Photo by Katerina Holmes on Pexels.com
In the dark days of the pandemic, we got together online as little huddles of colleagues to share concerns about our families, our friends, our jobs, and our futures. Higher education was no different to other industries. During our online meetings set up to discuss remote teaching and learning we found ourselves sharing all our personal worries as well. We all wondered how we would get through the fog of the pandemic, only latterly speculating what it would look like when we did.
Our mutual support networks were a way to get through this. We punctuated our days around shared experiences; queuing two metres apart in supermarket car parks wearing masks while rumours about hand sanitiser stocks flew round, alongside banging pans with neighbours and baking banana bread.
Back in the virtual workplace, often a back bedroom or kitchen table alongside the kids and their homework, much of our time and focus was spent supporting tutors and their students. Whilst the majority of universities were trying to pivot online, we saw that even our experienced distance-learning tutors were caught up in immediate confusion and lack of direction in teaching, assessment, and student support. We saw waves of emotional impact in even what would previously have been straightforward interactions, as we all struggled to cope with the absoluteness of lockdown life.
Chaos brought opportunity. We knew this was a unique moment in time, and understanding its impact would be important for the future. We wanted to understand how people were being affected, and so we undertook a parallel study to those from face-to-face universities experiencing a full pivot.
We noted hitherto separate work and home spheres were being thrust together. Some people survived, others thrived. Whilst many tutors worried about their futures, others embraced lockdown as an opportunity for growth and development. Some today are still feeling the residue of isolation as an impact on their professional and personal lives.
Our new paper in Teaching in Higher Education uses real-time photographs and texts to capture that jumble of emotional responses, stresses, and managing the practicalities of the situation. Going forward, we highlight concerns that higher education and higher education management will need to address. Full face-to-face tuition models are diminished, and hybrid and online options feel here to stay. Students’ aspirations have changed; online equivalent teaching appears no longer a gift, but an expectation. In terms of faculty management, it’s time to engage with prevailing shifts to teaching and learning landscapes. The pandemic accelerated trends already in motion, and although our starting points for hybrid models have been hatched from necessity and trauma, are we now heading towards a brighter future?
Fran Myers (Open University), Hilary Collins (University of the West of Scotland) and Hayley Glover (Open University)
Teaching in Higher Education 