Since colleges are places where thousands of people work in close proximity to one another, and since our aim should be to deter preventable death and illness, universities should remain closed in the fall.
A major concern, however, is how classes will continue. The answer is that most of them can — and should — be moved online. Among my colleagues who had to move their courses online in the spring, I have seen emotions ranging from pure panic to smug disdain. As someone who has taught online for seven years, I can attest to the fact that it’s nothing to be afraid of — but it does require approaching teaching in a different way.
Despite the fact that most Americans (over 90 percent) use the internet for work and play, there is still a stigma about using it for education. Online education is often considered to be of lower quality. A lot of this bias stems from the early 2000s, when for-profit colleges sold their programs to working adults who needed flexibility and online accessibility to make postsecondary education a possibility. Unfortunately — even though it enabled working-class people, parents without day care, military personnel overseas, and people with disabilities to access higher education in a way that was rarely available to them in the past — the stigma of online education endures. While there is no doubt that for-profit colleges are exploitative, we cannot conflate their practices with the value of the technology of online education.
I have taken good in-person classes and bad in-person classes, and I have taken good online classes and bad online classes. What determines their quality has little to do with the format itself and everything to do with the teacher’s pedagogy, their grasp of the technology, and their ability to design a course around that. That is to say, those who teach good classes in person harness the affordances of their teaching environment and make concerted efforts to construct an engaging pedagogical atmosphere for their students; those who teach good online courses do the same.
Much of the apprehension seems to stem from instructors’ unfamiliarity with these tools. But the current crisis offers as immediate an opportunity as any for professors to not only learn how to use these new educational tools to complement their existing pedagogical practices, but to integrate them from the start into a more flexible and accessible pedagogy. When used properly, an instructor can effectively re-create a live class with all the discussions and interactions that make learning such a rewarding experience. Some may even be surprised at how the online environment allows introverted students to shine. Add to this the fact that we are dealing with a life-or-death situation, and the only conclusion one can come to is that it would be absurd for universities to insist on returning to campus in the fall when they have technology that will allow classes to continue at a safe distance.
By Shalon van Tine