All hands on deck are required to quickly support faculty transition from a traditional classroom to an online environment. Discussion of best practices and learns created before the COVID-19 stay-home order as well as those in direct response due to it; A case study.
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Introduction
During the winter of 2019 and 2020, education was humming along. Technology use was spread out among institutions that ranged from entirely online to zero online teaching and learning. Judging from the adoption of technology models, this is what you would expect. Early adopters were out in front of the technology curve, bearing the brunt of technology issues while the rest of the curve sat back and watched how it played out. Predictably, you saw online early adopters ridiculed 20 years ago. Analogies to “distance learning” made educators scoff at online learning, claiming true education must be done face to face rather than merely leveraging an exchange of electronic worksheets. With plenty of students and funding to go around, few institutions found the need or desire to integrate new online technologies into their curriculums.
Ten years later saw the rise of serious market disruptors who were leveraging online coursework. Intense research took place in the areas of online pedagogy, instructional design, and learning management systems. New academic jobs emerged out of the new educational technology. As market disruptors started to eat into a shrinking market, institutions began to take notice and began their endeavors around online education. 10 years after that brings you to January 2020.
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What Happened
The spread of the coronavirus is well-documented. It evolved from "another country’s problem" to world pandemic in a handful of weeks. States in the US all directed some sort of closures for their public spaces, including colleges and universities. Soon, institutions were scrambling to create remote learning strategies to get them through the rest of the spring semester.
Most colleges and universities left for spring break and had their faculty engage the students remotely via whatever tools they had available upon return. Students and faculty were caught off guard, scrambling to figure out how to remote learn.
With Spring Semester over, most college and universities looked toward fall and attempted to figure out how to make online learning happen long-term, if needed.
Immediate Barriers
Many barriers have presented themselves. Schools have varying degrees of online learning experience. Some have no learning management systems, while others have limited faculty who are well-versed in online teaching. Often, there are lab-heavy courses that simply don’t translate well to online.
Solution Architecture
In this case, most of the transition need came in the form of training. That training was executed in two major fronts: Faculty and Student training.
First, there were Just-in-Time workshops that were offered virtually for faculty. In this phase, the focus was on aiding the faculty in getting through the spring semester. Students went away for an extended spring break, so faculty had time to maneuver their lesson plans. These workshops trained on leveraging their existing tools rather, such as video conference software and their existing common online gradebook. The online gradebook served as a repository for reference materials and grades. It was not leveraged as online coursework (yet) but having a “home space online was helpful to many faculty.
Once that phase was complete, phase 2 looked toward summer and fall. Many online faculty training modules were developed both in online pedagogy and tools training (how to leverage the Learning Management System). Knowing there was a wide range of expertise in online learning, each training module corresponded to a level of knowledge (foundational, basic, advanced).
With those modules, there was also an assessment that would help determine which modules faculty would need.
In phase 3, there were inherent team-ups with faulty (who were subject matter experts) with Instructional designers (who were experts in arranging content for online learning)
Getting Students Up To Speed
Finally, there was the opportunity to train the students.An online module was created that allowed students to practice the basic functions on online tools and learning; posting discussion, mail, submission, and quizzing.All students take this module. Completion reports are given to the respective faculty heads
Conclusion
While some may be bullish on face to face returning to campus, schools need to prepare now more than ever.
COVID-19 took the education community (and all industries) by surprise. Some experts are predicting a second wave of COVID infections will cause more stay-at-home orders and will once again put education communities on the defensive with impromptu virtual learning. Fortunately, we as an education community, have the ability to move quickly and leverage remote learning tools like never before. Doing so will ensure we continue to offer the best teaching and learning available, regardless of the modality.