Retrograde III: A Way Forward

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it, but is what’s new always best?  We learn by reflecting on old mistakes, but re-tracing our steps also reveals hard-won wisdom from previous generations.

“Retrograde” is an ongoing series exploring how University Teaching has changed over the past 20 years. You can find Parts 1 and 2 linked here.

If you're part of the teaching community, you know just as well as I do that we're very tired of talking and thinking about the pandemic, and all of the implications that it’s had on students.

We’re all tired of learning new buttons to press.

New systems to navigate.

All with very little notice.

Fatigue and burnout is just as much of our day-to-day as the excitement of connecting with students. How should teachers think about professional development in this climate, and find more meaningful, sustainable ways to improve our effectiveness in both online and in-person classrooms? As tiring as it may feel, let’s look back over the past few years to conclude this Retrograde series, before collectively finding a way forward.

PHASE 6: THE PURGE - 2020 to 2021

Forced isolation, empty classes, blank Zoom screens, we’re all too familiar with the ad hoc teaching and learning experiences during the pandemic. The only thing I’ll add is that the pastoral care that teachers in primary and secondary education are responsible for: looking after children as they develop into young adults, has bled over into Higher education as well.  Giving our lectures and designing classes and materials is not enough anymore, especially when students feel isolated, alone, depressed, and anxious.  University study is just one small sliver of most students’ lives, and the more I try to learn about this the more complex it seems. 

Learning about Mental Health First Aid has been a really valuable part of my professional development, all the way from recognising early signs of depression to how to talk to suicidal individuals.  Being in isolation for 2 years has brought the worst vulnerabilities out of everyone, and I’m now much more aware of triggers for my own mental health, as well as how to manage students with chronic medical issues that they need to consider alongside their study.  Find the support mechanisms offered by your institution for students who are struggling, and make sure everyone in your class knows about them.  It’s not up to individual teachers without more formal training to broach these sensitive topics with students, but at least you should know who to direct them to in your immediate context.

PHASE 7: NO MAN’S LAND 2022 to the present

Now that the dust has settled, I’m constantly seeing pictures of empty lecture theatres posted by teachers on Twitter.  Yes it would be great to go back to business as usual, and in-person face-to-face classes only, but the genie is out of the bottle. 

I suspect we’ll never go back to the way it was, but most of this is to clarify your expectations with students at the start of every semester.  If there are some concepts or skills that are really hard to learn or absorb online, really highlight that this should be a class that’s attended in person.  If there is information that doesn’t appear to be a source of student misconceptions, does it need to be taught live?  Can it be a video that you make, that frees up class time to tackle the more difficult subject matter?  If we design the delivery mode of each class with clear intent, with specific alignment to our course learning objectives, students should be more receptive to that idea than the “turn up or fail” messaging that’s quite common right now.   Universities are wrestling with how to future-proof their courses, so you should be as well.  Teachers need to be nimble and adaptive now more than ever in recent memory, and you should talk with your immediate supervisors about how to plan out a multi-year professional learning strategy to expand the scope of your teaching practices over time.

A Way Forward

I’ve been teaching at university for 12 years, and it’s actually quite an exciting time to be a teacher.  There’s more to learn than ever before, and leaders across the sector have all been having difficult conversations about the future. I’ve been invited to contribute to Op-Ed articles on Campus Review, speak about the teacher experience on podcasts, and there is a sense of momentum moving us closer to the the precipice of transformational change.

I don’t have a crystal ball, nor am I in the business of predicting how technology is going to change in the coming years. What I do know is that history has a funny tendency to repeat itself, and we need to take stock of everything that’s led up to this point:

• We can learn how to strip away the bells and whistles of AV and tech and be more effective through our words alone, as per the chalk and talk days back in Phase 1.

• We can think about more creative ways of populating our learning management systems, harkening back to when Moodle or blackboard was first launched and all the potential those platforms had for independent learning back in Phase 2.

• From automated lecture recordings and the race for MOOCs in phases 3 and 4, teachers should articulate the value of the in-person learning experience, and manage student expectations around the effective use of online learning resources.  We should try taking online courses for ourselves, and see what type of experience it is?  See how disciplined you have to be to finish online training, and relay these first hand experiences to your students.

• In phase 5, designing flipped classrooms requires teachers to have a better handle on online multimedia creation.  Find a type of multimedia you’d like to create, and deep-dive on how to make compelling online content beyond text alone.

• Finally from phases 6 and 7, teachers should be more aware of the context around students’ study, and how everything around them can negatively impact on their (and by proxy our) experiences.  Everything in our sector is about to change again over the coming years, and we need to have the energy and understanding to tackle the challenges ahead.

This concludes the “Retrograde” series for the time being. If you’re interested, you can access Part 1, Part 2, my Op-Ed article, podcast appearance, and video series discussing all of these issues in more detail.

Jack.