Question 1: COVID-19 has introduced a myriad of complexities and uncertainties in the education space. How has this changed decision making for your institution?
“Decision making in a regular time can be long and frustrating. Now those barriers have just melted away because we had to get things done. We have been able to develop a continuity-of-operations plan within our Teaching and Learning Center predicting where we might go. We shifted to remote work and we were able to respond really well. We did a lot of cross training early on so that if someone was sick with COVID or not able to work, we were still able provide the support they needed. Being on Canvas instead of Blackboard was also a saving grace, because we had just trained everybody on how to use Canvas. Moving to this fall, we are partially face to face, but 60% online—more of a hybrid model.”
Dawn M. Ford, PhD, Assistant Provost and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga
“We had to get very comfortable, very quickly, thinking in parallel lines. We did some intentional work on the front end about how we would manage the process of more complex systems-level thinking, knowing that some of the things we were planning for may never come to pass. We recently launched a campus-wide effort to help students use design thinking as a way to rethink what is meaningful to them and how they can construct education at Bowling Green State that closely aligns with their goals and values. A lot of the elements of design thinking, including the need to quickly ideate, reframe problems, prototype, iterate, and pivot, helped inform our thinking along the way. We ended up trying some things that under normal circumstances we may not have taken the risk on, which led to some really interesting innovations.”
Glenn Davis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“We became aware of the need to be really quick and responsive, and pull together teams from across multiple places in campus to address emerging problems. The longer drawn-out consultation processes that often are part of decision making in higher education had to be truncated. We used “tiger teams” and brought smaller groups of people from across the institution together in much more targeted ways. This collaborative approach to responding to issues has increased exponentially and opened up connections that never happened pre-COVID. It's formed alliances and created opportunities for us to learn about each other's work and how we pull together to address issues; these collaborations and relationships will persist past this.”
Nancy Turner, Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at University of Saskatchewan
“When COVID hit and we went into the shutdown, we were in the midst of a transition from another LMS as we migrated to Canvas. We were fortunate to have an LMS project team in place ready to support the migration to emergency remote learning. As a college that has had a blended mandate for the last eight years, all of our courses do have an online presence and the majority of our faculty do some degree of online delivery in a blended context. We were aligned on the skills and competencies and had a good foundation for making the transition. We took a two-week pause in instruction, at which point The Centre for Teaching and Learning went into overdrive to get all the resources and support in place for all of our faculty to come back and start emergency teaching.”
Leslie Marshall, Associate Dean, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
“Decision making in a regular time can be long and frustrating. Now those barriers have just melted away because we had to get things done. We have been able to develop a continuity-of-operations plan within our Teaching and Learning Center predicting where we might go. We shifted to remote work and we were able to respond really well. We did a lot of cross training early on so that if someone was sick with COVID or not able to work, we were still able provide the support they needed. Being on Canvas instead of Blackboard was also a saving grace, because we had just trained everybody on how to use Canvas. Moving to this fall, we are partially face to face, but 60% online—more of a hybrid model.”
Dawn M. Ford, PhD, Assistant Provost and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga
“We had to get very comfortable, very quickly, thinking in parallel lines. We did some intentional work on the front end about how we would manage the process of more complex systems-level thinking, knowing that some of the things we were planning for may never come to pass. We recently launched a campus-wide effort to help students use design thinking as a way to rethink what is meaningful to them and how they can construct education at Bowling Green State that closely aligns with their goals and values. A lot of the elements of design thinking, including the need to quickly ideate, reframe problems, prototype, iterate, and pivot, helped inform our thinking along the way. We ended up trying some things that under normal circumstances we may not have taken the risk on, which led to some really interesting innovations.”
Glenn Davis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“We became aware of the need to be really quick and responsive, and pull together teams from across multiple places in campus to address emerging problems. The longer drawn-out consultation processes that often are part of decision making in higher education had to be truncated. We used “tiger teams” and brought smaller groups of people from across the institution together in much more targeted ways. This collaborative approach to responding to issues has increased exponentially and opened up connections that never happened pre-COVID. It's formed alliances and created opportunities for us to learn about each other's work and how we pull together to address issues; these collaborations and relationships will persist past this.”
Nancy Turner, Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at University of Saskatchewan
“When COVID hit and we went into the shutdown, we were in the midst of a transition from another LMS as we migrated to Canvas. We were fortunate to have an LMS project team in place ready to support the migration to emergency remote learning. As a college that has had a blended mandate for the last eight years, all of our courses do have an online presence and the majority of our faculty do some degree of online delivery in a blended context. We were aligned on the skills and competencies and had a good foundation for making the transition. We took a two-week pause in instruction, at which point The Centre for Teaching and Learning went into overdrive to get all the resources and support in place for all of our faculty to come back and start emergency teaching.”
