Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during COVID-19: International Perspectives and Experiences [1 ed.] 036764715X, 9780367647155

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“This timely book on the effects of COVID-19 on the already rapid growth of online higher education provides valuable insights and information on the nature and possible consequences of these effects, including the widening of a digital education gap between institutions and countries capacities to successfully respond to rapidly increasing demands for optimal digital teaching and learning. This book also provides valuable solutions to COVID-19 related online education challenges, including for the accelerated need for the rapid development of widely accessible as well as optimal online education supporting technology, teaching and learning practices, and also an underlying online education wisdom that will make these advances possible.” – Stephen McKenzie, Senior Lecturer & Online Course Developer, The University of Melbourne, Australia “As educators kept teaching through the COVID-19 pandemic, online education and information and communication technologies (ICT) took on prominent roles. It is clear that the judicious use of the lessons learned stands to elevate higher education beyond where we were before. By underlining the wins, and alerting us to the losses, this volume provides faculty developers and instructors alike with keyways to capitalize on higher education’s response to the pandemic. The global perspectives provided are particularly valuable.” – Regan A. R. Gurung, Professor & Interim Executive Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, Oregon State University, USA “Even more valuable than the insights Dr. Chan, Dr. Bista, and Dr. Allen make to our understanding of the challenges and opportunities that emerged in higher education in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the timely and essential message carried throughout, that the future of traditional higher education hinges on its willingness to commit to and insist on equity and opportunity in the classroom through the use of evidence-based teaching practices that make possible success for all learners. COVID-19 has shed light on an increasingly questionable valuable proposition of many institutes of higher education – the insights in this work allow administrators, researchers, and practitioners to reflect on and more importantly improve on their current practices by implementing strategies to better serve their core customers resulting in better outcomes for all.” – Patrick Dempsey, Director, Office of Digital Teaching & Learning, Loyola University Maryland, USA

“The COVID-19 pandemic has forced education to ‘go online.’ The challenges facing those outside distance education practice as they move into digitally-mediated teaching are manifold, reaching beyond the classroom and lecture hall into the administrative offices of all higher education providers, and right into the life context of each student. This book asks the question this situation now requires us to confront: Based on our experiences and what we have since come to know, how do we ‘go online’ in ways that provide effective education for all?” – Mark Nichols, Executive Director, Learning Design & Development, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand “This volume includes valuable perspectives on a dramatically altered higher education landscape. Higher education researchers, faculty, administrators, and students will benefit from this research, which sheds light on effective and equitable teaching and learning practices. It includes a compelling firsthand account of a scholar-practitioner and his observations on how members of the higher education community grappled with the sudden transition to the virtual learning environment, including how cyber identities interact across political boundaries.” – Matthew J. Camp, Director of Government Relations, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA “This book is a very timely initiative about the impacts and consequences of COVID-19 in higher education. The need of going on-line, caused by the pandemic, had various impacts, both on our students and also on our lecturers, with a need to adjust procedures and practices. This became a digital transformation crucial aspect that changed our practices forever. Before, this changing process would probably have taken decades, and suddenly it became a reality in a few months. This book is an instrument that analyses these changes and the impacts of being on-line, drawing lessons to improve our practices. Moreover, it addresses the changes required to be addressed by all stakeholders, and also sheds light on our future post-pandemic. A very worthwhile book!” – Pedro Isaias, Associate Professor, The University of New South Wales, Australia “This book comes at a critical time in the era of COVID-19 and provides important insights into the application of online teaching and learning during the sad menace of the global pandemic. The fact that it is international in scope adds significantly to its value to the field of comparative higher education, making it a must read for serious teacher-scholars and practitioners of distance education. As an educational leadership professor for over four decades, I consider this book an essential textbook for those

studying the future of online teaching and learning in higher education. I highly recommend anyone teaching remotely for the first time to read it.” – Anthony G. Picciano, Professor, Hunter College and Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY), USA “This book excellently examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global higher education. More significantly, through investigating best practices in various contexts, this book also points the feasible development paths of online teaching and learning in post-pandemic higher education.” – Weiyan Xiong, Research Assistant Professor & Program Director, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China “Dr. Chan, Dr. Bista, and Dr. Allen remind us that higher education throughout the world has struggled through the pivot to online learning during the pandemic. Their book is the definitive source on the challenges faced by administrators, faculty, and students globally and the lessons learned that can improve distance education in the future.” – Linda B. Nilson, Founding Director, Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation, Clemson University, USA “This timely volume brings a much-needed global perspective to conversations on the post-pandemic university. Specifically, Dr. Chan and coauthors provide an important counterweight to the predominantly North American centric discussions about higher education during the pandemic. As we begin the process of planning our post-pandemic higher education future, the global perspective and international examples that Dr. Chan and colleagues bring to analyzing teaching and learning during COVID19 will be essential reading for the leaders of colleges and universities.” – Joshua Kim, Director of Online Programs and Strategy, Dartmouth College, USA “This comprehensive volume highlights not just the challenges but also the solutions and opportunities that have arisen as a result of the swift and rapid changes in education brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Educators and administrators will find this series of articles enlightening and helpful as they plan ahead to address disparities regarding connection and access within a global context, and effectively integrate digital infrastructures to ensure a robust and equitable online learning ecosystem.” – Linda D. Bloomberg, Professor & Associate Director of Faculty Support and Development, Northcentral University, USA

“This important collection provides a view of how faculty around the world have responded to the need to move instruction online in the wake of the pandemic. The emphasis on efforts to adapt active learning strategies for online delivery is particularly welcome. Documenting the student experience of this rapid shift online highlights the inequities heightened by the sudden transition and raises important questions for how we move forward both online and on campuses.” – Gary Natriello, Ruth L. Gottesman Professor in Educational Research, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA “Online education has existed for decades, but it took the catalyst of COVID-19 for most of higher education to use it extensively. This book provides an excellent selection of pandemic perspectives illustrating common challenges and techniques of successful programs.” – Dan Hillman, Associate Director of Instructional Design, Boston University, USA “I appreciate the diverse, global perspectives shared in this collection – along with the authors’ timely response to share ideas, practices, and challenges that represent the rapidly evolving state of higher education today.” – Amber Dailey-Hebert, Director of Faculty Center for Innovation & Professor, Park University, USA “I recommend this book for its important lessons on how ICT can and should support effective learning in curricular and co-curricular settings and because it helps educators improve models hastily implemented during the emergency transition to online instruction. Although COVID-19 will pass, we could be looking at a reshaped online and distance education landscape for years to come and this book helps us prepare for other disruptive future events.” – Daniel Chatham, Visiting Professor, International Education Management, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, USA “This remarkable volume of international perspectives on higher education during the Covid-19 pandemic will engage, inspire, and inform multiple audiences. Teachers, researchers, and administrators alike will find the culturally grounded information on online learning and assessment invaluable. As an historical imprint, this book documents admirable examples of pedagogical creativity and innovation. Perhaps most importantly, the narratives and data presented in each chapter are sure to animate discussions concerning equity, affordability, and the dignity of student learners in virtual spaces for years to come.” – Michael Lanford, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, University of North Georgia, USA

Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during COVID-­19

This timely volume documents the immediate, global impacts of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-­19) on teaching and learning in higher education. Focusing on student and faculty experiences of online and distance education, the text provides reflections on novel initiatives, unexpected challenges, and lessons learned. Responding to the urgent need to better understand online teaching and learning during the COVID-­19 pandemic, this book investigates how the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) impacted students, faculty, and staff experiences during the COVID-­19 lockdown. Chapters initially look at the challenges faced by universities and educators in their attempts to overcome the practical difficulties involved in developing effective online programming and pedagogy. The text then builds on these insights to highlight student experiences and consider issues of social connection and inequality. Finally, the volume looks forward to asking what lessons COVID-­19 can offer for the future development of online and distance learning in higher education. This engaging volume will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in online teaching and eLearning, curriculum design, and more, specifically those involved with the digitalization of higher education. The text will also support further discussion and reflection around pedagogical transformation, international teaching and learning, and educational policy more broadly. Roy Y. Chan is Assistant Professor of Education and Director of the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) Program in Leadership and Professional Practice in the Helen DeVos College of Education at Lee University, Tennessee, USA. Krishna Bista is Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Advanced Studies, Leadership and Policy at Morgan State University, Maryland, USA. Ryan M. Allen is Assistant Professor of Practice in the Attallah College of Educational Studies at Chapman University, California, USA.

Routledge Studies in Global Student Mobility Series Editors: Krishna Bista and Christopher Glass

Routledge Studies in Global Student Mobility offers a scholarly forum for original and innovative research which explores, explains, and increases understanding of issues and opportunities relating to international student mobility in K–12, higher education, and beyond. Consisting of peer-­ reviewed authored and edited volumes, the series advances theoretical understanding and identifies best practices for educators and professionals involved in study abroad. As an interdisciplinary scholarly venue, the series showcases new ideas and fresh perspectives relating to international student mobility, study abroad, exchange programs, student affairs from the US and around the world, and from a wide range of academic fields, including student affairs, international education, and cultural studies. This series is produced in collaboration with the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Special Interest Group (SIG) Study Abroad and International Students, Society of Transnational Academic Researchers (STAR) Scholars Network, and Open Journals in Education. Books in this series include: Inequalities in Study Abroad and Student Mobility Navigating Challenges and Future Directions Edited by Suzan Kommers and Krishna Bista International Students at US Community Colleges Opportunities, Challenges, and Successes Edited by Gregory F. Malveaux and Krishna Bista Critical Perspectives on Equity and Social Mobility in Study Abroad Interrogating Issues of Unequal Access and Outcomes Edited by Chris R. Glass and Peggy Gesing The Experiences of International Faculty in Institutions of Higher Education Enhancing Recruitment, Retention, and Integration of International Talent Edited by Chris R. Glass, Krishna Bista, and Xi Lin Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during COVID-­19 International Perspectives and Experiences Edited by Roy Y. Chan, Krishna Bista, and Ryan M. Allen Impacts of COVID-­19 on International Students and the Future of Student Mobility Edited by Krishna Bista, Ryan M. Allen, and Roy Y. Chan For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/go/routledge-­studies-­in-­global-­student-­mobility

Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during COVID-­19 International Perspectives and Experiences Edited by Roy Y. Chan, Krishna Bista, and Ryan M. Allen

First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Roy Y. Chan, Krishna Bista, Ryan M. Allen; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Roy Y. Chan, Krishna Bista, Ryan M. Allen to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Chan, Roy Y., 1986-­editor. | Bista, Krishna, 1980-­editor. | Allen, Ryan M., editor. Title: Online teaching and learning in higher education during COVID-­19: international perspectives and experiences / edited by Roy Y. Chan, Krishna Bista, Ryan M. Allen. Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge studies in global student mobility | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021007882 | ISBN 9780367647155 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367647179 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003125921 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Education, Higher-­-Computer-­assisted instruction-­-Case studies. | Instructional systems-­-Design-­-Case studies. | Social distancing (Public health) and education-­-Case studies. | COVID-­19 Pandemic, 2020-­--Case studies. Classification: LCC LB2395.7 .O67 2022 | DDC 378.1/7344678-­-dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007882 ISBN: 978-­0-­367-­64715-­5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-­0-­367-­64717-­9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-­1-­003-­12592-­1 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Straive, India

Contents

List of Figuresxii List of Tablesxiii About the Editorsxiv Foreword by Gerardo L. Blancoxvi Acknowledgmentsxviii PART I

Innovative Forms of Online Teaching, Learning, and Assessment during COVID-­19

1

1 Is Online and Distance Learning the Future in Global Higher Education? The Faculty Perspectives during COVID-­19

3

ROY Y. CHAN, KRISHNA BISTA, AND RYAN M. ALLEN

2 Designing Authentic Online Courses Intra-­and Post-­ Pandemic

13

MICHELLE RIPPY AND MONICA MUNOZ

3 Pandemic Pedagogy: Disparity in University Remote Teaching Effectiveness

28

LINDA DAM

4 Learning Management Systems and Synchronous Communication Tools: Enablers of Online Education during COVID-­19 DARREN TURNBULL, RITESH CHUGH, AND JO LUCK

39

x Contents 5 Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-­19: Flexible Harmonies in Higher Education

50

DAWN JOSEPH, ROHAN NETHSINGHE, AND ALBERTO CABEDO-­M AS

6 The Effectiveness of Authentic Assessments during COVID-­19: A Case of RMIT University in Vietnam

69

HUY PHAM, BINH NGUYEN THANH, THAI VU HONG NGUYEN, AND JAIN UPASANA

PART II

Impacts of Distance Education on Students, Social Inclusion, and Access during COVID-­19

79

7 Life in 280 Characters: Social Media, Belonging, and Community during the COVID-­19 Pandemic

81

JACK REED AND CATHERINE DUNN

8 “The Course Is No Longer Great”: The Need for Socially Meaningful Online Instruction for International Students

93

VANDER TAVARES

9 Expanding Equitable Access or Exacerbating Existing Barriers? Reexamining Online Learning for Vulnerable Student Populations

107

ROMANA MANZOOR AND WAYNE BART

10 Using Information Communication Technologies for Interactive Open and Distance Learning Experiences in the Era of COVID-­19

120

MMABALEDI SEELETSO

11 Suddenly Online: How Russian Students Switched to Distance Learning during the COVID-­19 Pandemic IVAN GRUZDEV, EVGENIIA SHMELEVA, RAMAN KALININ, AND KSENIIA VILKOVA

134

Contents  xi PART III

COVID-­19 as a Catalyst of Change – Lessons for the Longer Term

151

12 Could COVID-­19 be a Catalyst for Disruption in Higher Education?

153

RAFFAELLA BORASI, RICHARD DEMARTINO, NATHAN HARRIS, AND DAVE MILLER

13 Global Higher Education and COVID-­19: A Virtual Autoethnography of a Faculty

167

ANATOLY OLEKSIYENKO

14 Sustaining Liberal Education by Online Learning in the Era of Global Crises: The Case of Community Colleges in COVID-­19 Hong Kong

181

HEI-­H ANG HAYES TANG, BEATRICE Y. Y. DANG, ROSALIND LATINER RABY, AND JOANNA W. Y. YEUNG

15 Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-­19: Critical Perspectives from an Indian University 199 MOUSUMI MUKHERJEE, TATIANA BELOUSOVA, AND DEEPAK MAUN

16 Teacher Education in Times of Disruption: Lessons Learned from Teaching and Learning in Australian Universities during the COVID-­19 Pandemic

215

EDEN C. STEPHENS AND JEN SCOTT CURWOOD

17 The Expansion of E-­learning in the UAE: Implications and Opportunities in the Post-­COVID-­19 Era

229

SHYTANCE WREN

Epilogue 241 Index 244

Figures

2.1 5.1 6.1 15.1

Pandemic Pedagogy Graphic Representation of TPACK Modified Authentic Assessment Model Comparative Gross Enrollment Ratios for ODL and Regular (On-­Campus) Courses in India 15.2 The CoI Framework

