Return to Normal or to Ignorance?

The title of AUB’s latest international conference on effective teaching and learning was “Negotiating New Norms of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education”. There is clearly a sense that new norms are needed, with varying points of view. A Times Higher Education article entitled “Returning to Normal is Really a Return to Ignorance” illustrates this by emphasizing how online teaching and learning helped non-traditional faculty members like the author Torrey Trust succeed. The example here was of people with physical disabilities or fragile health, whether teaching staff or learners.

In the second half of 2021, educational institutions worldwide were celebrating the gradual return to the campus. In-person learning, after all, was a top priority for most academic institutions. People were craving for the “true college experience” as if online teaching and learning were fake. An adjustment period was of course needed for those who had gotten used to teaching online, like drug addicts in need of rehabilitation. The flexibility of the past years was going to be taken away – the drug withdrawn. Rightly, students were looking forward to the resumption of athletics, student organizations, cultural events, and access to physical resources such as libraries, as well as campus housing. Yet many of us were aware that the “new normal” would not be a replica of the old. Colorado State University’s vice president for student affairs Blanche Hughes told the students, “Sorry, no, returning students, it may not look exactly like it looked two years ago, but we can co-create this experience together to still make it meaningful.”

As reported by George Veletsianos, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology at Royal Roads University, a Canadian study including surveys of faculty members and students in North American institutions of higher learning showed that both teaching staff and students were in fact hoping for better times, not wishing for “a return to normal”. What they wanted carried forward were teaching and learning innovation, increased support, flexibility, and focus on equity. Marcia Devlin, a globally recognised expert in education, urges movement beyond the old criteria of effective teaching and learning (dating back to 2010), raising awareness of their insufficiency after Covid. Those criteria were summarised as follows: broadening participation and promoting greater student diversity; promoting standards for accountability; greater transnational education; digital transformation and data analytics; changing assessment philosophy and practice; work-integrated learning; students as partners; encouraging collaborative teaching; and applying new pedagogies that leverage digital technologies. Part of what was missing was emphasis on resilience to added layers of chaos and ambiguity, such as those engendered by the pandemic (Devlin and Samarawickrema). Steven Mintz, a professor of history in Texas, has blogged about this subject in “Let’s Not Return to the Old Normal”; instead of seeing the pandemic in a completely negative light, everyone should use it as a learning experience that has raised people’s awareness of the options available, leading to reforms.

Being back on campus should not mean thinking or behaving like people did many years ago. Change can be stupefying, but if it’s for the public good, whether in education or any other sphere, it must be given a chance.