EDUCAUSE recently published research findings from a piece entitled Fall Planning for the New Normal: Moving Higher Ed Online, which explores the ways higher education institutions are responding to the COVID-19 crisis - with a closer look at the role of technology and how technology leaders in shaping students’ educational experiences.
The evidence examined the challenges for “adapting and improving online and physical spaces,” as well as “potential solutions to address the health risks and needs of students, faculty, and staff during these unique times.”
The study highlighted the need for both agility and flexibility, combined with coordination in decision making when it comes to institutions, leaders, and students choosing and implementing technology solutions during the global pandemic. The same goes for the technologies that they are relying on - which need to “become equally agile and flexible in adoption and deployment.”
EDUCAUSE and Cisco conducted two polls - the first, surveyed in June, 2020, asked “What teaching and learning scenario does your institution plan to support for the fall term?”
Source: Sean Burns and Mark McCormack. “Fall Planning for the New Normal: Moving Higher Ed Online.” EDUCAUSE, September 15, 2020.
After many false starts to in-person education this fall, most campuses have made the switch to all-remote teaching and learning for the time being.
The second survey asked, “What type of technology solutions will be available in most or all courses at your institution? The results found that among the solutions available for most or all online courses for higher education in the fall, “institutions favor asynchronous solutions for hybrid learning....”
Source: Sean Burns and Mark McCormack. “Fall Planning for the New Normal: Moving Higher Ed Online.” EDUCAUSE, September 15, 2020.
They found, “institutions are using a variety of multimodal solutions to hybridize their courses and make them available for remote students using a mixture of asynchronous and, perhaps less commonly, synchronous approaches.”
To provide a more qualitative approach on how higher education is adapting, three institutions and their approaches were highlighted with respective case studies.
- Auburn University
- Harvard Business School Online
- Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine
The Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine shares a multi-campus approach to online teaching and learning using T1V’s ThinkHub Connect MultiSite technology. This software-based active learning technology controls both the learning activity and the material delivered to students (like file-based content, web-based content, and more…) while allowing students and instructors to be connected in real-time from any network, no matter where they are.
An interactive distance teaching and learning platform like ThinkHub Connect MultiSite enables student engagement on par with the on-site experience, which is especially important for medical and clinical skills development.
Regardless of what technology is deployed throughout institutions this academic year, the evidence is in.
We must keep the constantly shifting scenarios in mind and be ready to pivot with our technology solutions. And it is more important than ever how we adapt these technology solutions as a conduit for the educational experience.
Read the full study on the new normal for higher education here.