18 53 75 200 207

Tables

4.1 Synchronous Tools and Their Application to Summative Assessment44 11.1 Difficulties with the Distance Learning Format (N = 17,618) 138 11.2 Independent Variables (N = 17,618) 139 11.3 Dependent Variable – Preference for Distance Learning over Traditional Face-­to-­Face Learning in Original and Binary Format (N = 16,718) 141 11.4 Factors (N = 17,618) 142 11.5 Factor Scores by Student Characteristics (N = 17,618) 143 11.6 Regression Results (N = 17,618) 145

About the Editors

Roy Y. Chan is Assistant Professor of Education and Director of the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) Program in Leadership and Professional Practice in the Helen DeVos College of Education at Lee University. Previously, Dr. Chan served as the Director of TRIO Student Support Services, where he oversaw the day-­to-­day operations of the program and managed a budget of $1.3 million funded by the U.S. Department of Education. His research interest includes cross-­border and transnational higher education, study abroad, college access and completion, and educational philanthropy. Dr. Chan currently serves as Senior Chair-­Elect of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Study Abroad and International Students (SAIS) Special Interest Group, and previously served as an advisor to the Forum on Education Abroad’s Data Committee. His latest books include Impacts of COVID-­ 19 on International Students and the Future of Student Mobility (Routledge, 2021), The Future of Accessibility in International Higher Education (IGI Global, 2017) and Higher Education: A Worldwide Inventory of Research Centers, Academic Programs, Journals and Publications (Lemmens Media, 2014). Dr. Chan holds a Ph.D. in history, philosophy, and policy in education from Indiana University Bloomington; an M.A. in higher education administration from Boston College; an M.Ed. in comparative higher education from the University of Hong Kong; and a B.A. from the University of California, Irvine. Krishna Bista is Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Advanced Studies, Leadership and Policy at Morgan State University, Maryland. His research focuses on college student experiences, faculty-­ student relationships, and cross-­cultural teaching and learning strategies in higher education. Previously, Dr. Bista served as the Director of Global Education at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, where he was Chase Endowed Professor of Education in the School of Education. Dr. Bista is Founding Editor of the Journal of International Students, a quarterly publication in international education. He is also Founding Chair of the SAIS SIG at the CIES. He has reviewed several book projects related to

About the Editors  xv educational research, international and comparative education series for Routledge, SAGE, Palgrave MacMillan, and Bloomsbury publications. His latest books are Higher Education in Nepal (Routledge, 2020) and Global Perspectives on International Experiences in Higher Education: Tensions and Issues (Routledge, 2019). Ryan M. Allen is Assistant Professor of Practice in the Attallah College of Educational Studies at Chapman University. His research interest includes international and comparative education, globalization of higher education, international students and study abroad, and educational technology. Dr. Allen’s work can be seen in various publications, such as University World News, Journal of Studies in International Education, and Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. Prior to this book project, he coedited Kuo Ping Wen: Scholar, Reformer, Statesman (Long River Press, 2016). Dr. Allen holds a Ph.D. in international and comparative education from Teachers College, Columbia University, an M.A. in international relations from Yonsei University, and a B.A. from the University of Central Oklahoma.

Foreword by Gerardo L. Blanco

The COVID-­19 pandemic constitutes a rare true global event. While many local events may be broadcast worldwide as a consequence of globalization, the pandemic has transcended national and regional boundaries, generations, social classes – in short – the many categories utilized to make sense of society. The pandemic has also served as a catastrophic reminder of the absolute necessity of higher education for knowledge generation and human well-­being. The editors of this volume have gathered an impressive array of voices that bring together individual experiences from the faculty and student perspective, with national and global dimensions, to analyze the acceleration and increased sophistication of online instruction in response to the COVID-­19 pandemic. Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during COVID-­19: International Perspectives and Experiences stands as proof of the resilience of higher education, of the commitment of faculty members around the world to ensure instructional continuity, of the creative problem solving of administrators and policy makers, and of the will of students to keep learning. This book also stands as proof of all the work still to take place. In the aggregate, the perspectives that Dr. Chan, Dr. Bista, and Dr. Allen bring together in this volume tell a story of professionalization and collaboration leading the way to reimagine the teaching and learning process. While faculty members are often accused of being reluctant to change, this volume provides important accounts of how multiple stakeholders within universities around the world came together and demonstrated universities’ ability to rapidly adapt. The pandemic continues to provide opportunities to increase collaboration, to promote faculty development, and to deepen reflection on teaching. Despite the heartbreak and despair that the pandemic has brought about, epistemic humility has been an unexpected gift to higher education in these challenging times. While often expected to speak as experts, faculty members found that the need to adapt to this crisis sparked curiosity, learning, and knowledge exchange. At a time of isolation, when many of us feel disconnected from the traditional spaces that allow us to share ideas and experiences with colleagues, this volume attests to the new global communities of practice that have

Foreword by Gerardo L. Blanco  xvii emerged in a less hierarchical, global space for exchanging ideas on teaching and learning. We all have our own stories of exchange, sharing tips with colleagues on how to cope with screen fatigue, the policies we enact for webcam use in class, and even how to fit more students on the screen. I am, for instance, very grateful for the support that instructional designers and media producers at my university’s Center for Digital Innovation in Learning provided me. This is one of the reasons why this book is so deeply relatable and at the same time so significant. At a time when higher education has been challenged and tested, the editors and contributors of Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during COVID-­19: International Perspectives and Experiences provide a synthesis of valuable lessons, along with inspiring narratives of change, punctuated by insights and reflections, with a focus on improvement. Anyone involved with teaching and learning in higher education, university administration, student affairs and services, and educational policy making will benefit greatly from the global perspectives compiled in this volume. This book is truly a symbol of hope representing the very best that higher education has to offer. Gerardo L. Blanco is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Higher Education and Academic Director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Prior to joining Boston College, he served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Boston and at the University of Connecticut. His research explores the intersections of quality and internationalization in higher education and is motivated by a commitment to global social justice and a deep curiosity for the ways higher education institutions define, improve, and communicate their value to different stakeholder groups. The author of over 30 journal articles to date, his research has been published in Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, the Comparative Education Review, and the Review of Higher Education. In 2017, he received the “Best Research Article Award” from the CIES Higher Education SIG. In 2014 and 2020, his work received honorable mentions from the same organization. Dr. Blanco has been a visiting faculty member at Shaanxi Normal University (China), visiting expert at the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER) at the University of Kassel (Germany), and teaching fellow at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (Poland).

Acknowledgments

The editors of this book are extremely grateful to several teacher-­scholars, practitioners, and policymakers who have supported our project since the COVID-­19 global pandemic in January 2020. In particular we are most grateful to Elsbeth Wright, our acquisitions editor at Routledge for her encouragement, coordination, and support through the project. We are also grateful to AnnaMary Goodall, who provided editorial assistance since the beginning of this project. Special thanks to Dr. Chris Glass and colleagues in the Routledge Student Mobility Series, as well as at the STAR Scholars Network and Critical Internationalization Studies Network. We also appreciate the support of colleagues whom we worked with over the years at the Open Journals in Education, a consortium of the professional journals, the CIES’s SAIS SIG, the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Council on International Higher Education, the Journal of International Students, and the Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education. We would also like to acknowledge the help of all the scholars who were involved in this project and, more specifically, to the authors and reviewers who took part in the review process. We are most grateful for our copyeditor, Melissa Brown Levine, who provided initial comments and edits throughout our manuscript. We also thank Gerardo L. Blanco from the Boston College Center for International Higher Education (CIHE), who served as the foreword for our book. We acknowledge support from both CIES and ASHE, who helped disseminated the call for chapter proposals in spring 2020. Without their support, this book would not have become a reality. At Lee University, Dr. Chan would like to thank his colleagues and Ed.D. students, who provided suggestions and feedback in this project. At Morgan State University, Dr. Bista would like to thank his colleagues for their encouragement and support, including graduate students and graduate assistants in the Department of Advanced Studies, Leadership, and Policy. At Chapman University, Dr. Allen is grateful to his colleagues and graduate students in the Attallah College of Educational Studies.

Acknowledgments  xix Special thanks to the following reviewers who assisted us in reviewing manuscripts received for this book, Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during COVID-­19: International Perspectives and Experiences. It would not have been possible to finalize the selected chapters without their evaluations and constructive feedback. Chapter Reviewers Adam Grimm, Michigan State University, U.S.A. Adriana Medina, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, U.S.A. Alia A. Ammar, Drexel University, U.S.A. Aliya Kuzhabekova, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan Andrea Shelton, Texas Southern University, U.S.A. Andrej Novak, University of Zagreb, Croatia Andrew Kelly, American Enterprise Institute, U.S.A. Benjamin H. Nam, Shanghai International Studies University, China Bernardo N. Caslib Jr., University of the Philippines Manila, Philippines Shawn Conner-­Rondot, Indiana University, U.S.A. Bethia Jikpamu, University of Toronto, Canada Bushra Nayeem, University of Kansas, U.S.A. Chris R. Glass, Old Dominion University, U.S.A. Ella Carter, Center for Energy Education, U.S.A. Eva Janebova, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Gerardo L. Blanco, Boston College, U.S.A. Jamie Mullaney, Goucher College, U.S.A. Ji Yeon Bae, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Krishna Bista, Morgan State University, U.S.A. Louisa Hill, University of Leeds, U.K. Mary Eppolite, Mahidol University, Thailand Michael Kung, University of Florida, U.S.A. Prashanti Chennamsetti, Texas A&M University, U.S.A. Romana Manzoo, American Islamic College, U.S.A. Roy Y. Chan, Lee University, U.S.A. Ruth Lu, The Ohio State University, U.S.A. Ryan M. Allen, Chapman University, U.S.A. Shabeer Hussain Amirali, Bradley University, U.S.A. Sharon Obasi, University of Nebraska at Kearney, U.S.A. Tirtha Raj Timsina, Tribhuvan University, Nepal Tony Lee, Texas A&M University-­Commerce, U.S.A. Vander Tavares, Sheridan College, Canada We also thank the following who read our manuscript and provided excellent endorsements for this book: •

Amber Dailey-­Hebert, Director of Faculty Center for Innovation & Professor, Park University, U.S.A.

xx Acknowledgments • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Anthony G. Picciano, Professor, Hunter College and Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY), U.S.A. Dan Hillman, Associate Director of Instructional Design, Boston University, U.S.A. Daniel Chatham, Visiting Professor, International Education Management, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, U.S.A. Gary Natriello, Ruth L. Gottesman Professor in Educational Research Teachers College, Columbia University, U.S.A. Gerardo L. Blanco, Associate Professor and Academic Director, Boston College Center for International Higher Education (CIHE), U.S.A. Joshua Kim, Director of Online Programs and Strategy, Dartmouth College, U.S.A. Linda B. Nilson, Founding Director, Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation, Clemson University, U.S.A. Linda D. Bloomberg, Professor and Associate Director of Faculty Support and Development, Northcentral University, U.S.A. Mark Nichols, Executive Director, Learning Design and Development, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand Matthew J. Camp, Director of Government Relations, Teachers College, Columbia University, U.S.A. Michael Lanford, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, University of North Georgia, U.S.A. Patrick Dempsey, Director, Office of Digital Teaching and Learning, Loyola University Maryland, U.S.A. Pedro Isaias, Associate Professor, The University of New South Wales, Australia Regan A. R. Gurung, Professor and Interim Executive Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, Oregon State University, U.S.A. Stephen McKenzie, Senior Lecturer and Online Course Developer, The University of Melbourne, Australia Weiyan Xiong, Research Assistant Professor and Program Director, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China

Part I

Innovative Forms of Online Teaching, Learning, and Assessment during COVID-19

1 Is Online and Distance Learning the Future in Global Higher Education? The Faculty Perspectives during COVID-19 Roy Y. Chan, Krishna Bista, and Ryan M. Allen Introduction The demand for online and distance education has expanded dramatically around the world since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in early 2020. Most notably, the ongoing and evolving global COVID-19 restrictions have heightened the importance of online teaching and learning in higher education broadly and international education particularly (Dwivedi et al., 2020; Paudel, 2021). Today, the pandemic has presented the world with never-before-seen global challenges. Many colleges and universities have been grappling with unclear recruitment priorities and severe financial constraints while at the same time collaborating and cooperating with new industry partners and philanthropic organizations to navigate the shifting COVID-19 landscape (de Wit & Altbach, 2021). Institutions of higher education, especially those from middle- and upper-income countries, have purchased and deployed new technologies and approaches (face-to-face, online, synchronous, asynchronous) in all departments as a direct consequence of the pandemic, yet there has been little consideration of how those information and communication technologies (ICT) will be used for the future (Altbach & de Wit, 2020). As many postsecondary institutions continue to confront the challenges of remote instruction, the need to understand the purposes and functions of online teaching and learning is vastly needed not only to prepare students for the complexity of digitalization but also to help prepare them for the globally competitive knowledge-based economy (Oleksiyenko et al., 2020). The most common way to provide students with remote instruction is the use of audio and video conferencing (e.g., Zoom, Google Meet, Skype). Since the COVID-19 lockdown, the use of audio and video conferencing has become crucial for faculty members and staff to present content in multiple ways and formats. According to the International

4  Roy Y. Chan et al. Association of Universities’ (IAU, 2020b) global survey on the impacts of COVID-19, two-thirds of the responding institutions worldwide have replaced classroom teaching with distance learning. In the United States, the American Council on Education (ACE, 2020) COVID-19 survey of 268 college and university presidents found that more than half (55%) planned to offer “predominantly online, with some in-person instruction” in the spring 2021 semester, which meant that the entire academic year would be online. The integration of hybrid and blended learning formats has provided students with added convenience, flexibility, and a safety net to pursue tertiary education at a distance. Furthermore, video conferencing and learning management systems (e.g., Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle) have helped students who are unable to attend in the real world to optimize learning remotely. Although online and distance education has grown substantially over the past decade, and most notably since the COVID-19 lockdown, limited research has examined the role of distance education in shaping accessible learning. Furthermore, very few studies have examined the impacts of COVID-19 on student success during the transition to online learning. In this introductory chapter of the book, we discuss how the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the status quo in global higher education, with faculty members and staff forced to engage in developing professional development opportunities (teaching training) to stay competitive and relevant for its constituents (students, alumni, parents, policy makers). Specifically, we illustrate how the expansion of ICT and information technology specialists has affected institutions’ abilities to survive in the future, as several colleges and universities begin to shut down (The College Crisis Initiative (C2i), 2021). We also share how the COVID-19 restrictions have widened the digital gap across all teaching and learning spaces (due to the lack of a national response to the public health crisis), while exacerbating economic and structural inequalities with regards to ICT access (i.e., Internet, electricity, computers) among historically vulnerable populations (e.g., rural children, families of color, students with disabilities, students of refugee status; Salmi, 2021). As technological advancements and travel bans continue to grow around the world, we highlight the changing examples, patterns, and frameworks afforded by online and distance education from an international and comparative lens. We also provide alternative assumptions, paradigms, and reflections for teacher-scholars and advanced practitioners to consider that will inspire, challenge, and connect them during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Key questions that are asked include how do scholars, policy makers, and practitioners move from talking head to active learning remotely? How do they make learning valuable and successful when teaching virtually? How do they proactively engage faculty, staff, students, and alumni with the goal of building and sustaining authentic relationships online? How do they best support their students with plans for intercultural learning

