COVID-19 gave higher education a glimpse into how fast education technology is evolving in the digital space. And that is certainly going to accelerate moving forward.
“The rate of change is only going to accelerate, whether we like it or not,” said Paul Kim, Chief Technology Officer and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, during the annual REMOTE: The Connect Faculty Summit held in early June and sponsored by Arizona State University. Along with Kim, Ray Schroeder, Associate Vice Chancellor for Online Learning at the University of Illinois, Springfield, and Sasha Thackaberry, Vice President for Online and Continuing Education at Louisiana State University, joined the round-table discussion about thriving after the pandemic in the session titled “The New Normal: How Education Can Thrive in a Digital World.”
The panel began by describing the major changes witnessed at their institutions over the past 15 months. Thackaberry said that Louisiana State already had an initiative going pre-pandemic to eventually have as many online as in-person students. Therefore, faculty were already being trained on the infrastructure of virtual learning before COVID-19 hit. So, while the school’s environment was ready for the online transition last spring, the administration will continue to work on the overall strategy. For example, the university is looking to create stackable degree credentials for post-traditional learners.
“Who is going to be our core customer is going to look very, very different in the future, so the infrastructure is critical,” Thackaberry said. As with many institutions, Louisiana State is looking to adjust the college experience to offer everything from non-credit, three-hour classes through graduate degrees, with the idea of “no credit wasted.”
Schroeder chimed in that the University of Illinois, Springfield, launched its first online degree program back in 1997 and now offers more than two dozen exclusively online degrees. And, overall, in the school, 98% of students who graduate have taken at least one online class. Therefore, when the pandemic hit, he felt the school and faculty were better prepared than other large universities to implement hybrid or fully online classes.
“It was a tidal wave that swept over many institutions,” he said.
When Stanford was hit with news of the pandemic, the team created an ambassador program to hire the best technical wizards from within the student population to help get the faculty get up and running in the online world.
Next, all three panel members discussed some of their most innovative online initiatives from the past year.
For Thackaberry, she was most proud of transitioning the faculty and administration to working outside of traditional business hours. Meaning historically, faculty had office hours and students would engage primarily with professors during and after class. But as students were working on courses asynchronously at all hours of the day during the pandemic, Louisiana State had to find ways to offer virtual support whenever students needed it. In fact, Thackaberry noted that all universities will need to adapt to this way of customer support soon “otherwise, students will go elsewhere.”
Schroeder agreed that institutions need to adapt for the student of the future. For example, younger students, from the YouTube generation, are of the DIY approach to education, or what is often called heutagogy—self-determined learning.
Plus, colleges need to better prepare these students for today’s work world. Citing the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Schroeder said that the average tenure of a US job is just over four years.
“That means that people are changing jobs and employers every four years, which means they need training and education. Our role in this will be important,” he said.
And Thackaberry chimed in: “We have to get good at learning fast, not and just transferable skill sets, the value of sill sets that come higher education with so they can plus one, level up, those skills faster.”
Finally, Kim asked the group about best practices to encouraging problem solving, critical thinking and inquiry-based learning.
Schroeder said that faculty must be careful not to just teach content, but to make the connection for students by bridging what they are learning to working in the field—from classroom to workplace.
Thackaberry noted that so much of today’s college curriculum is outdated and moves at a slower pace than the working world.
“We all have to be good at learning more things, more effectively, and faster,” she said.
For more articles from the REMOTE summit go to:
Preparing for the Unprepared: Strategies for Equitable, Inclusive Education
The Future of Admissions Presents Challenges and Opportunities
6 Evidence-Based Techniques for Hybrid Teaching
Lessons Learned From the Pandemic Will Forever Shape Higher Education
Higher Education Faculty at the Helm of Equality and Inclusion