Now that classes are online, colleges and universities have a responsibility to ensure that effective learning is still taking place for their students. Here are a few things worth considering as you navigate the next few months.
- Remote Learning ≠ Online Learning
Experienced online learning professionals will be the first to tell you that effective online course delivery goes far beyond administering lectures and assignments through an online interface. The enemy of online learning is a lack of engagement from and between students. Be sure to consider the aspects of in-person courses that will be most difficult to replicate in a distance learning environment and work hard to continue optimizing courses as you progress through the term. Don’t hesitate to reach out to online learning experts to figure out how you can improve learning outcomes for your students.
- Achievement Gaps Tend to Widen in Online Courses
Research has shown that certain groups students tend to have more difficulty adjusting to online courses than others. What tends to happen when students are forced to transition to an online format, the ones who were already doing well will do better and the ones who were doing poorly will do worse. That’s why it’s incredibly important to pay close attention to helping students who are having difficulty making the adjustment. Faculty members should be encouraged to collaborate with academic advisors and coaches to identify students who may be struggling and develop an appropriate plan of action.
- Some Students are Going to Cheat
Many students may find themselves struggling to keep up with their courses in this new format. Other students may see this as an opportunity to do less work than when they have in-person classes. Whatever the reasons may be, you should make an effort to understand why students cheat so that you can keep it from happening as much as possible. While the classic trope that “students are really only cheating themselves” makes it easy to ignore academic dishonesty as a crime that only harms the perpetrator, in reality, it undermines the integrity of the service you are providing students. Keep in mind that students were not prepared for this adjustment any more than campus leadership was.
- Student Engagement Shouldn’t be Overlooked
In a time where your students are as socially disconnected from campus as they have ever been, finding ways to drive student engagement can be incredibly impactful. Interacting with fellow students can help to reduce the psychological size of the institution during a time when students are bound to feel particularly alone. Whether this involves providing resources for clubs and organizations to continue meeting during this time or partnering with student government to plan virtual events for students to attend, it’s definitely worth making an effort to connect students as best you can.
- Listening to Students is Critical During This Time
It can be easy to feel as though you need to be the expert on serving your students’ needs. In reality, the people who know the most about your students’ needs are your students. Take advantage of this opportunity to gather student feedback about the changes you are making to ensure that you are achieving your intended objectives. Using a combination of surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews, you should be able to discern how pleased your students are with the way that your institution is handling the situation at hand. Furthermore, if students feel as though their voices are being heard, they will be much more likely to persist.
- Academic Peer Support Has Never Been More Important
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that students will need more support than ever before as we all navigate this turbulent time of unexpected change. At the start of any semester, students are faced with the task of familiarizing themselves with new courses and professors. When those courses are forced to run in a completely different way, they must go through this process again while dealing with the added stress of a global pandemic that could be affecting their lives in a myriad of different ways. Finding ways to bolster academic support helps to ensure that these students are not forced to deal with this entirely on their own. Take the time to consider low-cost opportunities to scale and supplement your existing peer support programs to ensure that no student gets left behind.
While everyone involved with transitioning courses online on such short notice should be proud of the work they have done so far, the initial hurdle has made way for a series of new challenges. In order to make this a truly successful transition, colleges and universities need to continually improve online course delivery, minimize the effects of inequity, understand and eliminate reasons why students may decide to cheat, encourage and enable students to engage with one another, incorporate student feedback into decision making, and expand academic support to satisfy the growing demand.