Leslie Marshall, Associate Dean, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
2: This crisis has forced a lot of short-term changes, first in the spring of this year and now as we look at back-to-school season. What long-term changes, if any, will this drive in higher education?
“Now that we have proven we can work from home, why do we need to come back to the office? That's something we are managing right now. Long term, the work environment is just going to change for the better. The value of hybrid instruction was seen by more people, including faculty development. We are getting better attendance than we ever had on campus, and I expect that to continue as we are reaching more people. We adopted Quality Matters, a framework for developing quality online and hybrid courses, in 2015. The administration at the time wanted to require it of all online and hybrid courses, and there was tremendous pushback because people wanted control over what they're teaching, which is not what Quality Matters is about. It's about design, not content. So we are talking to a lot of faculty about how to design quality online and hybrid courses aligned to outcomes. Long term, people are seeing the value of Quality Matters and the value of good design. It's not about academic freedom. It's about using best practices to deliver your courses.”
Dawn M. Ford, PhD, Assistant Provost and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga
“The importance of access to technology and equity has been a problem for many years. Being compelled to identify where in technology, in the curriculum, and in other areas those inequities lie is one of the largest changes that we're going to see moving forward. With the pandemic, we’re being compelled to identify places where we might've had a patch over a problem, both with the technology and other aspects within the university system. Now, we're hopefully going to address the root causes of some of the problems that were leading to some of the inequities that we've been seeing on our campuses.”
Glenn Davis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“There's definitely going to be a long-term impact on systems. There is the digital divide and the investment that institutions in partnership with the government are making to try to address those differences in rural and other communities. In addition to that investment in accessibility, we've also seen a significant investment in learning technology infrastructure. We've been exceptionally grateful to have the Canvas platform and the extended suite of tools available for our online and remote provision. We've really been working a lot with faculty to think about the transition as a transformation of teaching practices. We've been able to really dig in to have conversations around ‘What outcomes are you trying to achieve with your students?’ Long term, we will see more flexible opportunities for our students to engage in ways that make sense to them.”
Nancy Turner, Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at University of Saskatchewan
“Long term, we're going to see hybrid as the mode of delivery. For fall, all of our courses will be delivered online and all of our labs will be in person, using a modified format to give students access with appropriate protection and social distancing. We've really seen access to the internet in our community as an emerging issue. Right at our doorstep is one of the largest First Nations reserves in Canada. The internet infrastructure there is very poor. How do we deliver low bandwidth to support them, while also working with service providers to try and improve the service levels to these areas? The digital divide will be one of the major issues that we're going to have to deal with.”
Leslie Marshall, Associate Dean, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
“Now that we have proven we can work from home, why do we need to come back to the office? That's something we are managing right now. Long term, the work environment is just going to change for the better. The value of hybrid instruction was seen by more people, including faculty development. We are getting better attendance than we ever had on campus, and I expect that to continue as we are reaching more people. We adopted Quality Matters, a framework for developing quality online and hybrid courses, in 2015. The administration at the time wanted to require it of all online and hybrid courses, and there was tremendous pushback because people wanted control over what they're teaching, which is not what Quality Matters is about. It's about design, not content. So we are talking to a lot of faculty about how to design quality online and hybrid courses aligned to outcomes. Long term, people are seeing the value of Quality Matters and the value of good design. It's not about academic freedom. It's about using best practices to deliver your courses.”
Dawn M. Ford, PhD, Assistant Provost and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga
“The importance of access to technology and equity has been a problem for many years. Being compelled to identify where in technology, in the curriculum, and in other areas those inequities lie is one of the largest changes that we're going to see moving forward. With the pandemic, we’re being compelled to identify places where we might've had a patch over a problem, both with the technology and other aspects within the university system. Now, we're hopefully going to address the root causes of some of the problems that were leading to some of the inequities that we've been seeing on our campuses.”
Glenn Davis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“There's definitely going to be a long-term impact on systems. There is the digital divide and the investment that institutions in partnership with the government are making to try to address those differences in rural and other communities. In addition to that investment in accessibility, we've also seen a significant investment in learning technology infrastructure. We've been exceptionally grateful to have the Canvas platform and the extended suite of tools available for our online and remote provision. We've really been working a lot with faculty to think about the transition as a transformation of teaching practices. We've been able to really dig in to have conversations around ‘What outcomes are you trying to achieve with your students?’ Long term, we will see more flexible opportunities for our students to engage in ways that make sense to them.”