Is Online and Distance Learning the Future  5 and study abroad virtually? And how do they redesign and deliver remote courses that emphasize field-based and experiential learning? Ultimately, we seek to equip and empower researchers, governments, health officials, policy makers, and stakeholders with the broad understanding needed to enhance the quality of online teaching and learning in higher education as set forth by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during COVID-19 The COVID-19 crisis has rapidly accelerated the digital transformation of education globally, as colleges and universities have had to make numerous changes to their teaching styles, research processes, and collaborative relationships. The most dramatic change is the shifting modes of instruction from once fully residential-only learning to fully online, remote, or hybrid learning environments. This inevitably has created myriad challenges for students in low- and middle-income countries, with many expressing concerns that learners are unable to access the Internet due to low broadband connection (Mseleku, 2020). The International Association of Universities report (2020a) has identified three main challenges to online and distance education: (1) technical infrastructure and accessibility, (2) distance learning competencies and pedagogies, and (3) the field of study. The report concludes that the growing digital divide and socioeconomic inequalities with large groups of students, the disparities in online learning, and the lack of teaching preparation by the faculty are a few notable challenges and topics in the field of higher education and international education. Today, one can argue that the rapid transition to online and distance education is ubiquitous of necessity (Altbach & de Wit, 2020). More students than ever before are learning from a distance at home, as COVID-19 infections continue to rise around the world. The ongoing pandemic has not only impacted how educational administrators, faculty, and students communicate with each other but has also redefined online teaching and learning in drastic ways. Past studies have shown that many faculty and staff struggle to teach students online in the most effective way, as global demand for distance learning degrees dwindles (Day et al., 2021; Kemp, 2020). With this shift, recent research has suggested an increased disengagement for and use of new digital resources and technological advancements in developing countries (Mseleku, 2020). To ensure equitable access, support, and learning for as many students as possible – including disabled and refugee students – we believe that colleges and universities must redirect resources to expand professional development opportunities in virtual teaching and to invest heavily in supporting inclusive and equitable online learning experiences. As current teacher-scholars and practitioners in the academy, we believe it is vital for educators to meet student communication needs and how they are taught from a distance.

6  Roy Y. Chan et al. Opportunities and Challenges to Online and Distance Education The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically worsened inequalities within domestic higher education sectors and between countries (de Wit & Altbach, 2021). Globally, one of the biggest challenges in the era of mass higher education pertains to the issue of quality, as both students and faculty have argued that remote learning is “inferior” and not of the same quality as face-to-face instruction (Shim & Lee, 2020). A survey from Means and Neisler (2020) reported that student satisfaction and motivation have significantly decreased during the pandemic, with half of U.S. students expressing dissatisfaction with their learning after their course went online. As noted by Altbach and de Wit (2020), “The lack of motivation of students for online delivery will become an issue with the cohort planning to enter higher education this fall” (p. 3). While one can argue that the delivery of online and distance education is far more costly than traditional face-to-face instruction, numerous challenges and uncertainties remain with regards to the quality of remote instruction, the increased workload without formal compensation, and the limited resources available to prepare faculty for online instruction (Day et al., 2021). To best prepare our students for the rising complexity of digitalization, faculty members and instructional designers must implement new pedagogical approaches and practices to support student learning (study, work, teach, language, volunteer abroad, international student services, and career services). Higher education needs to prepare for a different future in which we educate young adults and adult learners for responsible citizenship. The use of ICTs requires learners to adapt and integrate new learning skills and competencies in the classroom (ElSaheli-Elhage, 2021). When faculty members work to implement evidence-based teaching practices, whether in-person or online, they are also working to create more inclusive learning environments that promote equity. Achieving equity requires that educators teach with practices that embrace the diversity of their students’ backgrounds. The challenge, however, is that many faculty members are resistant to implement evidence-based teaching practices in the classroom that foster more inclusive online learning environments (Gratz & Looney, 2020). Specifically, faculty members from lower- and middle-income countries are often wary of teaching online courses because they have had limited exposure to or training in remote instruction, let alone have experience with developing high-quality online courses (Altbach & de Wit, 2020). This is highly evident among faculty members holding over ten years of teaching experience who may complain that online teaching takes more time to prepare for than traditional face-to-face courses (Cutri & Mena, 2020). Some faculty members may also argue that remote instruction can decrease student learning outcomes and that the use of distance and

Is Online and Distance Learning the Future  7 hybrid learning approaches has led to negative student experiences due to a disconnect with the faculty (Day et al., 2021). While professional development opportunities (faculty training) are available at both the federal and institutional levels, many professors have expressed displeasure with online learning due to either their inability to communicate clearly or their discomfort with modifying their teaching style. Despite these myriad challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed many developing and developed countries to expand connectivity for higher education institutions and their students. A few notable benefits of online and distance learning include the ability to reach new and previously underserved student populations, the ability to adapt and change to meet individual needs, and the capacity to innovative remotely within the classroom (Dhawan, 2020). New partnerships and opportunities have been born from the necessities brought by the pandemic. The expanding role of online and distance education has also encouraged several institutions of higher education to offer international joint and dual degrees, to teach courses collectively or simultaneously, and to conduct research collaboratively (Salmi, 2021). In other words, key technological innovations and effective cross-unit collaborations and investments will be significant for institutions seeking to generate revenue and recruit international distance learning students in the post-COVID era. Effective online learning is highly dependent on faculty training. Faculty members who are open to change are more likely to experience higher levels of satisfaction toward online and distance education than less experienced faculty (Cutri & Mena, 2020). In short, we believe that educators must work together to develop innovative, inclusive and equitable online learning environments for students to succeed in higher education. At the same time, we also believe that the academy must be prepared for any future pandemics, disasters, or other disruptions and expand on the current models developed and implemented during the emergency transition to remote instruction (Affouneh et al., 2020). Faculty should embrace research-based teaching practices and determine the most effective ones during (and after) the pandemic to enhance student learning.

Organization of the Book This book provides a broad range of issues pertaining to online teaching and learning in global higher education. The chapters selected in this book bring a unique perspective to how online and distance education should be leveraged to facilitate student mobility and integrated as an element in the “multiplicity” of future offers. The book is divided into three parts. The first section of the book includes five chapters that discuss the nature and effectiveness of innovative forms of online teaching, learning, and assessment adopted during and after the pandemic. In Chapter 2,

8  Roy Y. Chan et al. Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz describe the process of designing authentic online courses during and post-COVID-19 pandemic through training, design, and pedagogy. In Chapter 3, Linda Dam uses social media platforms to provide a qualitative thematic analysis of key debates, highlighting the disparity in university remote teaching effectiveness during a pandemic. In Chapter 4, Darren Turnbull, Ritesh Chugh, and Jo Luck explore the case for incorporating synchronous tools, such as video conferencing and live chat into online testing strategies to improve the validity and effectiveness of assessment delivery. Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, and Alberto Cabedo-Mas use narrative inquiry methodology to highlight current challenges, dilemmas, and opportunities that they have encountered in relation to student learning and working from home using a range of interactive multimedia tools. Finally, in Chapter 6, Huy Pham, Binh Nguyen Thanh, Thai Vu Hong Nguyen, and Upasana Jain investigate the effectiveness of authentic assessments during the COVID-19 period to determine whether authentic assessments work better (or worse) at RMIT University, Vietnam. The second section of the book includes five chapters that address the impact of distance education on students, social inclusion, and access during COVID-19, with special attention to student well-being and social inequalities. In Chapter 7, Jack Reed and Catherine Dunn describe how the use of social media in higher education has increased students’ sense of belonging and community development, especially in developing countries where remote learning is limited. In Chapter 8, Vander Tavares draws on teacher research to show that the switch to online delivery in Canadian universities has limited international students’ ability to engage in meaningful social interaction with the faculty and consequently, affected their overall sense of community. Romana Manzoor and Wayne Bart present evidence-based information in Chapter 9 on how online learning has expanded and exacerbated access to higher education for vulnerable and underrepresented students. In Chapter 10, Mmabaledi Seeletso describes that the use of ICTs in Botswana, Africa, may facilitate further social exclusion and digital divide in higher education because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, in Chapter 11, Ivan Gruzdev, Evgeniia Shmeleva, Raman Kalinin, and Kseniia Vilkova use survey data from more than 18,000 undergraduate students to show how the shift to online and distance education has created numerous challenges for students in Russian public universities. They conclude that the most common difficulties students face in Russia are poor Internet connection, lack of interaction with peers and faculty, insufficient self-regulated learning skills, and inadequate space to study at home. The third and final section of the book includes six chapters that address specific case studies of lessons learned from teaching and learning remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Chapter 12, Raffaella Borasi, Richard DeMartino, Nathan Harris, and Dave Miller combine entrepreneurship,

Is Online and Distance Learning the Future  9 pedagogy, business, and higher education organizational theory to show that COVID-19 could be a catalyst for disruption in higher education. In Chapter 13, Anatoly Oleksiyenko employs virtual autoethnography in the online community of global higher education to enable a better understanding of the diverse and conflicting narratives and memories that shape our increasingly cyber-bound societies. In Chapter 14, Hei-hang Hayes Tang, Beatrice Y. Y. Dang, Rosalind Latiner Raby, and Joanna W. Y. Yeung investigate the rise of online learning in Hong Kong community colleges and examine the implications for a possible paradigm shift of liberal education in light of synergizing virtual and face-to-face teaching. In Chapter  15, Mousumi Mukherjee uses an online survey of 106 students from a private university in India to discuss the pros and cons of mainstream online distance learning in the middle of the global pandemic. She concludes that the COVID-19 lockdown and social distancing norms might reshape online and distance education for many years to come. In Chapter 16, Eden Stephens and Jen Scoot Curwood examine how teacher education within Australian higher education institutions has been reimagined in the online sphere and provides several benefits and hindrances that have resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, in Chapter 17, Shytance Wren uses diffusion innovation theory to show that the blended learning model should be implemented in the United Arab Emirates public higher education institutions. The book concludes with a short epilogue from the editors that highlights key overarching messages and commonalities from the 17 chapters. We anticipate that these chapters will empower educators, administrators, practitioners, policy makers, and families with new ideas, principles, and advice that they can apply this academic year and beyond. A few guiding questions in this book are as follows: • How do we make learning valuable and successful when teaching virtually? • How do we proactively engage faculty, staff, students, and alumni with the goal of building and sustaining authentic relationships online? • How do we redesign and deliver remote courses that emphasize fieldbased and experiential learning? • How do we best support our students with upcoming plans for intercultural learning and study abroad virtually? • How do we move from talking head to active learning remotely?

Bios Roy Y. Chan, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Education and Director of the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) Program in Leadership and Professional Practice in the Helen DeVos College of Education at

10  Roy Y. Chan et al. Lee University, Tennessee. Previously, Dr. Chan served as the Director of TRIO Student Support Services, where he oversaw the day-to-day operations of the program and managed a budget of $1.3 million funded by the U.S. Department of Education. His research interest includes crossborder and transnational higher education, study abroad, college access and completion, and educational philanthropy. Dr. Chan currently serves as Senior Chair-Elect of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Study Abroad and International Students Special Interest Group and previously served as an advisor to the Forum on Education Abroad’s Data Committee. His latest books include Impacts of COVID-19 on International Students and the Future of Student Mobility (Routledge, 2021), The Future of Accessibility in International Higher Education (IGI Global, 2017) and Higher Education: A Worldwide Inventory of Research Centers, Academic Programs, and Journals and Publications (Lemmens Media, 2014). Dr. Chan holds a Ph.D. in history, philosophy, and policy in education from Indiana University Bloomington; a M.A. in higher education administration from Boston College; a M.Ed. in comparative higher education from the University of Hong Kong; and a B.A. in criminology, law & society from the University of California, Irvine. Krishna Bista, Ed.D., is a Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Advanced Studies, Leadership, and Policy at Morgan State University, Maryland. His research focuses on college student experiences, faculty-student relationships, and cross-cultural teaching and learning strategies in higher education. Previously, Dr. Bista served as the Director of Global Education at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, where he was Chase Endowed Professor of Education in the School of Education. Dr. Bista is Founding Editor of the Journal of International Students, a quarterly publication in international education. He is also Founding Chair of the Study Abroad and International Students Special Interest Group (SIG) at the CIES. He has reviewed several book projects related to educational research, international and comparative education series for Routledge, SAGE, Palgrave MacMillan, and Bloomsbury publications. His latest books are Higher Education in Nepal (Routledge, 2020), and Global Perspectives on International Experiences in Higher Education: Tensions and Issues (Routledge, 2019). Ryan M. Allen, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Attallah College of Educational Studies at Chapman University, California. His research interests include international and comparative education, globalization of higher education, international students and study abroad, and educational technology. Dr. Allen’s work can be seen in various publications, such as University World News, Journal of Studies in International Education, and Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. Prior to this book project, he coedited Kuo Ping Wen: Scholar,

Is Online and Distance Learning the Future  11 Reformer, Statesman (Long River Press, 2016). Dr. Allen holds a Ph.D. in international and comparative education from Teachers College, Columbia University; an M.A. in international relations from Yonsei University; and a B.A. in public relations from the University of Central Oklahoma.

