We are already into the sixth week of hybrid/hi-flex education. We had a very strange couple of years, switching from one mode of teaching to another. Recently, we, CIAD, organized a series of meetings with a wide range of faculty members and discussed and shared our experiences with a focus on hybrid education. Here are my takes from these meetings (soon we will share our full notes with all faculty members).
Most of us had (anticipated?) technical problems in the first few weeks, internet connection is not stable, mics are not working properly, cameras are off focus, tablets are not calibrated and so on. We had to adjust to the new mode, too. We had to learn how to operate computer(s), zoom, cameras, tablet simultaneously (as a colleague put it humorously, “we learned how to be DJs”), and, more importantly, how to keep students in the classroom and on zoom equally ‘alert.’ We are learning by doing. And we are getting better as we learn.
A majority of us realized that students prefer to be ‘zoomies’ rather than ‘roomies.’ Attendance in classrooms declined rapidly after a couple of weeks, and most students are attending classes online. Be honest it has also injured our pride that they are online while having their coffee (and chats with their friends) in Starbucks or Fasshane. Again, most of us think that this is not working, we should get back to old system as soon as possible. I have news for you: In our Pulse Survey overwhelming majority of students told us that they like to have digital access even after pandemic. Now, is this whimsical, or using economists terminology, are they myopic that they do not realize what is good for them in the long-run?
I am not going to argue against these views that partly (but a small part, at that) these explanations are true. Yet, this is a new era than ours. Our students are not like us, they prefer self-learning to traditional methods. Although it is still too early to make a judgement whether it is good or bad, my gut feeling is that ‘learning’ is beyond listening and reproducing lectures or solving assignments that have been solved millions of times before.
I think we have to start rethink what we are trying to achieve. I suspect digital teaching is here for good. And let’s face it, there will abundant video recordings of courses on the Net. Many will be far better than our lectures (they may have better resources, money, time, experience and even skills.) We have to come up with new ways of teaching, making sure that our students do not only ‘know’ but are also ‘able.’ “How?” is the big question for which I have no answer. What I have learned in our meetings is that there are a lot of interesting and valuable views that my colleagues have that I should be thinking over and over again. May be then, I may have some partial answers.