The Great Disruption: How COVID-19 Changes Higher Education Instruction

I think we can all agree that the last two weeks have been nothing short of remarkable. While the world responds to a global health emergency, extraordinary things are happening all around us, many of which we never would have thought possible only weeks ago. Higher education is no exception. I fully anticipate that this period will be remembered as the single greatest disruption that instruction in higher education has ever seen. Learning will be forever changed.

Once we catch our collective breath, I expect that there will be a flood of commentary and analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on higher education. All discourse will be good and valuable. I would like to take this opportunity to offer an early perspective on some of the shifts I have seen happening. Additionally, I have highlighted some elements to which I believe we should pay careful attention.

Faculty and instructors

We have all heard the old jokes.

Department chair: How many faculty members does it take to change a light bulb?

Faculty: Change?!

Although there may be a grain of truth to this sentiment, we have just witnessed a clear counter example. Those who teach in higher education can make astounding changes and adaptations very quickly. I could not be prouder of my higher education colleagues around the world for rising to the challenge. We all teach online now. We absolutely can change, especially when it comes to supporting our students.

It is not uncommon to hear talk of disruption in teaching and learning. Most discussions relate to the impact of the internet in some way and involve groups, both within and outside of higher education, predicting that everything will soon be different. MOOCs, for example, had an effect but hardly revolutionized higher education in the way many claimed they might. Our current disruption is different — it comes from within. We caused this change together.

Although the mass migration to online learning was in response to a crisis, higher education will never be quite the same. The circumstances have offered us a glimpse of instruction through a different lens. Many have heeded the advice to keep their approach simple, while others have been more experimental. As we collect and consider student feedback on these approaches, we are likely to regard teaching and learning very differently in the future. Although we have been forced out of our classrooms, we should embrace the opportunity this disruption presents us. We now have insight into how online technologies can be used to engage our students. Additionally, we have seen how these technologies can help deliver, facilitate, and measure learning. Now’s the time to set our own direction, and to redefine how we do education.

Students

Students around the globe are becoming online learners. Many have dabbled (or more than dabbled) in the past, but this is different. For a brief and sudden period of time, most all education is offered online. On the whole, students seem quite comfortable with the different technologies and appreciate the flexibility they offer. Bearing this in mind, some faculty and instructors are going to push the learning and teaching experience to places we have not yet gone, and students are going to have a front row seat. For the first time, students know what is possible and will be prepared to make new choices.

There is often a reluctance to portray our students as clients or consumers of education. In a sense, however, this is exactly what they are. Most all higher education students are accustomed to the campus experience in the traditional sense, while some also have added familiarity with online learning. Going forward, every student will be aware of the new set of educational options available to them.

Since students are now in a stronger position to choose how they wish to be educated, higher education institutions are going to have to pay more attention to student preferences. The era of the student consumer has arrived, and institutions have to become far more responsive to what they want. We cannot take student preferences for granted, and we need to invest in understanding them. When it comes to the delivery of education, it’s no longer about us; it’s about them.

The future of online learning

I have been involved in advocating for online learning for over 20 years. You can imagine how thrilling it is for me to see so many faculty now involved in putting their classes online. Obviously, this is not how I or anyone else imagined this transition would happen. While those of us with a history in the online learning space may feel some sense of vindication, we must also reflect on how this change transpired. Many of us had a hand in guiding the transition; however, it is not necessarily a mass buy-in to our processes and approaches. The resulting courses are not the same as the online courses we have been developing. There is also a prevailing sense that we don’t own the online learning space like we once did. Everyone else has arrived and, with them, they bring their own ideas, perspectives, and approaches.

Modern technologies, like video conferencing, have rushed into the higher education instructional space. These technologies are being used to inform student assessment in a way that seemed unimaginable only weeks ago. At the same time, there also seems to be a greater focus on student engagement and ensuring that these new teaching methods don’t exasperate inequities or violate privacy.

Although the vast knowledge and approaches of my colleagues who work in online learning are still invaluable, a new age is upon us. We have often wished that those who teach in higher education would become more flexible and accepting of online learning. Perhaps one of the great ironies of what has happened is that we are now the ones who must be flexible and accepting of what others bring to the conversation. In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, the contributions of the online learning community have been important to our institutions. Now, things have changed. The transition won’t be how we imagined it, but our expertise is needed and we play an important role. The rules have changed and a new game begins.

Final words

Faculty and instructors, students, online learning professionals, and our institutions will all need to adapt to and sort out the new order. Although institutions that are most ready to do this will have an early advantage, others can quickly catch up if they are focused and plan strategically. After years of slow drift toward online learning, we just made a sudden leap forward. There is no turning back.