References ACE. American Council on Education. (2020). College and university presidents respond to COVID-19: 2020 fall term survey, part II. ACE. Altbach, P. G., & de Wit, H. (2020). Responding to COVID-19 with IT: A transformative moment? International Higher Education, 103, 3–4. Affouneh, S., Salha, S., N., & Khlaif, Z. (2020). Designing quality e-learning environments for emergency remote teaching in coronavirus crisis. Interdisciplinary Journal of Virtual Learning in Medical Sciences, 11(2), 1–3. Cutri, R. M., & Mena, J. (2020) Faculty readiness for online crisis teaching: Transitioning to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. European Journal of Teacher Education, 43(4), 523–541. Day, T., Chang, I-Chun C., Chung, C. K. L., Doolittle, W. E., Housel, J., & McDaniel, P. N. (2021). The immediate impact of COVID-19 on postsecondary teaching and learning. The Professional Geographer 73(1), 1–13. de Wit, H., & Altbach, P. G. (2021). Fighting for funding against inequality postCOVID-19. International Higher Education, 105, 3–4. Dhawan, S. (2020). Online learning: A panacea in the time of COVID-19 crisis. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 49(1), 5–22. Dwivedi, Y., Hughes, L., Coombs, C., Constantiou, I., Duan, Y., & Edwards, J. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management research and practice: Transforming education, work and life. International Journal of Information Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102211 ElSaheli-Elhage, R. (2021). Access to students and parents and levels of preparedness of educators during the COVID-19 emergency transition to e-learning. International Journal on Studies in Education, 3(2), 61–69. Gratz, E., & Looney, L. (2020). Faculty resistance to change: An examination of motivators and barriers to teaching online in higher education. International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 10(1), 1–14. IAU. International Association of Universities. (2020a). Regional/National perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 on higher education. IAU. IAU. International Association of Universities. (2020b). The impact of COVID-19 on higher education around the world: IAU Global Survey Report IAU. Kemp, N. (2020). Distance learning and global demand. International Higher Education, 103, 5–6. Mseleku, Z. (2020). A literature review of e-learning and e-teaching in the era of COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, 5(10), 588–597. Means, B., & Neisler, J., with Langer Research Associates. (2020). Suddenly online: A national survey of undergraduates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital Promise. Oleksiyenko, A., Blanco, G., Hayhoe, R., Jackson, L., Lee, J., Metcalfe, A., Sivasubramaniam, M., & Zha, Q. (2020). Comparative and international

12  Roy Y. Chan et al. higher education in a new key? Thoughts on the post-pandemic prospects of scholarship. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2020.1838121 Paudel, P. (2021). Online education: Benefits, challenges and strategies during and after COVID-19 in higher education. International Journal on Studies in Education, 3(2), 70–85. Salmi, J. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 on higher education from an equity perspective. International Higher Education, 105, 5–6. Shim, T. E., & Lee, S. Y. (2020). College students’ experience of emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19. Children and Youth Services Review, 119, 105578. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105578 The College Crisis Initiative (C2i). (2021). COVID-19 Data Dashboard. https:// collegecrisis.shinyapps.io/dashboard/

2 Designing Authentic Online Courses Intra- and Post-Pandemic Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz Introduction In these unprecedented times during the COVID-19 pandemic, extraordinary measures have been taken in higher education to ensure continuity of teaching. While every institute of higher education likely has contingency planning for the short term, many did not have long-term continuity plans for the transition from in-person courses to an online modality. As educational institutions briefly weighed the options of remaining fully operational, reducing services, or closing, national health orders forced universities and colleges to close in March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic affected over 90% of students worldwide in the spring of 2020, sparking an emergency transformation to distance learning, requiring pivoting and agility. Without knowing the time frame for shelter-in-place orders to end, there was planning needed for a possible return to the classroom (Hollweck & Doucet, 2020). Similar actions to those during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 occurred when university terms were canceled, with schools internationally moving to an online modality in spring 2020 (Trilla et al., 2008). With the invention of the Internet and the increasing popularity of online coursework, higher education was now able to continue in a modified fashion to sustain student learning. While online coursework and distance learning is not a new method of education, the sudden transition to online coursework left some faculty members scrambling to redesign courses to a modality they may never have taught in. The focus was initially on personal and student safety, with the second priority being learning continuity (Berry et al., 2020). The movement from face-to-face material to an online format is not sufficient to provide high-caliber education, as a poor course design can leave students feeling isolated and without support (Miller, 2011). Authentic learning, with learner engagement in assignments that relate to real issues and topics in the discipline, is a vital part of online learner success (Herrington et al., 2010). Developing an online course can take weeks of full-time work, particularly when incorporated with best practices and quality assurance through a formal review process, such as Quality Matters, Inc. Quality online courses support students and allow them to persist through the end of their program of study (Stavredes & Herder, 2013). Combining

14  Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz quality online courses with authentic learning objectives to increase student success would include critical thinking, problem-based learning, and reflective work (LaPrade et al., 2014; Stavredes & Herder, 2013). While the stigma of online learning and technology challenges linger, online learning has shown to have no significant impact on grades when compared to in-person learning, although research has not been conducted on a forced online modality (Fonolahi & Khan, 2014). Continuing to be pragmatic when creating online courses and being mindful of technological and human limitations can assist with improving student success and learning during the most challenging of times.

Literature Review Online education is not a new invention for higher education, though it has been more widely adopted in the past two decades. There are over 14 million college-level students who have taken online courses, an increase from the 2.2 million students taking online courses in 2001 (Holly et al., 2008). The higher prevalence of online education has led to an increase in tools and technology available for quality and authentic teaching in a virtual environment. A strong pedagogy can support technology, as well as overcome online challenges (Waterhouse, 2005). Pedagogy in online courses is commonly overlooked for adherence to technology standards and the use of learning management platform tools, which can create an overwhelming cognitive load on both students and faculty. Online pedagogy should be informed by instructional design theory and practice to create an authentic learning experience (Nilson & Goodson, 2019). The implementation of a successful online pedagogy generally occurs from trial and error and competes with the technology upgrades and wide ranges of programs and tools that sell claims of increased interactions. The focus on updated technology can sometimes shadow known best practices of faceto-face courses (Zhang & Walls, 2009). The transition in March 2020 to online learning, within days of shelter-in-place and other pandemic orders, created tens of thousands of new online educators without the time for proper training or course redesign. There have been minimal publications about teaching during a pandemic or a sudden transition to a different teaching modality, as the world has not experienced a pandemic of COVID-19 proportions in the past 100 years. Concerns of exposure to H1N1 during the swine flu outbreak were expressed by elementary school teachers, as children appeared to be the most vulnerable to the deadly disease (Howard & Howard, 2012). Action plans were created for teachers in Nova Scotia, including cleaning requirements and reporting of absences, but no guidance was provided for continuity of teaching. The teachers felt an intense responsibility for the safety of their students, which affected their pedagogy with the extra stressors and pandemic preparedness (Howard & Howard, 2012). During

Online Courses Intra- and Post-Pandemic  15 the immediate transition to online learning during COVID-19, there was not time for many educators to transition to using authentic learning practices in online courses, particularly with the daily personal challenges the pandemic caused. Authentic learning can take many shapes, from project-based learning to collaboration and reflection. Authentic learning experiences can include a community or future career connection, a challenging inquiry, creation of a justification for a solution, and use of an outside audience (Laur, 2013). Reflection can assist students with learning the material, and reflection by faculty can increase institutional effectiveness in teaching (LaPrade et al., 2014). While having an outside audience or guest speaker may have been difficult to schedule in the past, the transition to an online format can allow for community members to join the course via video conferencing. No matter the curriculum, a current challenge in the field can be brought forth as an inquiry with the incorporation of realworld experiences. During a pandemic, obtaining experience in the community may not be feasible, but simulated experiences and activities built into the course can be added (Laur, 2013). Collaborative learning can increase understanding of content and encourage analysis, research, and appreciation for classmates (McFarlane, 2015). Authentic learning can be transitioned to online learning through synchronous and asynchronous practices using basic educational tools and a learning management system. Creating an online course should begin with constructing a framework of the course and module learning objectives. A curriculum built on learning objectives allows for assignments, tests, and projects to be aligned with the learning goals for the course (Stavredes & Herder, 2013). The use of backward course design, in which one starts with the end goals then builds the curriculum, can assist in developing the assignments or tasks for students that can directly assist with meeting the learning objectives. When designing a course, an educator should begin with the assessment to meet the learning goals and then build the course materials and choose a textbook by aligning all work with the assessment (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). A piecemeal approach of adding assignments and technology can create chaos in an online course, as planned systematic changes aligning with course goals can increase student success (Weimer, 2002). Just as students will complete their course assignments when they have time during the week, it is rare that faculty members will have uninterrupted time to create and organize course content or sufficient time to plan for course facilitation. Once the course design is created, course delivery becomes the focus. Course design should occur before the start of the semester, similar to planning face-to-face courses. Faculty members have the responsibility to empower learners, engage students in the material, and show enthusiasm for the topic (Conrad & Donaldson, 2012). Faculty delivery of course content can create a transformative learning experience, leading

16  Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz to a change in the student (Conrad & Donaldson, 2012; Meyers, 2008). Creating an engaging environment can be more challenging in an asynchronous course; however, tools like YouTube and other vetted online technologies can be utilized to create an immersive educational experience (Buzzetto-More, 2015). A faculty member can face discomfort with creating and delivering material in online courses or having an assignment not work out as expected (Smith, 2015). While creativity in online courses is encouraged to increase engagement, an overload of technology when faculty and students are not fully competent can result in frustration and discouragement (Sinclair, 2018). One would normally have time for trial and error or possibly only one online course per semester to seek feedback and promote deep learning and retention; however, the pandemic has changed our normal pedagogy and routine.

Pandemic Pedagogy In-person courses cannot be fully translated into online courses due to the loss of live interactions with classroom dynamics. Faculty members, as classroom facilitators, have the responsibility to inspire students, encourage collaboration, build curriculum, and focus on the success of the learner (Beaudoin, 1990; Holly et al., 2008). The work of the faculty member in online courses is heightened, as the curriculum and organization of the online course can significantly encourage or limit student success. With an uncertain time line for returning to campus, many faculty members have received conflicting information about expectations and safety measures (Hargreaves, 2020). While faculty members remain in flux about campus repopulation, an exploration into technology to support online courses can occur. The rapid transition to online learning left some members of the campus community without the required technology tools or Internet access, thus increasing the inequities that could normally be camouflaged when students are in a classroom (Williamson et al., 2020). Students found themselves sharing one computer among their school-aged siblings, using a phone as a hot spot to access their coursework, and losing the quiet study place the university library once provided. Monetary concerns were heightened with mass layoffs, and people working in grocery stores had mandated overtime, which reduced time to spend on coursework. Faculty who were looked to for answers about how the semester would proceed but could not provide answers were faced with student concerns and their own public health questions (Godley, 2020). The focus turned from coursework to basic survival, creating challenges for faculty members to continue to engage students. Pandemic pedagogy requires trauma-informed practices to be utilized, as the circumstances of the pandemic have arguably affected everyone. Through the realization of the direct or indirect impact of trauma, faculty

Online Courses Intra- and Post-Pandemic  17 need to be aware of potential trauma and seek to not retraumatize victims (Harrison et al., 2020). Even if the students were not directly impacted by the pandemic, vicarious trauma and cumulative trauma may be present based on past experiences (Devilly et al., 2009). Faculty members should also recognize their own burnout and compassion fatigue, as self-care can be lost while trying to support students. In addition to the pandemic, the United States of America has experienced social unrest relating to racial injustices (Buchanan et al., 2020). While updating online coursework to include pandemic pedagogy, a social justice lens should be added to increase equity and inclusivity. Creating a community within the course can assist students in supporting each other and decrease isolation (Rippy & Munoz, 2019). A sense of community is particularly vital during a pandemic, as students who are used to human interaction have likely been separated from society for many months. An online community can include the creation of asynchronous discussion groups where multiple interactions between students are required while engaging in the learning process (Kranzow, 2013). Since the pandemic has affected everyone, this can be a common thread in early discussions and introductions, with the sensitivity that some students may have experienced more trauma from the pandemic than others. The movement of courses to an online format forced students and faculty alike to use new systems and tools. The lack of the ability to communicate in person also increased the amount of electronic communication in the form of email, direct messages, or other electronic platform tools. Cognitive load theory outlines the amount of information people can process with memory and schema constraints (Van Gerven et al., 2002). With the limitations humans have in working memory, extraneous work that is not aligned with the task required should be avoided (Chun-Ying et al., 2011). Reducing the number of tools used in each course and sending succinct communication with vital information on a regular schedule can assist with avoiding cognitive overload. Though learning is virtual, impactful and authentic learning can still be achieved with faculty training and implementation. Aligning the work to the course learning objectives instead of creating additional assignments to make up for lost class time can reduce cognitive overload and increase understanding of the material (Chun-Ying et al., 2011). Whether the course is synchronous or asynchronous in nature, authentic assignments that support and enhance course goals can allow for in-depth learning and understanding of the topic when related to real-life situations (Herrington et al., 2010). Coursework can be designed around a realistic situation or challenge, incorporating complex critical thinking that can help the student thrive in a similar circumstance in the future. Figure 2.1 encompasses the vital aspects of pandemic pedagogy displayed visually. However, the figure is not inclusive of all possible components of pandemic pedagogy, as future circumstances such as increased wildfires

18  Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz

Figure 2.1  Pandemic Pedagogy.

may continue to change the landscape of higher education. The basis of pandemic pedagogy can begin to highlight necessary considerations when responding to other crisis situations.

Case Study California State University East Bay (CSUEB) is part of the 23-campus California State University system situated in the San Francisco Bay Area. CSUEB has approximately 12,000 students enrolled in undergraduate coursework and approximately 2,000 students enrolled in graduate studies (Institutional Research, 2020). CSUEB is one of the most ethnically diverse campuses in the United States with nearly 40% of students identifying as Hispanic (Suneson, 2020). Over 60% of the students are first-­ generation college students, more than 60% of students are female, and 81% of undergraduate students are enrolled in 12 or more units (Institutional Research, 2020). The mission of CSUEB is to advance knowledge, culture, and learning, as well as prepare students for the workforce. The Office of the Online Campus (OOC) at CSUEB was a fully established and operational office prior to the pandemic. The OOC was

Online Courses Intra- and Post-Pandemic  19 established in 2013, with no formalized personnel dedicated to online course design prior to this. The OOC is managed by a senior director and staffed with two senior eLearning specialists, one eLearning specialist, one instructional designer, two learning management system administrators, and one administrative assistant (CSUEB, 2020). The OOC provides support to faculty who teach online or hybrid courses and those who utilize the learning management system. CSUEB has encouraged quality online and hybrid courses by offering certification programs and grants to faculty members since 2013. In fall 2019, 19% of faculty taught online courses, and most faculty members had not completed any formal online education training. Faculty attendance for online education-related workshops was historically low pre-pandemic, as there was not a university initiative to increase online coursework development. On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, after the end of the business day, the entire campus community received an email from the Office of the President stating that administrators were in regular contact with local county health departments and the California State Department of Public Health. The email outlined that the university would be transitioning to online learning starting March 11, 2020, to assist with mitigating COVID-19 spread and to keep our campus community members safe. Due to the sudden change in modality, the university canceled courses from March 11, 2020, to March 15, 2020, to allow faculty members to prepare for the transition to online courses. Faculty were directed to the OOC for resources, online tools, and technical support. The OOC scheduled daily open office hours and multiple workshops on how to use the learning management system and other platforms to support faculty in the transition. Courses were planned to be online from March 16 to April 12, 2020, and all redesigned in-person courses were to continue in a synchronous format on the previously scheduled day and time. The online format was scheduled to be revisited on April 8, 2020, to determine if the pandemic would allow for the campus to be repopulated. With the worsening of the pandemic in California, courses remained online for the remainder of spring 2020, all of summer 2020, and the majority of courses transitioned to online learning for fall 2020. Immediately after the transition to an online modality, the OOC started creating and updating a vast amount of content to better support faculty during the transition. Available content for faculty learning included how to use video conferencing, adding assignments to the learning management system, how to record lectures, how to create and grade exams and writing assignments, and the online equivalence of face-to-face seat time (Office of the Online Campus, 2020). Multiple weekly courses were offered by the OOC via video conferencing on the basics of online learning, including using the learning management system and communication strategies. Both authors and other members of the OOC created a spreadsheet of online equivalencies for common in-person course assignments

20  Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz and projects, including university-sponsored tools, and a description of how the assignment can be transitioned. The availability of content online, as well as continued OOC weekday office hours and 24-hour access to learning management system assistance, provided many layers of support to faculty. Since most CSUEB faculty members have not taught their entire course load in an online format, administrators recognized the need for faculty to receive in-depth training from OOC personnel. Funds from Academic Affairs supported $500 grants for faculty members to complete online educational institutes in summer 2020 to improve skills and knowledge and increase student success during distance learning.

