My son has been home from college since mid-March when his school sent its student body home because of COVID19. He takes his classes online now.
It’s been a mixed bag.
Part of the challenge is professors are facing the same stress as students about showing up for work in an online environment. It’s new to everyone and the learning curve is high. People everywhere are fast discovering that you can’t simply transfer the live classroom to the virtual environment and expect everything to continue as usual.
According to my son, his learning experience for each class now involves logging in at the scheduled time to watch a lecture, followed by completing the assignment that compliments the content. Group work is clunky. The dynamic between students and professors that exists in an on-campus classroom is glaringly absent.
I asked him how he feels about going to college online.
“I’m not a fan,” he said, without hesitation. “I definitely do better in a live environment.”
I then asked him to break down his experience into two categories: what’s working for him and what’s not. Here’s what he said:
What’s working:
- All lectures are recorded and made accessible for repeat viewing which he likes, especially when he needs to go back and pick up on a point he missed the first time.
- Getting to class is easy. Being able to jump on his computer and click into a class as opposed to planning out travel time between his dorm room and the food hall before racing to class is an advantage he enjoys.
- Classes don’t last as long, freeing up time to pursue other self-education activities like experimenting with recipes from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Not working:
- Lab-based classes don’t translate well in the online space.
- It’s hard to pay attention for an hour or more while sitting in front of the screen.
- Class discussions “suck.”
- Hard to have group sessions.
- Lecturing is worse.
- The software program used to deliver classes can be spotty. Interruptions in connectivity disrupt the flow.
- Lack of clarity about what professors want from students.
- In some ways, it’s harder to interact with the professor during class.
- When working on a group project, some things can be done online, but certain conversations don’t transfer well to the virtual environment.
As you can see, the “not working” list is almost three times as long as the “what’s working” list.
Higher Ed in Post-COVID19 World
The debate about the value of attending college has been going on for a few years. That debate boils down to a simple math problem: does the degree earned from attending a four-year college or university warrant the cost of attendance?
With the average American student loan debt upon graduation coming in at $32,731, many people question whether or not the model of post-secondary education works any longer for the masses, especially when good-paying jobs outside of the tech sector aren’t a dime a dozen.
Answers to this question vary, of course. Bring COVID19 into the conversation and new questions arise. The recent lawsuit students across the country have filed against their respective institutions demanding refunds for spring semester costs showcases the new reality for higher ed.
In short, they argue that going to college online is not what they signed up for and doesn’t match the investment they made.
When stripped down to learning specific content only online, education turns into something much different than the “college experience” institutions of higher education have been selling students and their families for decades.
Questions arise:
- Moving forward, what is the role of colleges and universities in preparing students for work and life in a complex and uncertain world?
- In a post-COVID19 world, can students return to school in the fall and have the traditional “college experience” the way it’s been marketed for decades?
- How will this chapter in history inform the direction traditional colleges and universities take in terms of learning options and educational models for students?
My son sees the potential for a hybrid approach to higher ed in the coming years, one that combines the best of on-campus and online experiences that allows more freedom and flexibility for students about when they attend class and consume the content relevant to their degree programs.
A hybrid approach could help solve the current challenge he and many of his peers face as working students — scheduling time to complete group projects, for one. With a hybrid model, student-athletes could access class material while competing on the road and keep up with their classes without being punished for missing seat time, which is an outdated approach to education in so many ways.
A hybrid approach that blends live learning experiences with online content portals could become one of the coolest models of higher education yet, blending the best of each world to meet the needs of students today and for years to come.
Time will tell, of course. In normal times, change is never easy — or fast. But we aren’t living in normal times. Moving forward, I believe what everyone is experiencing because of COVID19 will lead to long-overdue changes in the ways we work and go to school.
I look forward to being a part of shaping that transformation.
So does my son.
