The sudden transition to remote learning in March 2020 found many college faculty unprepared to teach virtually. Some did not have sufficient technology and many had never taught online. Technology staff and faculties then initiated an aggressive learning curve to shift instruction and learning online. However bumpy the process for individual colleges and universities, much of the new technology and many of the new teaching strategies have yielded positive results.
Now students and faculty have had several semesters of experience with online learning. Some of the new technology and teaching strategies were so successful that they improved student engagement. Taking the best of what they learned during the pandemic and incorporating it as students return to campus will provide faculty with more flexibility as they consider how to pair the best of face-to-face and online instruction in each discipline.
Although most of this technology was available prior to the pandemic, it took the pandemic for it to see broad adoption and investment. For example, video capture and video conferencing solutions allowed faculty to record lectures and balance synchronous and asynchronous sessions. Online collaboration tools allowed students to work together from a distance. Learning management systems and other content delivery systems became central to course instruction. Professional development on integrating technology became a “must have” instead of a “nice to have.” Online discussion boards kept students engaged from a distance.
College and university technology staff and faculty stepped up to learn new skills and teaching strategies during the pandemic. So, it is not surprising that some of what they learned and practiced will remain a part of their teaching moving forward.
A Rural College Adapts to Aggressive Change
Institutional learning from the pandemic has helped Colorado Mountain College (CMC) to fine-tune its mission. CMC is a multi-campus, dual mission, open access institution with 11 small campuses located across a vast rural expanse of western Colorado. Matthew Gianneschi, COO and Chief of Staff at CMC said, “CMC faculty and staff know that many students desire highly interactive instruction, but the pandemic pushed the college to think deeply about how and when instruction is most effective in certain modalities.” Also, the college was able to leverage its multi-campus structure to enable unprecedented access for its students. “No longer were students limited to courses or programs offered at a single campus site,” he said.
For CMC, the pandemic also exposed the need to press for new technologies and models of instruction. “Programs that were once thought to be unsuitable for online or remote delivery, such as English as a Second Language were delivered during the pandemic with previously unknown fidelity,” he said. The switch to remote learning also forced the college to better appreciate the importance of face-to-face academic instruction.
During the pandemic, the college invested more than one million dollars into 36 high-resolution video-enabled classrooms. With these as a foundation, the college was able to secure a $2.9 million state grant to help outfit nearly every high school in its rural service area with identical equipment. “This enabled the development of an instructional “superhighway” across CMC’s 11 campuses and schools throughout rural western Colorado,” said Gianneschi. “We will now have the potential to level the instructional playing field between urban and rural communities.”
This is important because CMC is the only college available to students in these communities and guarantees them continued access to higher education.