Nancy Turner, Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at University of Saskatchewan
“Long term, we're going to see hybrid as the mode of delivery. For fall, all of our courses will be delivered online and all of our labs will be in person, using a modified format to give students access with appropriate protection and social distancing. We've really seen access to the internet in our community as an emerging issue. Right at our doorstep is one of the largest First Nations reserves in Canada. The internet infrastructure there is very poor. How do we deliver low bandwidth to support them, while also working with service providers to try and improve the service levels to these areas? The digital divide will be one of the major issues that we're going to have to deal with.”
Leslie Marshall, Associate Dean, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
3: What, from a technology standpoint, have you had to prioritize? What is your focus moving into the fall specifically?
“We had to do a year-long process with the committee, and thankfully we were able to go through with adopting Kaltura. We appreciate that Microsoft Teams integration in Canvas that came on board pretty quickly. There's still some security concerns about Zoom and Zoom bombing with this lecture capture tool, because they now have a virtual classroom component to capture, not just lecture capture. People want to do synchronous online and are planning for face-to-face in the event students can't come or faculty can't come and need to operate class from home.”
Dawn M. Ford, PhD, Assistant Provost and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga
“We've been focusing on ways to support faculty to do as much synchronous online as possible. We're mostly hybrid and have a lot of our courses in rooms that are physically distanced or designed for physical distancing. We have WebEx right now as our primary teleconferencing software, which has been very effective for us. But we heard from faculty, there was a real desire to have breakout-room capability, so we are moving to Zoom this fall. We partnered with Canvas’ design team to work on 75 high-impact first-year courses, which involves getting a new template. We recognize that the web-based component of an in-person class can be extremely critical to the success of that course. We went all in on course design and are really looking forward to seeing the results of that work and having an assessment plan to see how that goes in the future.”
Glenn Davis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“We've gone through quite an extensive process of selecting only those learning opportunities that are essential to be done face to face to happen on campus. Everything else is fully remote, including most of our labs. Because of the digital divide and the makeup of our students' studying locations, we have been trying to discourage synchronous. We have been thinking very hard about how to balance that because we know synchronous can be really important for engagement and student connection. We've set up a framework encouraging synchronous one-on-one office hours and very small group connections. We are in the process of looking at our learning and teaching ecosystem to enhance the tools we're offering to facilitate reflection and growth for students. We’re looking at assessment practices and capitalizing on the great assessment tools that are in Canvas to try to help move toward a learning-centered assessment process and practice across the institution.”
Nancy Turner, Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at University of Saskatchewan
“We've emphasized asynchronous delivery for our courses. An analogy we use is that in the burger, synchronous is the lettuce. It is not the patty. Asynchronous is the primary mode of delivery. Synchronous delivery is important, but it should be used where it really does support student learning and support interaction, and social presence for students. We have a very strong strategy on that. As an institution, we embrace universal design for foundational learning principles. Options in how students receive, interact with, and demonstrate their learning are very important for us. That informs a lot of decisions that we make in terms of delivery. Keeping it to essential technologies and objectives: What are the learning outcomes? What is it you're actually trying to do?”
Leslie Marshall, Associate Dean, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
“We had to do a year-long process with the committee, and thankfully we were able to go through with adopting Kaltura. We appreciate that Microsoft Teams integration in Canvas that came on board pretty quickly. There's still some security concerns about Zoom and Zoom bombing with this lecture capture tool, because they now have a virtual classroom component to capture, not just lecture capture. People want to do synchronous online and are planning for face-to-face in the event students can't come or faculty can't come and need to operate class from home.”
Dawn M. Ford, PhD, Assistant Provost and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga
“We've been focusing on ways to support faculty to do as much synchronous online as possible. We're mostly hybrid and have a lot of our courses in rooms that are physically distanced or designed for physical distancing. We have WebEx right now as our primary teleconferencing software, which has been very effective for us. But we heard from faculty, there was a real desire to have breakout-room capability, so we are moving to Zoom this fall. We partnered with Canvas’ design team to work on 75 high-impact first-year courses, which involves getting a new template. We recognize that the web-based component of an in-person class can be extremely critical to the success of that course. We went all in on course design and are really looking forward to seeing the results of that work and having an assessment plan to see how that goes in the future.”
Glenn Davis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“We've gone through quite an extensive process of selecting only those learning opportunities that are essential to be done face to face to happen on campus. Everything else is fully remote, including most of our labs. Because of the digital divide and the makeup of our students' studying locations, we have been trying to discourage synchronous. We have been thinking very hard about how to balance that because we know synchronous can be really important for engagement and student connection. We've set up a framework encouraging synchronous one-on-one office hours and very small group connections. We are in the process of looking at our learning and teaching ecosystem to enhance the tools we're offering to facilitate reflection and growth for students. We’re looking at assessment practices and capitalizing on the great assessment tools that are in Canvas to try to help move toward a learning-centered assessment process and practice across the institution.”