Virtual Summer Institute A Virtual Summer Institute (VSI) was created by the CSUEB OOC and the Office of Faculty Development at the request of the associate provost. In April 2020, an electronic message was sent to all faculty from the Office of Academic Affairs offering tenured, tenure-track, and lecturer faculty an opportunity to complete the 2020 VSI. The VSI was the first of its kind at CSUEB, aligned with the California State University Chancellor Office’s commitments to providing quality online and hybrid programs to our students. The VSI offered training and one-on-one interactions with personnel from the OOC and Faculty Development to assist with following Quality Matters (QM) standards for quality online coursework. The institute offered training and technical support to a multitude of online learning platform features and integrated tools to assist with course design and student success. With the sudden modality switch in March 2020 to fully online courses, there was no time for faculty to receive additional training on online courses prior to the end of the spring 2020 semester. To allow time to create a curriculum and provide a break for faculty between the spring 2020 and summer 2020 semesters, the VSI sessions were held in late June and mid-July with three cohorts of faculty members. The training was completed through distance learning using asynchronous and synchronous methods. Six hours of synchronous training were provided on the first and third days, with the middle day allowing for asynchronous course adaptations and individual consultations with OOC personnel. Faculty members’ eligibility to participate in the VSI included those who had never completed QM coursework through Faculty Development or the OOC to allow those with very limited or no online teaching experience to have the opportunity to complete coursework. Participation in the VSI was completely voluntary and faculty self-submitted their information through an online form. The OOC and Faculty Development reviewed and rated the applications, awarding positions to faculty with the least experience in online learning. There were 48 faculty members assigned to the first cohort in late June and 112 in July for two simultaneous sessions.

Online Courses Intra- and Post-Pandemic  21 All faculty who applied were admitted to the institute, and those who started the VSI successfully completed the coursework while working with eLearning specialists to further develop their online courses. Following the VSI, faculty were assigned to a dedicated eLearning specialist for direct and personalized assistance to review their fall 2020 online courses and provide suggestions to increase student success. Faculty members also received sponsorship from the OOC for a future QM Improving Your Online course or Applying the Quality Matters Rubric course. Faculty members continued to work with their assigned eLearning specialist and increasingly participated in OOC open office hours and professional development webinars for additional support.

VSI Curriculum The VSI had four learning objectives, which were aligned with each segment of the course. Showing the learning objectives and alignment of the work is the best practice for online teaching (Quality Matters, 2020). The learning objectives were to plan and design the first online course for the faculty member, demonstrate knowledge of the learning management system and integrated tools, design an accessible online course, and implement strategies and practices that aligned with local shelter-in-place orders due to the pandemic. The structure and layout of the syllabus showed each module and the topics for discussion in each component, along with required deliverables, such as a course syllabus. Examples of authentic assignments in a variety of concentrations were provided to spark ideas for incorporating authentic work into courses. The course schedule was broken down into modules, including an introduction, the purpose of VSI, and information on how to work the video conferencing platform. The first-day coursework included the course outline, the importance of the syllabus, suggestions for syllabus information, the learning management system and its components, synchronous interaction hints and tips, universal design for learning, and accessibility in online courses. The second day was used for independent, asynchronous work on courses with open OOC office hours and one-on-one meetings with assigned eLearning specialists. The third day started with a review of student engagement opportunities through tools and activities, student assessments and options for assessment, engagement tools in the learning management system, the grading center, and rubrics. Components of authentic learning, such as project-based learning, small-group discussion, and inquiry-based learning techniques were discussed in detail to emphasize the value and necessity of authentic learning in an online course format. The curriculum also focused on components not directly related to online coursework, including trauma-informed, equity-minded, inclusive pedagogy. Representatives from the Counseling Center and Office of Diversity shared data and information about our

22  Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz campus and how faculty could support students. While informing faculty about the trauma students were facing, faculty members were better able to create innovative ways to accommodate all students and their individual needs. By including the need for designing with equity in mind, faculty were reminded of the university’s diverse student population and how many students are faced with challenges that may be unknown to their professors. Through discussions of pandemic pedagogy, faculty were given a chance to experience authentic learning techniques, as the VSI was designed to model the approaches and provide space for faculty to take on the role of their learners. A sandbox course without student data was provided for faculty to apply what they learned and reflect in small-group breakout sessions. To model the best practice of inquiry-based learning, faculty were encouraged to ask questions throughout presentations and become familiar with tools and techniques by applying them in their sandbox courses. Faculty members were encouraged to develop authentic assignments related to their courses in their sandboxes, as well as syllabi that included necessary inclusivity for learners regarding technology, pedagogy, and accessibility. Regular and detailed feedback was provided to VSI participants, modeling best practices recommended for faculty to provide to students in online courses. An equity-minded curriculum was applied throughout each presentation, allowing faculty members to learn to support their students at each step of the design process. Consideration of the accessibility of course materials encompassing different types of learners and the diversity of students was discussed, as well as providing resources for food and shelter, which was discussed at length. The online environment is not the same as the face-to-face classroom environment, and ensuring our faculty knew how to handle situations online was vital to creating a safe, warm, and welcoming environment for all students. Providing alignment to each section of the curriculum allowed faculty to visualize how to build a more supportive and inclusive online environment. Alignment of course material can be demonstrated through sharing course examples, as well as providing scaffolded assignments to faculty to reduce the overwhelming nature of the task. By incorporating authentic learning and inspiring faculty to reduce the use of multiple-choice exams, faculty created innovative content and constructed active learning activities that supported student engagement in the new online learning environment. Encouraging these authentic learning experiences and providing faculty with information about how underrepresented minority students, specifically how African American males are 14.29% less likely to succeed in asynchronous courses than face-to-face courses, the VSI strived to inspire faculty members to reimagine teaching online (Wood, 2018). While the VSI came at a financial cost, it is believed that the training and insight provided will have a beneficial and productive impact on students.

Online Courses Intra- and Post-Pandemic  23

Discussion The formation and structure of the VSI offered over 150 faculty members with minimal experience in online course design the opportunity to collaborate with peers on transitioning their face-to-face courses to an online modality. After the VSI, the OOC received requests for hard-copy materials, additional time and space for more exploratory learning, and a longer time frame to combat cognitive overload during course redesign. Informal feedback regarding VSI improvements included additional support for course content accessibility, learning new educational technologies, and more videos with how-to guides for later review. Additional comments included appreciation for the availability of eLearning specialists, the depth of the material despite the creation in a short time, and the hints and tips surrounding the availability and use of technologies. The VSI can be adapted internationally in whole or partially with segmented professional development opportunities. Coursework can include explaining and creating authentic assignments, as well as a component in best practices for impactful online learning, cognitive overload, and trauma-informed education. An additional area of coursework can include the use of online tools, how to build an online community in each course, and developing an online pedagogy aimed at student success. The professional development can be offered via an online video conferencing format or in prerecorded video sessions for faculty to view in their own time. The creation of a certification program when completing all segments is recommended to encourage participation and provide participants with an item to add to their teaching portfolio or dossier, especially if there are no available funds. Challenges of developing the curriculum included limited time, limited funding, equity regarding the faculty members who were targeted to attend, and limited facilitator input during the course creation. Soliciting support from other departments on campus will help to develop a richer and in-depth curriculum that includes additional aspects of pandemic pedagogy. An additional challenge was the poor Internet connection of faculty or the lack of webcams needed to fully participate in synchronous workshops. In order to improve this experience, the Information Technology Systems Department will need to be more involved in loaning hardware to faculty. In the future, CSUEB plans to run the VSI each semester, as the spring 2021 semester will primarily be online. The OOC hopes to have the time and funding to expand the curriculum to include more interactive activities and space for other support departments, such as Accessibility and Multimedia Services, for a more robust experience. Additional curriculum plans include adding an intermediate- and advanced-level VSI to further support faculty who have some experience in online teaching but wish to improve their skill set.

24  Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz With uncertain funding for upcoming cohorts, the VSI may have reduced or no funding for participating faculty members. In lieu of funding, a certification process can be incorporated to expand the curriculum and allow faculty members to add participation to retention and promotion dossiers. A shorter certification series can be created for incoming students to familiarize themselves with online learning and different technologies, as well as provide support to increase student success. An advanced level of understanding of online courses by students can decrease faculty time and effort in explaining the technology basics during the first weeks of the class. Faculty should be mindful of the student when designing online courses and assignments. The forced transition to online learning and the many life stressors may have reduced the student-centered learning focus many faculty members typically embrace, though future semesters can allow for faculty to focus on student success. The use of authentic assignments, being mindful of cognitive overload and the trauma students may be carrying, and focusing on building a community in the course can increase the likelihood of student success, persistence, and learning. Creating a safe space for students to learn and share their lived experiences can increase retention in the class while also allowing for flexibility in terms of how they will meet the learning objectives.

Conclusion With the continuing increase in COVID-19 cases, the need to implement a pandemic pedagogy and support online course development is essential in providing students with quality courses. While the pandemic learning situation is not ideal, the application of course design with a focus on pandemic pedagogy and authentic learning can continue to increase the quality of learning and student success. Attempts to reduce inequities in online education, including providing necessary technology and access to students, should occur as financially viable. The VSI offered faculty with limited online teaching experience a three-day experiential workshop with immersion into vital components for online education through the lens of trauma-informed practices, social justice, and authentic practices. Feedback demonstrates the successes of the program, as well as opportunities for improvement. The VSI can be replicated for similar results and broken into segments for certification or individual learning opportunities to allow the material to be provided over an extended period. Should resources be scarce, short synchronous sessions covering the use of the learning management system, building a course online, and available technology can greatly assist faculty in increasing student success and retention. Continued professional development and monetary support can create a cohort of faculty who develop and present quality online courses with a lens of authentic learning through a pandemic time and in future disaster situations.

Online Courses Intra- and Post-Pandemic  25

Bios Michelle Rippy, Ed.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at California State University, East Bay. Rippy’s professional career has included working in law enforcement, medicolegal death investigations, and technology fields, including managerial and executive positions. She holds an Ed.D. degree in organizational change and leadership from the University of Southern California. Monica Munoz is Senior eLearning Specialist and Instructional Designer at the California State University, East Bay Libraries. In her role, Monica works in the Office of the Online Campus at California State East Bay with online and hybrid faculty on implementing quality standards. Her passion lies in reducing the cost of instructional materials for students and continuously improving online courses to increase student success.

References Beaudoin, M. (1990). The instructor’s changing role in distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 4(2), 21–29. https://doi. org/10.1080/08923649009526701 Berry, B., Doucet, A., & Owens, B. (2020). Teacher leadership in the aftermath of the pandemic: The now, the dance, the transformation. Independent Report. https://issuu.com/educationinternational/docs/2020_research_covid-19_ nowdancetransformation Buchanan, L., Bui, Q., & Patel, J. (2020, July 3). Black Lives Matter may be the largest movement in U.S. history. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes. com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html Buzzetto-More, N. (2015). Student attitudes towards the integration of YouTube in online, hybrid, and web-assisted courses: An examination of the impact of course modality on perception. Journal of Online Learning & Teaching, 11(1), 55–73. Chun-Ying, C., Pedersen, S., & Murphy, K. (2011). Learners’ perceived information overload in online learning via computer-mediated communication. Research in Learning Technology, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt. v19i2.10345 Conrad, R., & Donaldson, J. (2012). Continuing to engage the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction. Jossey-Bass. CSUEB. (2020). Contact Us. Office of the Online Campus. https://www.csueastbay. edu/online/contact-us.html Devilly, G., Wright, R., & Varker, T. (2009) Vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, or simply burnout? Effect of trauma therapy on mental health professions. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 43(4), 373–385. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048670902721079 Fonolahi, A., & Khan, M. (2014). Are students studying in the online mode faring as well as students studying in the face-to-face mode? Has equivalence in learning been achieved? Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10(4), 598–610. Godley, S. (2020). A love letter to my public health students during a global pandemic. Pedagogy in Health Promotion, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 2373379920944198

26  Michelle Rippy and Monica Munoz Hargreaves, A. (2020, April 7). A complete list of what to do – and not do – for everyone teaching kids at home during the coronavirus crisis. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/04/07/completelist-what-do-not-do-everyone-teaching-kids-home-during-coronavirus-crisis/ Harrison, N., Burke, J., & CLarke, I. (2020). Risky teaching: Developing a trauma-informed pedagogy for higher education. Teaching in Hired Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2020.1786046 Herrington, R., Reeves, T., & Oliver, R. (2010). A guide to authentic e-learning. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203864265 Hollweck, T., & Doucet, A. (2020). Pracademics in the pandemic: Pedagogies and professionalism. Journal of Professional Capacity and Community, 5(3/4), 295–305. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPC-06-2020-0038 Holly, C., Legg, T., Mueller, D., & Adelmen, D. (2008). Online teaching: Challenges for a new faculty role. Journal of Professional Nursing, 24(4), 254– 258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2007.07.003 Howard, P., & Howard, J. (2012). Pandemic and pedagogy: Elementary school teachers’ experience of H1N1 influenza in the classroom. Phenomenology & Practice, 6(1), 18–35. https://doi.org/10.29173/pandpr19852 Institutional Research. (2020). Quick enrollment facts. California State University East Bay. https://www.csueastbay.edu/ir/quick-enrollment-facts.html Kranzow, J. (2013). Faculty leadership in online education: Structuring courses to impact student satisfaction and persistence. Journal of Online Learning & Teaching, 9(1), 131–139. LaPrade, K., Gilpatrick, M., & Perkins, D. (2014). Impact of reflective practice on online teaching performance in higher education. Journal of Online Teaching and Learning, 10(4), 625–639. Laur, D. (2013). Authentic learning experiences: A real-world approach to projectbased learning. Eye on Education. McFarlane, A. (2015). Authentic learning for the digital generation: Realising the potential of technology in the classroom. Routledge. Meyers, S. (2008). Using transformative pedagogy when teaching online. College Teaching, 56(4), 219–224. https://doi.org/10.3200/CTCH.56.4.216-224 Miller, M. (2011). Pedagogical models the discipline of online teaching, M. Shaughnessy & S. Fulgham (Eds.). Nova Science Publishers. Nilson, L., & Goodson, L. (2019). Online teaching at its best: Merging instructional design with teaching and learning research. Jossey-Bass. Office of the Online Campus. (2020). Certified quality online or hybrid courses. California State University East Bay. https://www.csueastbay.edu/online/ training-and-certification/index.html Quality Matters. (2020). Higher ed course design rubric. QM Rubrics & Standards. https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources/rubric-standards/ higher-ed-rubric Rippy, M., & Munoz, M. (2019). Integration of engaging social justice assignments into online courses. Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal, 12(2), 25–38. https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-9795/CGP/v12i02/25-38 Sinclair, S. (2018). Creativity and critique in online learning: Exploring and examining innovations in online pedagogy (J. Baxter, G. Callaghan, & J. McAvoy, Eds.). Palgrave Macmillan.

