Step two: We are mapping spaces and schedules to determine how much we can offer on-ground with reasonable social distancing measures in place. We are puzzling through labs because they really are better face-to-face. We are re-imagining studio courses. We are thinking about a safe number of people in a room, in the hall, in office areas to determine maximum occupancy. We are scrutinizing schedules for adequate time between classes to make room for people to be on campus without -literally-bumping into each other.
Step three: We are thinking developmentally. Instead of just prioritizing courses that really do not do well online, we are also thinking about the transition from high school to college and how we can help these students develop skills for navigating a hybrid learning experience. We already know that the drop in structured time from high school to college is a challenge; being partially online, makes this an even bigger concern
And there will be a million other logistical questions about managing a campus organized around social distance, but we have begun to plan, and it feels good.
Strive for Real Equity
Last week, I mentioned the issue of equity that we have long neglected in public higher education – reasonable access to electronic resources. As we made the mad dash home March, we were busy handing out laptops, ordering laptops, and securing access to the internet in some capacity. Now, it is time to plan for that access from the start, and forever after.
Fortunately, the first level thinking about this is simple. We need to include technology and connectivity as part of our enrollment process. Unfortunately, it gets more complicated after that. Setting minimum standards for laptops is one important question. If we do not do so, all of the software we think we made available to our students will not actually be available. Then there are students in majors with specialized software that may require a higher standard. This is a little bit complicated.
More complex, as always, is the question of funding. We are going to have to examine our fee structure, financial aid processes, and discretionary funding sources, to help us ensure that these tools are equitably deployed. But this is a question we should have answered before COVID-19, so let’s get to it.
Online Learning
All right, all right. I know I said online learning sucked. Nevertheless, we are going to have to leverage this important learning environment. So, let me be more thoughtful in what “it sucks” might mean and how we can overcome it.
First, there are some basics. Every university chooses a learning management system (LMS) -Blackboard is ours. LMS’s are varied in their capabilities and ease of usage, but no matter what, none of them meets everyone’s needs. This leads to rogue behavior in which faculty find other sites to use for their teaching environment. I do not blame them. I understand that all officially sanctioned environments are less than perfect.
Unfortunately, this sucks for students. Having to hunt around for entry points is disconcerting at best and alienating at worst. So, we are going to have to find a compromise that gives students an easy map to finding their courses, while allowing faculty to leverage appropriate tools. It is not that hard to work this out, but it must be worked out.
Second, online teaching and learning is not the same as the face-to-face environment. It lacks immediacy and often undermines spontaneity. There can be benefits to the lack of immediacy, particularly when students need time to think before responding, but if things are not structured well, what students feel is alone and what professors feel is overworked. It is also the case that some of our favorite pedagogies – like moving in and out of groups in the classroom, or fostering seminar discussions, or introducing topics and then watching students wrangle them– are just harder to achieve online. They are harder, but not impossible.
This sucks for faculty, at least initially. Planning for classes will have to be much more prescriptive than some of us are used to doing. Creating week-by-week schedules, assigning and reassigning groups, popping between “rooms” to mentor conversations, or fostering sustained dialogue over time, are all a lot of work. Nevertheless, these teaching experiences can be rewarding, and sometimes, as we navigate moving between learning environments, better course design can occur.
There is so much more to say about creating a good, hybrid learning environment, and there are lots of developmental questions that must be considered. But here is what does not suck…expanding how we think about education. This moment has presented an amazing opportunity to do just that, and it will be hard but exciting work. So, I will not complain anymore about the negatives, because there is a new adventure in education ahead and that does not suck at all.
