Moving Education Online During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Thinking Back and Looking Ahead

Abstract

In the United States, enrollment in online education has increased over the last decade. By fall of 2018, one third of almost 19.7 million students enrolled in degree-granting post-secondary institutions had enrolled in online courses with nearly 40% of graduate students taking online courses (1, 2). Among 120 CEPH-accredited schools of public health, 57 schools have fully online programs and 48 have hybrid online and on-campus models (3). During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities and colleges across the United States were forced to shift rapidly from in-person education to “emergency remote learning” with little time to redesign courses and programs appropriately (4). Several challenges made the transition difficult: limited resources due to pandemic-related costs and revenue losses; equipment and workspace constraints for students; and misunderstandings about the pedagogical differences between instructional modes. Schools and programs restricted by hiring freezes and reduced budgets made it difficult for instructors to plan, build and manage courses, and to get extra help to use new technologies. The shift to remote learning also exposed that many students lacked resources and capacity to continue their education online, including unreliable internet access and computer hardware and inadequate space and time conducive for study. Without training in online education or resources to develop different types of courses, many faculty simply tried to replicate online the methods of teaching they had been doing in-person. The pandemic-induced shift online presents substantial problems and pressure for academic services and support units. We propose three ways that schools and programs can respond: (1) training faculty on pedagogy and the technology that enables online learning; (2) improving student readiness and preparation for online education; and (3) reimagining educational offerings that respond to skills in demand. Together, these strategies will help programs and schools keep pace with peer institutions with well-developed online programs. With the exception of undergraduate colleges that emphasize teaching, faculty in graduate schools are often rewarded more for research skills than teaching acumen. Most instructors learn to teach by doing, copying the kind of instruction they received in college and as teaching assistants. An assistant professor may have only practiced teaching a handful of courses before having to manage a 4–6 course teaching load. For instructors with limited to no experience teaching online, the abrupt shift to remote teaching proved highly disruptive and stressful, forcing many to do the best they could in a very difficult situation. Delivering a course online is not simply recording and making available hour long lectures. Designing an effective online course requires partitioning didactic material into shorter “chunks” and micro-lectures followed by a variety of assessments such as quizzes, games, real-world based simulations, discussions led by students as moderators, icebreaker activities, and microblogging to keep students engaged (5). Online courses are designed with navigation and structured modules to facilitate how the student flows through the course. Modules should contain different types of assessments and activities to reinforce skills. These may be group-based or individual projects with appropriate selection of software and hardware (6). Instructors should sustain instructor presence and facilitate learner-to-learner interaction on a regular basis. Especially for online courses taught for the first time, formative evaluation is important to check how students are responding to the structure, navigation, activities, and peer interaction. These are some of the skills necessary to successfully develop and manage an online course (7). Properly designed online courses require instructional design and technology expertise. Instructional designers have expertise in reworking instructional material for different modalities and instructional goals. It is also very useful to identify a group of instructors and colleagues experienced in online learning in order to share tips and advice. This could lead to learning communities within the organization to support each other as online courses are introduced and refined every semester. Schools and programs should ensure that instructors of all ranks have access to expertise and centers of teaching and learning. Centers of teaching and learning typically provide training in basic instructional design, accessibility and universal design for learning (UDL) principles, and adult pedagogy techniques. Online modes offer opportunities that in-person courses do not: easier and more robust peer interaction and learning; access to more geographically diverse student bodies; different student demographics including older students, students with jobs and family obligations, students with physical disabilities; more time for students to interact with and learn from people within their communities; and greater and more even participation in course activities. Many instructors have looked to technology as the solution, but technology only works if tailored to meet instructional goals that are grounded in effective and evidence-based pedagogy. Delivering online courses synchronously without modifying instructional strategy may lead to disappointing results and may exacerbate inequities, particularly among students from disadvantaged backgrounds (8). Just as sitting in a classroom does not ensure that a student is learning, being on a Zoom conference does not ensure learning; the mode of interaction in both cases needs to be designed to engage students in active and meaningful learning. Large variability in teaching quality already exists in traditional in-person classrooms. Online education may be particularly risky business for schools that do not have properly trained and supported...