Students learned valuable skills in the pandemic
A conversation with Susan Singer (Feb 26, 2021)
By John Mitchell and Maxwell Bigman (Decade Ahead Project)
“We are running the last six miles of a marathon, “ says athletic Susan Singer, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Rollins College, a private Florida liberal arts college that was founded in 1885. Almost one year into college residence restrictions in the US, there is light at the end of the tunnel. “But between here and there is some of the hardest work so far,” Susan says as she moves her cat out of the way of her webcam. It is a “race between staying safe and getting enough people vaccinated that we can move to a new normal.”
We ask how student learning has fared. Susan’s quick response is that, “the worst thing we can do is frame the conversation around learning loss.” The former Director for the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation continues, “the best way to learn is to understand where the learners are …and move forward.” While classrooms have been disrupted, the pandemic has also highlighted the metacognitive skills that students need to be successful in education and beyond. “This is an opportunity for us to look more broadly at the comprehensive set of skills and abilities our students [have gained through the pandemic].” Not only should we highlight the resilience and new skills students have developed, Singer says, “we really need to be taking stock of the skills and abilities they bring when they arrive so that we can create a more human learning experience for students.”
“Learning is a human endeavor.”
Like the students, faculty have also been resilient and adaptable. Susan is most hopeful and optimistic about faculty shifting their teaching practice to more actively engage students in their learning. As chair of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) Board on Science Education, Susan is an experienced advocate for active learning, which encompasses a number of pedagogical practices that encourage students to investigate, discuss and engage with problems themselves rather than simply passively consume information from their teachers. “The world shifted and faculty everywhere changed what they were doing in ways that would have taken at least a decade otherwise.” Ironically and serendipitously, many faculty have discovered active learning by struggling with teaching over the past year, often without studying the learning research first. This has provided valuable lessons, but for university leaders and campus teaching centers it’s a “tricky path to navigate ahead.” We “have all these faculty who have rediscovered [active learning and others pedagogical insights]; we don’t want anyone to feel like we’re diminishing their discovery”. How should colleges and universities approach this issue, we ask. Singer answers that a better approach to the “whole community discovering this together” is to ”connect them so they can share their wisdom” and learn from each other.
Taken together, Singer’s two insights point to an educational model that truly values and unpacks prior student learning, skills and abilities, with a responsive, active pedagogical model that emphasizes “learning is a human endeavor.” Spreading this approach will require collaboration and coordination — a challenging task at and across institutions , though also an area in which Singer is no stranger. In her previous role at NSF, Singer coordinated 14 Federal agencies in implementing the undergraduate strategic objectives of the first Federal STEM Education 5-Year Strategic Plan. She saw the value of partnerships that provide professional development opportunities to teaching faculty. In the pandemic, she says that similarly, “People from different departments came together.” Institutions that successfully navigated the pandemic built cross-functional teams who came to realize that every part of the team was essential: “nothing will work unless we work together, including , faculty development, IT support, finance teams, housekeepers.“ We had to “value and support everyone, reducing some of the hierarchy” in the process.
Summing up, Susan says that Rollins’ success has come because her team embraced the value that each individual brought to the table and “really reinforced that learning is a human endeavor. While the technology is important and can make a big difference,” the human elements are most important. “For the students who are beginning their post secondary education, we need a guide on the side for them.” We also “need them to have their peers.”
“This is a foundation that we can build on.”
Susan’s outlook on the future of higher education stretches well beyond Rollins: “this is not just about individual accomplishment, but the value of learning to civil society.” We have to “think of education more broadly, as more than mastering just a small skill set.” She continues that, “there’s a whole broad range of skills [needed] when you’re in a new place, learning to work in a diverse environment.” The pandemic has forced students to rise to the occasion and practice resilience, resourcefulness, self-direction, empathy and cooperation. “We are not going to have a successful society if people don’t master all those additional skills.” Leaving us on an optimistic note, she reminds us, “all we can do is mine for the silver.… This is a foundation that we can build on.” Framed as an opportunity rather than a loss, Susan says we can use these critical lessons from the pandemic to break the mold and create new cross-institutional collaboration to boldly place learning at the center of civil society.
