Write a letter to your English language teacher. Write about your experience of virtual learning
and accepting the new way of teaching-learning combination over the past two months. Write an
email to your respective English teacher. (120-150 words).
Answers
Answer:
Welcome to "Transforming Teaching and Learning," a column that explores how colleges and professors are reimagining how they teach and how students learn. If you'd like to receive the free "Transforming Teaching and Learning" newsletter, please sign up here.
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Last week in this space, I asked a group of thoughtful observers a set of questions about what colleges' sudden, widespread shift to remote learning might mean for the future of online education. The column seemed to strike a chord with a lot of readers -- many positively. But others suggested that the questions I posed, and the people I posed them to, weren't the ones front and center for "the situation we're in," as George Station, a lecturer and faculty associate at California State University Monterey Bay, put it on Twitter.
"Theoretically there are no wrong questions, but at the campus/class level and in professional learning networks," he wrote, "it’s mainly questions about creating or maintaining community from face-to-face to virtual alternatives, engaging faculty and students in the process, easing angst about remote work, etc." that people are searching for answers to.
He encouraged me to "take another run at it, with people and society in the foreground."
With his help, that's what I've done below, with a new prompt directed to a new set of respondents. Please continue to weigh in in the comments below, on Twitter (@dougledIHE) or via email -- we're all in this together.
The prompt:
What has changed in your (or your colleagues’) teaching practices as a result of the COVID-19 crisis? Did your institution’s (or your own) priorities or guiding principles for learners change? What is different for your learners?
How do you expect your ability to support learners through technology to be enhanced or degraded? Will the relationship between content and process change? With the “college at home” environment being the norm, how will you reimagine equitable access for students?
Which changes are “forever" -- permanent changes in the teaching and learning landscape? Which seem more likely to revert to pre-coronavirus approaches, as a new normal in higher education emerges?
What possibilities are there for rebuilding or evolving your own institution on the far side of the COVID-19 crisis? Is this opportunity for growth through the crisis different for your other alliances (e.g., personal learning networks or higher-ed professional organizations)? What is your emerging vision for post-crisis higher education in general?