Online Courses Intra- and Post-Pandemic  27 Smith, R. (2015). Conquering the content: A blueprint for online course design and development. Jossey-Bass. Stavredes, T., & Herder, T. (2013). A guide to online course design: Strategies for student success. Wiley. Suneson, G. (2020, March 4). Looking for an inclusive student body? These colleges are among the most diverse. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/ story/money/2020/02/13/these-colleges-have-the-most-diverse-studentbodies/41152233/ Trilla, A., Trilla, G., & Daer, C. (2008). The 1918 “Spanish Flu” in Spain. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 47(15), 668–673. https://doi.org/10.1086.590567 Van Gerven, P., Paas, F., Van Merrienboer, J., & Schmidt, H. (2002). Cognitive load theory and aging: Effects of worked examples on training efficacy. Learning and Instruction, 12(1), 87–105. Waterhouse, S. (2005). The power of e-learning: The essential guide for teaching in the digital age. Pearson. Weimer, M. (2002). Learner centered teaching: Five key changes to practice. Jossey-Bass. Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Wood, J. L. (2018, June). Reaching underserved students through culturally responsive teaching and learning in the online environment [slides]. Online Teaching Conference. http://onlineteachingconference.org/wp-content/ uploads/2018/06/WOOD-Reaching-Underserved-Students.pdf Williamson, B., Enyon, R., & Potter, J. (2020). Pandemic politics, pedagogies and practices: Digital technologies and distance education during the coronavirus emergency. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(2), 107–114. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/17439884.2020.1761641 Zhang, J., & Walls, R. (2009). Instructors’ self-perceived pedagogical principle implementation in the online environment. In A. Orellana, T. Hudgins, & M. Simonson (Eds.), The perfect online course: Best practices for designing and teaching, 413–426. Information Age Publishing.

3 Pandemic Pedagogy Disparity in University Remote Teaching Effectiveness Linda Dam Introduction In late December 2019, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an infectious respiratory illness, emerged in Wuhan, China. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and by March 26, 2020, the United States had the most confirmed cases of any country with 81,321 confirmed infections and over 1,000 fatalities (Taylor, 2020). To reduce the spread of COVID-19 infections in the United States, nationwide school and university closures were implemented mid to late March (Donohue & Miller, 2020). As the COVID-19 pandemic forced universities across the United States to abruptly transition into emergency remote teaching, instructors and students alike struggled with the sudden arrangement of online education (Sahu, 2020). With little time to plan for an emergency online transition, instructors sought out pedagogical tips through social media channels (Trust et al., 2020). Past research has found that social media channels can provide an online platform for instructors to seek out additional professional development (Carpenter & Krutka, 2015; Lantz-Anderson et al., 2018; Trust et al., 2020). While research has examined the relationship between professional development and the benefits of informally developed online teaching communities, limited research has examined the impact of online communities for educators during a global pandemic. As classes were moved to remote teaching, a private Facebook group “Pandemic Pedagogy” with over 32,000 members provided an online platform for instructors to seek out pedagogical advice. The once public Facebook group revealed surprising disparities across teaching pedagogies. Colorful debates emerged between providing asynchronous versus synchronous online instruction. Are instructors expected to adapt academic expectations and/or provide emotional support to students? The aim of this chapter is to provide a qualitative thematic analysis of key debates that emerged from the Pandemic Pedagogy private Facebook group, highlighting the disparity in university remote teaching effectiveness during a global pandemic.

Pandemic Pedagogy  29

Literature Review Emergency school and university closures from the global pandemic resulted in several pedagogical challenges, such as the effectiveness of sudden online instruction, the mental health status of students, and support services from universities (Sahu, 2020; Trust & Whalen, 2020). Specifically, one of the biggest challenges consisted of shifting in-person courses to remote instruction, which can consist of synchronous, asynchronous, or a blend of both forms of online instruction (Sahu, 2020). For synchronous online instruction, video conference technologies (e.g., Zoom, Webex, Google Hangout) were utilized to provide real-time online instruction (Henriksen et al., 2020). Research has found that synchronous online instruction affords students the opportunity to have meaningful interactions with their instructors and classmates (Simonson et al., 2012), which may be particularly important during a global pandemic. However, synchronous online instruction may pose several logistical problems for students who are suddenly in different time zones and/or dealing with unanticipated stresses due to COVID-19 (Sahu, 2020). In contrast, asynchronous online instruction allows students to engage with learning materials when it best suits them (Glenn, 2018), which may benefit those who have had to take on additional responsibilities (i.e., taking on additional work shifts if they are an essential worker or becoming a sudden caregiver for an ill family member). However, asynchronous online instruction may be isolating for students since they are not receiving any real-time interactions with their instructors and classmates (Glenn, 2018). In one study examining the readiness of educators to transition online during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trust and Whalen (2020) found that most educators varied in their technological skills for online remote teaching, and many learned as they transitioned. As educators were tasked with transitioning to emergency online teaching, many utilized social media platforms for additional pedagogical and professional support. Research has found that instructors have utilized a variety of social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) to enhance professional development and seek out pedagogical strategies (Carpenter & Krutka, 2015; Lantz-Anderson et al., 2018; Rensfeldt et al., 2018; Trust et al., 2020). In a study examining educator tweets during COVID-19, Trust et al. (2020) found that Twitter provided educators an outlet for sharing teaching strategies, showing encouragement, and providing information about remote learning. A systematic review of online teacher communities found that studies on informally developed online teacher communities (e.g., social media channels) revealed that these platforms provided educators with an outlet to share new pedagogical practices and to receive emotional and professional support (Lantz-Anderson et al., 2018). However, a study examining teacher-centered Facebook groups found that these online communities may pose some disadvantages, such as individualized selfpromotion and attention seeking (Rensfeldt et al., 2018).

30  Linda Dam

Theoretical Framework The current study utilized the community of practice theory (Wenger, 2000) to examine the interactions among educators in an online community group that focused on pedagogical practices. Wenger’s (2000) community of practice theory proposes that a community of practice can “develop a unique perspective on their topic as well as a body of common knowledge, practices and approaches” (p. 5). Past research has demonstrated that social media platforms support the creation of specific learning communities among educators (Coleman et al., 2018; Luo et al., 2020; Meishar-Tal & Pieterse, 2017). Because of the sudden educational challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this community-centered framework is utilized to explore the role of professional development as many instructors sought out advice and strategies from social media platforms. To examine what pedagogical discussions emerged on social media sites such as Facebook, the following research question was proposed: RQ1: What are the discussions on pedagogical practices during emergency remote teaching on Facebook’s private group Pandemic Pedagogy?

Research Method To answer the research question, a qualitative textual analysis was employed to examine the discussions among educators in the private Facebook group Pandemic Pedagogy. Pandemic Pedagogy has over 32,000 members worldwide and aims to provide an online platform for “educators, students, and others to share insight into the best practices, advices, successes, challenges of teaching during COVID-19.” Pandemic Pedagogy was a public Facebook group that was created on March 11, 2020, but was changed to a private group on March 15, 2020. Popular subcategories include the following: “Tech Tools and Tips,” “Humor and Fun,” “COVID Context,” “Communication with Students,” and “Assignment Ideas.” Specifically, a qualitative textual analysis approach was used to examine the subcategory “Pedagogical Theory & Philosophy” in order to explore key pedagogical debates regarding emergency online remote teaching during COVID-19. Of the 180 posts on “Pedagogical Theory & Philosophy,” two posts were selected based on the quantity of “reactions” and “comments.” The first post that was analyzed was originally posted on March 19, 2020, and stated, I have heard from some of my students that they are overwhelmed by the amount of work they have to do in classes that were recently converted to online. We need to remind our colleagues across campus that online education is more time-consuming for students, especially if they are new to online.

Pandemic Pedagogy  31 The post got 49 comments and 209 reactions. The second post that was analyzed was originally posted on March 20, 2020, and stated, “For those out here doing synchronous online work with students, I cannot stress this enough, please find an asynchronous alternative.” The post received 163 comments and 553 reactions. Administrator approval to conduct research within the private Facebook group was received and approval from an Institutional Review Board was obtained prior to data analysis. The data analysis procedure was completed in two phases of coding. The first phase consisted of intracoding, which is the coding and recoding of the same data by one researcher (Corban & Strauss, 1990). The second phase consisted of open coding, which is coding data by drawing comparisons between experiences (Strauss & Corbin, 1997). Utilizing the principles of grounded theory, data from open coding also included grouping similar data and identifying themes (Strauss & Corbin, 1997). General categories developed in the first phase were then identified to confirm appropriateness and expose common trends among responses (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). Then categories were examined for common themes. Themes that appeared from both phases of analysis were compared in order to answer the research question.

Results Two themes emerged from the data: Student Compassion and Instructor Autonomy. The themes contained several categories, and descriptions of the themes are presented in the following sections. Student Compassion The first theme, Student Compassion, describes how educators expressed concern for student well-being during the pandemic. The theme manifested through the category, Course Modifications, which reflects opinions about revising academic expectations in order to better accommodate students. In examining the comments from the first selected post about the challenges that emergency online education may impose on students, discussions about educators demonstrating empathy and compassion during COVID-19 become apparent. As one instructor shared that daily deadlines were required for her now-remote class, one individual responded, “Daily deadlines, no matter how minor, are going to create more stress… seems to me now is the time to be as compassionate as possible.” Another educator stated that no modifications would be made to her already online class to which one remarked, Are you taking into consideration that the students who initially signed up for your online class, and who were okay with the expectations then, are now in a situation where their other classes, which

32  Linda Dam weren’t online, now are? …the real world circumstances they’re experiencing are very different now and may add an additional burden? These responses to instructors sharing their status on academic expectations of their students for emergency remote teaching seem to imply that instructors should be more mindful of how a student’s position to successfully learn may be impacted during a global pandemic. In the same post, others shared how major modifications were being made to their emergency remote classes in order to accommodate students. One shared, I’m simplifying, consolidating, or eliminating some assignments in my already online class in consideration of students hav[ing] to relocate, or have in-person classes suddenly switching to online…. I know how stressed I am so I can only imagine how stressed [the students] are. Another instructor provided additional advice and commented, “You can reduce [student] stress by having your assignments due later. There is no need to think like a regular class. Give them what they need to know and then trim again.” Another added, Let’s practice a little humanity, folks. Check in on [the students’] mental health. Realize this may be the first really scary situation they’ve faced. The lessons we model about empathy, compassion, and concern for others are far more important than any course-related material. One educator remarked, “The politics of the moment require us as professors to cut back on assignments and on expectations. Reduce it all. We are not in the business of surveillance of students while in a global crisis.” These comments seem to suggest that instructors have the option (and duty) to help mitigate stress for the students through modifications to their academic expectations and to take the opportunity to inquire about the well-being of their students. Instructor Autonomy The second theme, Instructor Autonomy, is characterized by personal accounts regarding one’s decision to implement asynchronous versus synchronous remote instruction. The theme manifested through the category Generalization, which reflects sweeping assumptions about teaching effectiveness and one’s choice of remote instruction delivery. In an examination of the comments from the second selected post in which an opinion that synchronous teaching was a better approach than asynchronous teaching was written, several discussions emerged about teaching effectiveness, blanket statements, and institutional limitations. Some voiced strong

Pandemic Pedagogy  33 opinions that asynchronous instruction was a far superior method than synchronous instruction during a global pandemic. One instructor stated, So many [universities] are [synchronous], but this is classist and ableist. Some of my students have their own laptops, some are sharing with three siblings. Some are available at our class time. Others live in China and it’s in the middle of the night…. I want to offer routine but I want students to be able to participate no matter what their circumstances. Another asserted, Your students are now in multiple time zones and are quickly becoming care givers. It is morally wrong to require them to show up to your 10 a.m. class at what is 3 a.m. for them. Just because your school is requiring you to use zoom or a synchronous program does not excuse you from a moral and ethical duty at this time. These comments reveal that some instructors strongly believe that asynchronous delivery is the only appropriate teaching method for the COVID-19 pandemic due to time zone and location challenges. Other instructors expressed that their option for remote instruction delivery was imposed by their institution. One shared, “All the trainings at my university stressed synchronous work.” Another instructor posted, “My academic unit has laid out an expectation of synchronous contact at least once a week for courses that were originally [face-to-face] or hybrid.” One wrote, “You all do realize that many schools do not give people a choice right?” However, several instructors who shared that a synchronous approach was used also indicated that lectures were recorded for those who could not attend. One instructor explained, “I am doing my lectures synchronous but recording for those who can’t make it.” Another commented, “One class…overwhelmingly wanted synchronous, but I will record class so students can watch asynchronously if needed.” Additionally, reasons in favor of synchronous instruction included student requests, a sense of community, and stability. One instructor explained, “[The students] like the discussions and sense of community.” In one graduate class that was synchronous, the educator remarked, “All [of the students] want some stability/regular schedule.” Another shared, “One of my classes voted to meet once a week for synchronous time…. They were worried about community, accountability, and losing their support system.” These comments appear to demonstrate that instructors may not have an option, or a lack of autonomy, in deciding how their online instruction was delivered and have strived to provide additional accommodations for students who may face challenges to synchronous instruction. Across-the-board statements about the superiority of one form of remote instruction over another were also prevalent. For example, one

34  Linda Dam educator proclaimed, “I’d argue that if it can’t work for all, then it should be reconsidered.” Many got defensive toward these sweeping statements and felt criticized for their choice of remote instruction. One instructor stated, “If you are concerned about putting students first, then ask them what they want…. But stop blasting anything as unworkable given the wide variety of situations, the millions of students, and the ever-changing circumstances.” Another instructor remarked, No disrespect, but I don’t understand the generic/blanket appeals for asynchronous learning over synchronous sessions. I think so much of the decision to use one or the other (or a combo) depends on the kind of class being taught, the learning objectives for that course, the unique culture and community of our classes and institutions prior to going online, and the makeup of the student body/class. I would reconsider such universal pleas when our classes are nothing close to homogenous. One commented, “This is not a one-size fits all situation. Please don’t make others feel bad for making different choices than you did.” Another educator lamented, “Blanket statements about what everyone else should do are not helpful.” One posted, Look, we can disagree or even just differ in our nuances. But now is not the time for any of us to be telling others what to do and how to do it as though we don’t know our students, haven’t thought about all the contingencies, and aren’t responding to their needs. One summed up, “There is no one size fits all, so I ask that we not be so judgmental and flatlined in our thinking.” Here the comments suggest that instructors feel they should be trusted in their autonomous pedagogical approach in providing the appropriate type of remote instruction for their students and do not appreciate the judgment from other instructors.

