Abstract:

The changes in academia are typically slow but very purposeful, they are carefully reviewed and strategically implemented, that is, until unpredictable massive tectonic shifts occur in society. Historically, academia has not experienced major distress on a global scale that would require a fundamental change and adaptation to new set of circumstances, until the world faced COVID-19 pandemic of proportions which caused academia to rapidly adjust to new realities and make major changes. The time frame in which the changes needed to be done, weeks and months, were so short that academia was placed under the significant stress to which it is unaccustomed, but it did change in numerous innovative ways and delivered exceptional results. This paper presents some of the lessons learned by the authors from this global pandemic which could be added to the toolbox of measures to deal with the future tectonic changes, and yet these same lessons can also serve to improve student learning experiences in the times of normalcy.

Teaching approaches discussed in this paper are related to authors’ extensive experiences in delivering courses in synchronous and asynchronous distance modalities. These experiences allowed authors to seamlessly and effortlessly transition to new conditions facing academia. In addition, the students who were exposed to similar learning experiences prior to pandemic had equally seamless and effortless transition.

The results indicate that students benefited significantly from the applied approach which included flipped classroom and asynchronous learning amongst other approaches. In addition, the “any-time” and “any-where” access to course material helped students manage numerous obligations outside the coursework during the challenging and uncertain times when they had to deal with personal and professional issues.

The pre-Covid and during-Covid analysis has been performed on the student success. The results indicate that students mastered the material at the same or even higher level of comprehension compared to traditional lecture environment. It can be concluded that methods applied to improve student learning using non-traditional methods can help students succeed in mastering material and help universities manage stress of a considerable magnitude.

Keywords:

Distance learning, hybrid learning, asynchronous courses.