A COVID Education – Has Higher Education changed forever?

Dr. Lara Grollo, (edited by Dr Daniel Andrews) The University of Melbourne.

COVID’s impact on the higher education industry has been massive, but are some of the COVID enforced changes here to stay?

Traditionally Universities were a place where students came to be transformed into critical citizens. But tertiary education in Australia has now become big business. Prior to 2020, international education was Australia’s fourth largest export overall – after iron ore, coal and natural gas generating over 18 billion dollars in revenue.

Then came SARs-COV-2 or COVID-19!

There is no doubt that COVID-19 has had a huge impact, both globally and locally. The media has been filled with stories about healthcare workers struggling with exhaustion, patients on ventilators and people concerned about the prospect of vaccination, but how has COVID impacted on other aspects of society?

COVID’s impact on Higher Education

In 2020, Melbourne, Australia, switched from the most livable city in the world to the most locked down city in the world. The Victorian government initiated a state of emergency that resulted in Melburnians being quarantined at home for 223 days – longer than anywhere else in the world.

That meant Universities were closed. Students and academics banned from attending campus. Within a few days from the March 2020 lockdown announcement, all learning was transitioned to being online – a relatively new learning space for both educators and students. This did not happen magically; it was a direct result of the hard work and dedication of academics across the sector.

The rise of digital learning

While the shift to digital learning came with enormous challenges, a tangible benefit arose from mandated online learning: All academics had to digitally upskill and increase their capacity to produce flexible resources for students.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” pedagogy for online learning. This, coupled with the task of encouraging student engagement online, proved to be a significant challenge.

“You’re on mute!” has become the catch phrase of higher education in 2020-2021. Delivering curriculum over Zoom (or similar platforms) has forced a shift in the way academics and students interact. No doubt it has added an additional level of complexity to teaching in higher education. In COVID times, collegiality and resource sharing among academics is more important than ever.

Drivers of success in COVID times

Some of the key drivers of success in the online transition were the capacity for team teaching and shared development of student resources. Having more than one academic in a teaching space enabled one to focus on delivery and student engagement, with the other academic(s) answering students’ written questions and prompting students when they fell silent – or asleep!

Team teaching also meant that online resources (e.g. Padlet, PollEV, Forms) could be deployed seamlessly in real time allowing students to engage with an educator and peers simultaneously.

The silver lining

Despite the outwards perception of the calm cool collected educator, many academics felt overwhelmed and overworked during the online transition. It is only now that we can look back on all that we learnt and realise the benefit this global lockdown has had on the digital skill set of academics across the state, country and globe.

The resilience of academics and their capacity as educators has been tested, but this has been a learning experience for the academics and students alike. We are now all experts online and know how to manipulate and develop resources that cater to the needs of our students, to encourage them to engage and have a positive learning experience no matter the global circumstances. We have learnt it is often better to work together with a united front and share the load of developing and delivering our resources, working together we can achieve our goals.

Having a contingency plan (or two, or three!) to deal with unexpected incidents of online education platforms is of paramount importance to ensure our students can still learn regardless of the pandemic situation.

An academic community

The word university stems from the Latin term meaning academic community: a community of masters and scholars, where research and education can occur side by side to pursue truth and rigorous thought. It may well be that the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the place of the university sector away from big business and closer to this original ideal – an academic community.

What will our university sector look like moving forward? Who knows!?

One thing we know for sure is that some form of online learning is here to stay. As educators, we need to keep our digital skill set at the top of its game, because you never know what will happen next!