One year into the pandemic, higher education has come a long way in technology adoption and infrastructure preparedness in the face of something no one saw coming – and pivoted in a short amount of time. A year ago, we had a lot of potential of delivering education in different formats and teaching in remote locations. When the pandemic started, we had to stop talking about it and quickly figure out how to deal with the changing conditions.
It may not have been pretty or easy, but we did it, and we learned some things along the way, according to Greg Flanik, Chief Information Officer at Baldwin Wallace University, who was interviewed by Fierce Education’s Director of Content Elliot Markowitz before a global audience of education professionals on the topic of “The Accelerated Rate of Technology Adoption.” The session was the keynote address for Fierce Education’s virtual event, Higher Education: Technologies and Strategies in the New Blended Learning World, which is available on-demand here, as well as all the other sessions.
“As we all rushed during that transition, especially during that first semester, we introduced ourselves to different models of teaching. This wasn’t traditional online learning or online courses but remote instruction,” Flanik explains. “To be able to adopt different tools and technologies, we had to dig deep into our learning management stack and look at the supporting technologies that go with that and were very agile as we progressed through that period.” Institutions had to figure out how to deliver exams remotely, utilize lecture capture, facilitate courses in real-time synchronously and learn about platforms best suited to teaching and learning styles, for instance.
But today, higher education has a baseline of knowledge that we had never afforded to ourselves at this point last year as institutions tried different models of teaching, says Flanik. “Prior to the pandemic, we would talk about the possibilities of training everyone, and what that would look like for course delivery, opportunity and markets that we could expand and attract, and there’s just not enough time to deliver that training,” he explains. “Now, we’ve achieved a baseline, at least. It may not be perfect, and we’re not experts, but we know what’s possible.”
According to Flanik, before the pandemic, many people were questioning the value of higher education. “We were hearing about the rising costs of higher ed, people wanting to get out and work in a strong economy and job market and start making money versus expanding their knowledge, and questioning the value of some degrees,” he points out. “There will be more competition for fewer students in the next few years, as well as population shifts. Higher education needs a better business model. The pandemic has forced our hand.”
Golden Triangle Framework
The people, process, technology framework – the Golden Triangle – is the methodology in which people, process and technology drives action within an organization. Flanik explained that higher education institutions need to be able to do these three things very well in order to execute, be agile and be positioned for success. It’s these three capabilities that make up the Golden Triangle, which can help institutions prioritize their projects and work across departments, which is crucial in accomplishing goals.
When the presenters polled participants about the importance of cross-functional collaboration in identifying, specifying, purchasing and deploying new technology at their institution, about 98 percent responded that this form of collaboration between stakeholders is either significant or critically important.
Faculty training is also critically important. An innovative program helped Baldwin Wallace get up and running last year. “When the pandemic began, we created an online course called OHIO, which stands for online hybrid instruction orientation, and because our institution is located in the state,” Flanik says. “We immediately directed faculty members who weren’t up to speed on these technologies for the OHIO course. They were digesting the information online so they were seeing the possibilities of online learning at the same time they were learning what they needed to do to get through this.” After the course, the university pivoted to a synchronous session through Teams or Zoom and worked through challenges and answered questions.
“We had to take the student perspective and focus on remote instruction,” Flanik told session participants. “Students wanted some sort of continuity and assurance that we would get through the Spring 2020 semester. We wanted to first get faculty members comfortable with reconnecting using a technology platform with students that they’re comfortable with.” Some chose to do that synchronously, some asynchronously and some used a mix and then pivoted and figured out what worked well for them.”