Discussion and Conclusions Overall findings from the qualitative thematic analysis on the private Facebook group Pandemic Pedagogy align with past research that educators seek out social media and the benefits of professional development gained from online communities (Lantz-Anderson et al., 2018; Rickels & Brewer, 2017). Specifically, the study found that instructors disclosed their personal experiences and posted recommended tips regarding the challenges of emergency remote teaching. Findings suggest that the Facebook platform provided an online community environment for instructors during the global pandemic as evidenced by the overall discussions found in Pandemic Pedagogy, which provided support to the community of practice theory (Wenger, 2000).

Pandemic Pedagogy  35 The first theme to emerge from the present study is Student Compassion, which showed that many instructors modified academic expectations in order to better support students during these unusual circumstances. The empathy and compassion displayed in comments pertaining to academic instruction reveal that instructors openly care about the well-being of their students beyond the classroom. During these unprecedented times as a global pandemic forced academic instruction to migrate into emergency remote teaching, students, instructors, and institutions alike have to deal with several unknown challenges and may hopefully learn how to successfully adapt to this new landscape. The second theme, Instructor Autonomy, demonstrated that instructors appeared to push back when sweeping statements were made regarding the superiority of one form of remote teaching over another. Many defended their choice of remote instruction by specifying that various class sizes, instructor course loads, class topics, and institutional limitations could not be generalized. Findings suggest that instructors and educators value their autonomy in making the appropriate choices for their students. Thus, study findings support past research that indicates a positive relationship between autonomy and job satisfaction among educators and student satisfaction (Kengatharan, 2020). Additional findings revealed a divide among instructors who favored one form of remote instruction over another. Specifically, many debates emerged about whether asynchronous or synchronous (real-time) remote instruction was an appropriate pedagogical approach for students during a global pandemic. Findings revealed that those in favor of synchronous instruction explained that students preferred the consistency and social connections during these unprecedented times. These arguments are logical as studies have shown that the lack of human connection from COVID-19 lockdown measures has led to increases in depression and loneliness (Banerjee & Rai, 2020). One study found that depression rates have tripled among U.S. adults (Ettman et al., 2020). Thus, providing synchronous instruction for students could provide a sense of stability and desired human connection, which could lead to a reduction in overall mental health issues. However, those in favor of asynchronous delivery voiced concerns regarding the overall fairness of requiring (and expecting) students to be in a position to continue with synchronous instruction. Studies have highlighted the disparity and inequity among student learning in remote settings as a result of diverse situations ranging from Internet support, socioeconomic status, and second-language English speakers (Rahim, 2020). Rahim’s (2020) suggested guidelines for emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic proposed that asynchronous remote teaching should be considered for students with diverse situations. Thus, placing such time constraints with weekly meetings and/or deadlines could further contribute to the disparity among equal access to educational opportunities.

36  Linda Dam The COVID-19 pandemic created several challenges that severely impacted the effectiveness of providing and receiving sudden online instruction (Sahu, 2020; Trust & Whalen, 2020). Research has found that informally developed online teacher communities (e.g., social media platforms) have been used to provide educators with an outlet to share new pedagogical practices and to receive emotional and professional support (Lantz-Anderson et al., 2018; Rickels & Brewer, 2017). This study examined the private Facebook group Pandemic Pedagogy and found that the popular online platform provided instructors an outlet to seek out advice and support from one another.

Implications The results of this study have practical implications for universities, faculty, and instructional designers. According to a national survey from Digital Promise and Langer Research Associates (2020), approximately 67% of remote courses post-lockdown were synchronous (i.e., real-time courses). This study suggested that some instructors felt their choice for synchronous versus asynchronous remote instruction was limited by university mandates or requirements. Therefore, a need for more open communication between faculty and universities could improve the overall quality of online delivery and faculty preparedness. Specifically, the study found that many instructors were privy to student hardships from COVID19. Universities and instructional designers may benefit from instructor insights on how to better support students during a global pandemic. Additionally, instructors may feel more comfortable with their autonomy to make pedagogical choices that most benefit their individualized course loads with the support of their university. Specifically, the comments regarding asynchronous versus synchronous teaching indicate that instructors value autonomy in their pedagogical choices by individually assessing the needs of their students and establishing their instructional decisions based on student needs. Additionally, comments regarding the alteration of academic expectations indicate that instructors have shown empathy and compassion and are aware of the various difficulties that students may be faced with during this global pandemic.

Bio Linda Dam, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dr. Dam specializes in public relations and strategic communication practices, communication and media theory and research, and cross-cultural communication. Her major research interests include crosscultural communication strategies, uses, and effects of new media technologies; parasocial relationship formations within a social media landscape;

Pandemic Pedagogy  37 and food-related influencer marketing. Her work has been published in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journal of Social Media in Society, and Journal of Communication and Healthcare. She earned her Ph.D. in communication from the University of Connecticut and her MA in mass communication from California State University, Fullerton. Dr. Dam teaches courses in public relations, research methods, integrated marketing communication, and advertising strategies. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Dr. Dam worked as a Communications Specialist at the University of California, Irvine.

References Banerjee, D., & Rai, M. (2020). Social isolation in COVID-19: The impact of loneliness. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 66, 525–527. Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G. (2015). Engagement with microblogging: Educator professional development via Twitter. Professional Development in Education, 41, 707–728. Coleman, J. M., Rice, M. L., & Wright, V. H. (2018). Educator communities of practice on Twitter. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 16, 80–96. Corban, J., & Strauss, A. (1990). Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria. Qualitative Sociology, 13, 3–21. Donohue, J. M., & Miller, E. (2020). Covid-19 and school closures. JAMA, 324, 845–847. Ettman, C. K., Abdalla, S. M., & Cohen, G. H. (2020). Prevalence of depression symptoms in US adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Network Open, 3, 1–12. Glenn, C. W. (2018). Adding the human touch to asynchronous online learning. Journal of College Student Retention, 19, 381–393. https://doi. org/10.1177/1521025116634104 Henriksen, D., Creely, E., & Henderson, M. (2020). Folk pedagogies for teacher educator transitions: Approaches to synchronous online learning in the wake of COVID-19. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28, 201–209. Kengatharan, N. (2020). The effects of teacher autonomy, student behavior and student engagement on teacher job satisfaction. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 20, 1–15. Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). Interviews: Learning the craft of qualitative interviewing (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications. Lantz-Anderson, A., Lundin, M., & Selwyn, N. (2018). Twenty years of online teacher communities: A systematic review of formally-organized and informallydeveloped professional learning groups. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 302–315. https://doi.org/10.1016/jtate.2018.07.008 Luo, T., Freeman, C., & Stefaniak, J. (2020). “Like, comment, and share” – professional development through social media in higher education: A systematic review. Education Technology Research Development, 68, 1659–1683. Meishar-Tal, H., & Pieterse, E. (2017). Why do academics use academic social networking sites? The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18, 1–22.

38  Linda Dam Rahim, A. F. A. (2020). Guidelines for online assessment in emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Special Communication, 12, 59–68. Rensfeldt, A. B., Hillman, T., & Selwyn, N. (2018). Teachers ‘liking’ their work? Exploring the realities of teacher Facebook groups. British Educational Research Journal, 44, 230–250. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3325 Rickels, D. A., & Brewer, W. D. (2017). Facebook band director’s group: Member usage behaviors and perceived satification for meeting professional development needs. Journal for Music Teacher Education, 26, 77–92. Sahu, P. (2020). Closure of universities due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19): Impact on education and mental health of students and academic staff. Cureus, 12, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7541. Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance learning (5th ed.) Pearson. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1997). Grounded Theory in Practice. SAGE Publications. Taylor, D. B. (2020, August 6). A timeline of the coronavirus pandemic. The New York Times. https://nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-timeline.html Trust, T., Carpenter, J. P., Krutka, D. G., & Kimmons, R. (2020). #RemoteTeaching & #RemoteLearning: Educator tweeting during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28, 151–159. Trust, T., & Whalen, J. (2020). Should teachers be trained in emergency remote teaching? Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28, 189–199. Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and learning systems. Organization, 7, 225–246.

4 Learning Management Systems and Synchronous Communication Tools Enablers of Online Education during COVID-19 Darren Turnbull, Ritesh Chugh, and Jo Luck Introduction Countries around the world are increasingly concerned about how to provide training and education to their citizens in a COVID-19 impacted environment which is forcing many institutions to deliver programs online. Learning management systems (LMSs) are online software platforms that facilitate the delivery and administration of training programs over the Internet (Turnbull et al., 2019). Synchronous e-learning enables students to work together at the same time, while asynchronous e-learning facilitates collaboration at different times (Hrastinski, 2008). There are two types of assessment that can be facilitated by an LMS: formative and summative. Both formative and summative assessments play an important role in facilitating learning. Summative assessments measure the standing of students with respect to established course benchmarks, while formative assessments support learning through effective feedback and help-seeking (Vonderwell & Boboc, 2013). The summative assessment of students can be accomplished via a range of methods. Acceptable assessment methods frequently employed in education include direct observation, structured assessment activities, questioning, evidence compiled by the student, review of products, and third-party feedback (Department of Training and Workplace Development, 2016). For an assessment to be of value, it must be valid, reliable, flexible, and fair. Looking back at our own experiences as both online educators and students, online summative assessments using asynchronous tools were far more common than synchronous approaches. Test instruments such as reports, essays, and projects were relatively easy to set up in an LMS. However, we have found that the assessment of practical skills and knowledge requiring more synchronous approaches cannot be adequately carried out within an LMS. Observations and interviews, for example, are valuable tools to gauge student competency that necessitate human-to-human interaction outside the LMS environment. Through reflective practice, this chapter presents the case for using synchronous online assessment tools to facilitate summative assessments in a

40  Darren Turnbull, Ritesh Chugh, and Jo Luck COVID-19 learning environment that is inhibiting the capacity of educators to evaluate student competency using traditional face-to-face methods. The anecdotes cited in this chapter are primarily the experiences of the first author and support the collective views of the research team.

The Importance of Communication in Assessment Traditional face-to-face (F2F) methods of assessment include knowledge-based examinations, observation of student behavior, and discourse between assessor and student (either verbal or written format). Using the principle of constructive alignment, the choice of an assessment method and the knowledge and skills students are expected to acquire must be clearly communicated before initiating any teaching activity (Biggs, 1996). Underpinning the success of an assessment is clear communication between the assessor and the assessed through the instructions in the assessment instrument. Effectively communicating the requirements of an assessment activity ensures it accurately captures the skills and knowledge of the student with respect to the knowledge or skills being assessed. One important principle to observe when writing examination questions is to provide an example of a worked problem so that students are familiar with the language and conventions used in the test questions (Kansas Curriculum Centre, 2001). We have witnessed many instances of poorly written assessments that contained instructions that were misunderstood by students. In several cases, there was little or no consideration given to the students’ cultural backgrounds and how the instructions might be interpreted. One example from the first author’s experience is an assessment delivered to grade 11 physics students in Papua New Guinea (PNG). One of the questions required students to correctly indicate the direction of a magnetic field around a copper wire conducting an electric current. To indicate the direction of electron flow, an arrowhead was used as it might be in an examination in a Western country. The problem was that the feathers on the arrow were interpreted by many students as indicating the end of the arrow rather than the beginning. This is because arrows in many tribes in PNG are often constructed with multiple prongs on the tip of the arrow, without feathers attached to the other end. Accordingly, a high number of students consistently gave the wrong direction of electron flow. The problem was corrected for subsequent assessments by changing the way that electromagnetism was taught in PNG classrooms so that assessment questions were correctly interpreted by students attempting physics examinations. The previous example of the consequences of incorrectly communicating instructions is not only confined to F2F situations. Similar communication “misunderstandings” are possible in online situations as they are usually human-related rather than technology induced. The next section introduces online learning in the context of the learning and

Learning Management Systems & Synchronous Communication Tools  41 communication technology available to facilitate assessment in both inclass and fully online modes of learning.

LMSs and Communication Tools To ensure that curriculum meets contemporary practices, the triad of pedagogy, technology and an engaged community of students is vital (Chugh et al., 2017). LMSs are considered an essential technology for course delivery in most institutions of higher learning. Even as early as 2005, research indicated that LMSs were becoming commonplace in universities around the world (Coates et al., 2005). These systems are used to support courses that are delivered in F2F, blended learning, and online modes. When used in F2F modes of delivery, asynchronous communication tools are the main ways educators communicate with students through LMSs. There is no need to use synchronous tools such as video and chat channels in F2F delivery modes because students and educators regularly meet in a physical location. Assessments delivered via an LMS are supervised by proctors who can monitor and enforce assessment compliance if required. Once a course or program is offered in a purely online mode, it becomes impossible to communicate synchronously with candidates using asynchronous tools such as emails and bulletin boards during an assessment. For this reason, many institutions insist on conducting assessments in a fixed location where candidates can be supervised – regardless of whether they are using an LMS or not. In addition, educators are often reluctant to substitute direct observation for communication that could take place via synchronous tools in an LMS. This can be attributed to a belief that synchronous tools within LMSs cannot be deployed to assist in the administration of assessments that require continual student monitoring. The following section discusses some of the synchronous and asynchronous tools available in LMSs and the capacity of synchronous tools to support online assessment when F2F modes of delivery are unavailable due to COVID-19 restrictions.