Nancy Turner, Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at University of Saskatchewan
“We've emphasized asynchronous delivery for our courses. An analogy we use is that in the burger, synchronous is the lettuce. It is not the patty. Asynchronous is the primary mode of delivery. Synchronous delivery is important, but it should be used where it really does support student learning and support interaction, and social presence for students. We have a very strong strategy on that. As an institution, we embrace universal design for foundational learning principles. Options in how students receive, interact with, and demonstrate their learning are very important for us. That informs a lot of decisions that we make in terms of delivery. Keeping it to essential technologies and objectives: What are the learning outcomes? What is it you're actually trying to do?”
Leslie Marshall, Associate Dean, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
4: How do we make sure students are successful in meeting their goals? And how do we do that while also ensuring institutional success?
“Specific examples of how we focus on student success: We expanded our online tutoring and adjusted our supplemental instruction so that it's online instead of face to face. We also made available laptops, webcams, and hotspots that students and faculty could request. We often forget about our adjunct faculty, and I think we all know that they are very much underpaid and underappreciated, and they are so important right now. The way that we've always done things is not going to work, and for higher ed to survive in the near future and beyond, we're all going to need to be more flexible and adapt to the scenario that's unfolding in front of us.”
Dawn M. Ford, PhD, Assistant Provost and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga
“Access and flexibility are certainly going to be key. What does it mean for us to be ready for the student, not for the student to be ready for us? It's up to us as institutions of higher education to meet students where they are and help them reach their goals. The implicit message that we're sending to students is that we believe they can be successful. The way we design our structures, courses, and technologies are a really bright signal to students that they belong here. How do we create a sense of academic and social belonging in a remote or online classroom as we think about course delivery and meeting learning outcomes? What does it mean to humanize the faculty member and to create spaces for that synchronous learning?”
Glenn Davis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“As institutions, we're going to have to be clear about what our value is on the teaching and learning side. Especially now, there's a lot more opportunity for movement and choices without having to relocate. From a student success point of view, our key priority going into the fall is around equity of access. Understanding the context that faculty are operating within and the context and complexity that students are operating within. Core for us: Bring students in and help support them to be successful through appropriate design and the creation of community and connection.”
Nancy Turner, Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at University of Saskatchewan
“Student success is keeping in mind the context the students are in. A lot of our students are parents having to share computer time with their children. Being flexible and giving options and opportunities is going to feed into institutional success over the summer and the fall term. If we are giving students a good experience through this emergency period this fall and this winter, that feeds into institutional success. If this is a place that can function online, we'll be able to retain and attract students no matter where they are.”
Leslie Marshall, Associate Dean, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
“Specific examples of how we focus on student success: We expanded our online tutoring and adjusted our supplemental instruction so that it's online instead of face to face. We also made available laptops, webcams, and hotspots that students and faculty could request. We often forget about our adjunct faculty, and I think we all know that they are very much underpaid and underappreciated, and they are so important right now. The way that we've always done things is not going to work, and for higher ed to survive in the near future and beyond, we're all going to need to be more flexible and adapt to the scenario that's unfolding in front of us.”
Dawn M. Ford, PhD, Assistant Provost and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga
“Access and flexibility are certainly going to be key. What does it mean for us to be ready for the student, not for the student to be ready for us? It's up to us as institutions of higher education to meet students where they are and help them reach their goals. The implicit message that we're sending to students is that we believe they can be successful. The way we design our structures, courses, and technologies are a really bright signal to students that they belong here. How do we create a sense of academic and social belonging in a remote or online classroom as we think about course delivery and meeting learning outcomes? What does it mean to humanize the faculty member and to create spaces for that synchronous learning?”
Glenn Davis, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“As institutions, we're going to have to be clear about what our value is on the teaching and learning side. Especially now, there's a lot more opportunity for movement and choices without having to relocate. From a student success point of view, our key priority going into the fall is around equity of access. Understanding the context that faculty are operating within and the context and complexity that students are operating within. Core for us: Bring students in and help support them to be successful through appropriate design and the creation of community and connection.”
Nancy Turner, Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at University of Saskatchewan
“Student success is keeping in mind the context the students are in. A lot of our students are parents having to share computer time with their children. Being flexible and giving options and opportunities is going to feed into institutional success over the summer and the fall term. If we are giving students a good experience through this emergency period this fall and this winter, that feeds into institutional success. If this is a place that can function online, we'll be able to retain and attract students no matter where they are.”