Lessons Learned from an Unexpected Pandemic

The good news is that we appear to be nearing the end of the pandemic at least in some parts of the world. There is clearly much more to be done to make vaccines available to everyone, but in some countries the transition to post-pandemic life has begun and abandoned masks, those items that were precious just months ago, are beginning to appear in the streets.

Taking Stock

However, as we abandon masks, we should take stock of what we might have gained from pandemic induced practices in a number of fields, among them education and learning more broadly. It is likely that in the euphoria of returning to life and learning as we knew it before the spread of COVID-19 many of us will abandon the new practices that have allowed us to carry on remotely. Our hard-earned lessons, many of them with potential to improve our practices more generally, may be scattered to the wind along with our masks. 

As the spread of the virus drove many schools and colleges to shift rapidly to remote learning, those in instructional roles made the transition to a new tool set which they operated from their homes. Included were both those who had prior experience with distance learning and those who had carefully avoided it for decades. In both cases instructors were forced to improvise as they sought to continue working with their students.

Students were suddenly confronted with limited or no access to schools, campuses, training centers, and other sites of learning. Student responses depended on the circumstances they found themselves in when lock down restrictions were imposed. Learners of all ages discovered just how prepared they were to function at a distance in their everyday living arrangements. While some of our youngest learners were left in homes without internet access and computers, some of our oldest learners found themselves isolated from support resources upon which they had grown reliant.

There are valuable lessons for both educators and learners, lessons that may well be lost unless we take action to capture and preserve them. Each of us will have our own version of these important lessons, and I want to capture three of my own for each group.

Three Lessons for and about Educators

First, educators, many of whom have been reluctant or even resistant to distance learning, were able to shift to teaching online quickly, indeed, almost instantly in many cases. This is the result of the growing general communications infrastructure that we all increasingly use for everyday tasks. In most cases the change to online instruction required very little special effort, and certainly nothing like the efforts made in many institutions over the years as they tried to persuade faculty to teach online. Necessity is not only the mother of invention; it also beats all manner of institutional encouragement.

Second, educational institutions can recalibrate their digital learning support investments in an age where the technology for distance learning is ubiquitous, open, networked, and rapidly developing. This is true for two reasons revealed in the pandemic. On the one hand, the relationship between institutional infrastructure and excellence in online learning appears to be weak so institutional investments beyond some foundational level makes little impact. On the other hand, motivated teachers can access all the tools and techniques, complete with seemingly endless resources for their own learning, for low or no cost. This is great news; online learning has arrived, and it is not limited to traditional educational institutions. 

Third, educators of all sorts of students at all levels of learning can be increasingly independent, innovative, and excellent. Indeed, educators freed from institutional constraints, technical and otherwise, can create excellent learning experiences online, as evidenced by the educators who have invested time and energy in taking their practice online at a variety of online sites that gather learning experiences and make them readily available.

Three Lessons for and about Students

First, while it is true that students seem drawn to the human connections inherent in face-to-face learning experiences, it is increasingly possible to make such connections at a distance. This is particularly true if they are exposed to educators who engage with them actively and creatively on a regular basis.

Second, a big component of learning is social, and that means both the opportunity to connect with peers and the opportunity to learn from and with them. Educators can leverage this power of peer social connection to empower their instruction, but the techniques and tools would benefit from additional development. There are examples from the many educators who have invented approaches, and these need to be the basis for a new generation of work.

Third, the importance of high bandwidth connections to the internet cannot be overstated, and the absence of such readily available connections must be corrected as quickly as possible. The urgency of addressing connectivity is not diminished by the end of the pandemic because that same connectivity is an essential component of learning under all conditions, remote or face-to-face.

Retaining What We Have Gained

Let’s get back to school, to campus, to the workplace! But as we do, let’s be sure to take note of the lessons that we have learned the hard way through over a year of learning online. I have captured my own lessons. What are yours?