A Comparison of Asynchronous and Synchronous Online Tools According to Hrastinski (2008), asynchronous tools facilitate better processing of information because on-demand access is provided to the student as many times as required. Examples of asynchronous tools include email, discussion boards, announcements, blogs, streaming videos, and course-related documents. However, when it comes to summative assessment, asynchronous tools have certain limitations. With regards to ensuring equity in assessing student competence, particularly with knowledge-based assessments, assigning a test to a student asynchronously limits the assessment conditions. Online tests tend to be more of an “open

42  Darren Turnbull, Ritesh Chugh, and Jo Luck book” kind because it is difficult (but not impossible) to monitor them in real time. While it is certainly possible to apply restrictions on test delivery such as time limitations and Internet Protocol address constraints, the integrity of asynchronous assessments essentially relies on the personal ethics of the student being assessed. Synchronous tools are a more recent phenomenon in LMSs. Synchronous communication can take place via text, audio, video, or a combination of all three forms. Historically, available bandwidth and software limitations have severely limited the effectiveness of synchronous communication tools. In terms of the learning process, synchronous communication tools often attempt to replicate classroom environments and provide the student with real-time interactions with their teachers and peers. Martin and Parker (2014) even claim that synchronous virtual classrooms are superior to physical classrooms because students can share text-based information with other participants without interrupting the presenter. Zoom is an example of a video conferencing software that is capable of allowing the creation of an online classroom where teachers can create a virtual meeting place for students via a unique online identification (Nobre, 2018). Zoom, Skype, and other video conferencing tools offer the added advantage that interactions can be recorded and reviewed later, which essentially transforms the synchronous communication experience into an asynchronous one when the recorded proceedings are reviewed at a later time. With regard to summative assessments, synchronous tools are used less frequently than asynchronous tools. This is possibly because many educators and course administrators have grown accustomed to modes of online delivery that present assessments asynchronously. Chao et al. (2012) specify four types of online synchronous assessments: (1) synchronous quiz assessment – enabled and monitored by the educator during a synchronous session, (2) synchronous essay assessment – released by the educator at an appropriate point in the synchronous session, (3) synchronous oral assessment – one-on-one Socratic questioning of students in their individual online learning space, and (4) synchronous practice assessment – scenario style activities where students are monitored and assessed in real time by educators in their individual learning space. Another type of assessment that can be conducted synchronously is webinars. For example, a student could deliver a webinar to another group of students (McCLelland, 2016). Presentations could be assessed in real time by the educator incorporating comments by other participants about the content and execution of the delivery. On rare occasions, it has been seen that synchronous tools are used to invigilate knowledge-based competency assessments in a blended learning environment. For example, in order to obtain a driver’s license in China, it is necessary to sit a multiple-choice examination at a regional police station. This test is effectively a summative assessment of a learner-driver’s knowledge of China’s road rules and is delivered in a proctored online

Learning Management Systems & Synchronous Communication Tools  43 environment. Driver knowledge tests are administered across the country such that learner-drivers in multiple locations sit the same examination at the same time. The stated purpose of this approach is to minimize possible instances of cheating. Each candidate completes the examination in front of a computer with a camera, which records and monitors the learnerdriver’s performance. The test consists of 100 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 45 minutes. During this time, facial images are recorded at random intervals and later appended to the candidate’s test attempt as evidence of continuous identity authentication. While the examination location still has to be proctored by real people, the use of video in this way helps to ensure the authenticity of each test attempt. Instant messaging offers a relatively inexpensive means of conveying information in real time without the necessity to exchange more personal data such as audio, images, or video. WhatsApp is a popular instant messaging platform or chat tool that is easily installed on most smartphones. Güler (2017) investigated the use of this communication tool to aggregate anonymous and nonanonymous peer assessments of student presentations. For the nonanonymous assessors, their identities were established prior to the assessment by recording their unique WhatsApp ID in a validated list of students. The study found that students were able to successfully submit evaluations of presentation performance to the educator while preserving anonymity with the rest of the class. These evaluations contributed to the final summative assessment of each student’s performance. Most LMSs have incorporated some form of instant messaging into their suite of communication tools. In addition, video conferencing tools such as Skype and Zoom, include instant messaging functions that can be deployed as part of a communication instance. We have found limited use for instant messaging as a summative assessment tool, mainly because of the difficulties in managing multiple communication channels at the same time. For example, if an assessment is to be carried out with ten candidates simultaneously, then it becomes a challenge to deal with multiple chat channels concurrently. Audiovisual tools can also be used in online assessments. In their study of online synchronous assessment design, Chao et al. (2012) outlined how cyber classrooms can be used to conduct oral evaluations of student performance. These cyber classrooms facilitated the interaction of students and their teacher as if they were in a physical classroom and also allowed the educator to communicate with each student individually when assessing them orally. While two-way audio links were the principal vehicle of communication, a live video feed was also maintained to better replicate a F2F environment and to help ensure the continual authentication of each student. Chat tools and video conferencing tools can be used together in summative assessment, for example, to allow candidates to provide text-based answers to questions posed to them by an educator through an audio-video link. If the required responses are to be supplied in multiple-choice or short answer form, instant messaging

44  Darren Turnbull, Ritesh Chugh, and Jo Luck Table 4.1  Synchronous Tools and Their Application to Summative Assessment. Synchronous Tools

Summative Assessment

Example

Chat (e.g., WhatsApp, WeChat)

Yes/no answers to situation- Student is required to agree/ based assessments that disagree that examples of require immediate responses driving behavior presented by the assessor represent safe driving Web conferencing Observation of candidate Student demonstrates how (e.g. Webinars) competence in using to apply Excel’s VLookup software applications function to a spreadsheet Two-way audio Interviews to gauge depth Student is asked to present (e.g., cyber of understanding of arguments for and against classrooms) complex issues. Audio the construction of communication is additional coal-fired power supplemented by a live stations using a structured video feed to replicate conversation physical conditions Two-way Demonstration of competence Student demonstrates the audiovisual requiring audiovisual correct way to don and (e.g., Skype) information. remove personal protective equipment in a workplace setting Social networking Group assessment activities Multiple students interact sites (e.g., with each other on Facebook) Facebook to develop a marketing strategy

apps would be appropriate to capture this information. Such an approach also has value in formative assessment where results could be shared with candidates after the test. Table 4.1 lists some common synchronous tools and examples of how they can be applied to summative assessments. An important part of assessment validity is student identification. COVID-19 has introduced the need to proctor examinations and other forms of assessment remotely using synchronous tools such as video to mitigate instances of cheating (Bilen & Matros, 2020). For summative assessments such as examinations, where continuous authentication of student identity is crucial to ensuring the validity of the assessment (Flior & Kowalski, 2010), it may be possible to integrate biometric authentication technologies into online synchronous tools. A medical university in South Korea effectively deployed a tablet-based facial recognition system during COVID-19 as part of a suite of measures to dissuade students in a dental program from committing academic misconduct by allowing someone else to complete their online examination in a home environment (Lee et al., 2020). The system required the candidate to position the tablet so that constant monitoring of facial features could occur during the examination. However, such a system may not be able to confirm that a candidate is not receiving assistance from someone not within the camera’s field of

Learning Management Systems & Synchronous Communication Tools  45 view. Without the capacity to continuously confirm a student’s identity in a remote examination using some form of automated biometric verification, educators should carefully consider alternate forms of assessment to mitigate the possibility of undetected acts of academic misconduct.

The Importance of Observation in Assessment Observation is considered to be an important method for gathering evidence of competency because of its power to confirm that what people say they do is actually what they do (Mulhall, 2003). Direct observation requires real-time access to “the observed”, requiring some form of video conferencing technology to facilitate a connection between the assessor and the candidate to be observed. In the online education courses that we have participated in, both as students and educators, it was found that attempts to substitute observation with other methods such as questioning, significantly devalued the validity and fairness of the assessment. For example, while working in China as an educator, the first author completed a vocational qualification in advanced web design via distance education with a registered training organization (RTO) in Australia. An important competence to be assessed was English language proficiency in a workplace setting. Clearly, direct observation was the best assessment method for this task. However, the RTO decided to use third-party feedback due to the perceived difficulty in conducting an observational assessment remotely. The possibility of creating an assessment procedure that used video conferencing technologies (built into their proprietary LMS) was simply not explored by the RTO. Consequently, the reliability of the assessment to accurately reflect competence in workplace English could be questioned during an auditing process. Assessment tool substitution because of preferences for asynchronous communications in online learning is a significant risk to the requirement of maintaining consistency in assessment outcomes. The next section explores the importance of developing contingency plans to transition F2F assessment activities (including observation) to an online environment capable of facilitating synchronous assessment should a disruptor such as COVID-19 cause the shut down of physical amenities such as classrooms.

The Role of Online Technology in Ensuring Continuity in Course Delivery and Assessment During Covid-19 The first author was working in Ningbo as an IT educator when COVID19 caused the immediate shutdown of most educational institutions in China impacting more than 270 million students across the country (Huang et al., 2020). This unexpected disruption to the expected F2F delivery occurred during the Spring Festival, a time when most of the

46  Darren Turnbull, Ritesh Chugh, and Jo Luck country’s citizens enjoy a monthlong vacation. Students, faculty, and other employees could not return to the campus, so regular F2F instruction was suspended. The almost complete reliance on F2F delivery prior to COVID-19 and the absence of established procedures to transition teaching to an online situation meant that educators were scrambling to adapt their courses to an e-learning environment. While several educators had integrated LMSs into their course delivery structures, these tools were inadequate by themselves to facilitate an immediate transition to an online environment for two reasons. First, the institution demanded that courses were to be delivered according to a schedule that was identical to the pre-COVID timetable. Students were accustomed to a F2F environment and were unprepared to learn in an asynchronous environment without real-time communication with their teachers. Second, many of the assessment procedures involved person-to-person interactions, such as “live” group presentations and panel discussions which required student-teacher interaction in real time. Zoom was the principal tool used to establish the synchronous aspects of course delivery and assessment. Administrative functions such as learning materials management, attendance, and student records were implemented via Moodle. Through the selective deployment of features of both platforms, educators were able to simulate a classroom situation online and mitigate transition problems for students thrust into this “new way of doing things”. It is interesting to note the significant effort and investment made by Zoom Video Communications, incorporated in the months following the outbreak of COVID-19 to upgrade their primary video conferencing platform to accommodate the demands of a rapidly increasing clientele. The previous example illustrates the importance of embedding synchronous online capabilities into F2F course delivery – especially as a backup plan against disrupters such as COVID-19. The seamless integration of online communication tools into assessment processes will also have a transformational impact on the way educational institutions structure their learning environments into the future. The critical challenge for decisionmakers is to internalize the lessons learned from COVID-19-inspired, technology-based solutions to better cope with future pandemics and crises that could disrupt the education of our students (Dwivedi et al., 2020). Those institutions that were early adopters of blended learning are better prepared for such disruptions.

Ethical Use of Synchronous Tools in Assessment The COVID-19-inspired expansion of the use of synchronous tools in assessment has raised possible ethical concerns. Even pre-COVID, people were concerned about the use of mass surveillance technologies by

Learning Management Systems & Synchronous Communication Tools  47 governments to observe and monitor the activities of their citizens. At present, most LMSs routinely record asynchronous interactions with users as they occur. In so far as this data contributes to the assessment of candidate competency, there is usually an acceptance by students, educators, and institutions that the captured data can serve as evidence of acquired skills and knowledge. However, if synchronous tools are mandated for use in assessment, formative or summative, then it could be argued that this is a form of mass surveillance with the potential to supplement citizen surveillance conducted by government entities. This is particularly true in situations where students are situated in countries and jurisdictions that do not have well-developed privacy laws, and the audiovisual information can be intercepted and recorded (Panos et al., 2002). The practice of many institutions when it comes to the recording of information involving two or more parties is to seek permission from everyone involved for the recording to take place. However, if a synchronous interaction is surreptitiously recorded by a third party operating outside the legal and ethical constraints of the host institution’s environment, trust between these parties is violated. This risk can be mitigated by appropriate scrutiny of proposed distance learning programs and the communication tools that are to be deployed. An educational institution’s ethics committee would be an appropriate body to carry out this function.

Conclusion and Implications The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many educational institutions to deliver their programs online. Traditionally, most assessments conducted in an online environment are carried out asynchronously. However, synchronous communication tools incorporated in LMSs can assist in improving the integrity of assessments through enhanced candidate identity verification. Summative assessment in a synchronous online environment can take many forms, including quizzes, essays, oral assessments, scenarios, and online examinations. The validity of summative assessments in online courses is dependent on the communication tools chosen to facilitate the evaluation. For certain types of activities that demand a high degree of assessor-assessee interactivity, like observation, there is no substitute for synchronous tools such as video conferencing when conducting the assessment. For other assessments such as exams, biometric authentication is crucial to validating the identity of the students and mitigating the temptation to commit academic misconduct online. The authors share the concern of many educators that our COVID-19-inspired transition to online learning has the risk of exposing students to privacy breaches. Such risks could be mitigated by institutions enacting appropriate policies to regulate the use of online collaborative tools – particularly if they are deployed in an international context.

48  Darren Turnbull, Ritesh Chugh, and Jo Luck

Bios Darren Turnbull, MBA, is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Engineering and Technology, Central Queensland University, Australia. His professional and research interests include learning management systems, database systems, and vocational education and training. He is an Information Technology Certified Professional of the Canadian Information Processing Society. Ritesh Chugh, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems and Analysis in the School of Engineering and Technology at Central Queensland University, Australia. Ritesh has received several teaching awards to recognize his teaching excellence, commitment to improved student outcomes, and engagement in reflective learning and teaching activities. He is also an extensively published researcher, whose multidisciplinary research interests include social media, project management, knowledge management, information systems management, and educational technology. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Australian Computer Society. Jo Luck, Ph.D., is the Academic Lead (Research Higher Degree Experience) and a Senior Lecturer in ICT in the School of Engineering and Technology at Central Queensland University. Her research interests include using coursework in research degrees, educational technology, and actor-network theory. She is a senior member of the Australian Computer Society.

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Learning Management Systems & Synchronous Communication Tools  49 Dwivedi, Y. K., Hughes, D. L., Coombs, C., Constantiou, I., Duan, Y., Edwards, J. S., Gupta, B., Lal, B., Misra, S., Prashant, P., Raman, R., Rana, N. P., Sharma, S. K., & Upadhyay, N. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management research and practice: Transforming education, work and life. International Journal of Information Management, 55(2020), 1–20. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102211 Flior, E., & Kowalski, K. (2010). Continuous biometric user authentication in online examinations. 2010 Seventh International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, 488–492. https://doi.org/10.1109/itng.2010.250 Güler, Ç. (2017). Use of WhatsApp in higher education: What's up with assessing peers anonymously? Journal of Educational Computing Research, 55(2), 272– 289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735633116667359 Hrastinski, S. (2008). Asynchronous and synchronous e-learning. Educause Quarterly, 31(4), 51–55. Huang, R., Tlili, A., Chang, T.-W., Zhang, X., Nascimbeni, F., & Burgos, D. (2020). Disrupted classes, undisrupted learning during COVID-19 outbreak in China: application of open educational practices and resources. Smart Learning Environments, 7(19), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00125-8 Kansas Curriculum Centre. (2001). Is this a trick question? https://www.k-state. edu/ksde/alp/resources/Handout-Module6.pdf Lee, J., Kim, R. J., Park, S. Y., & Henning, M. A. (2020). Using technologies to prevent cheating in remote assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Dental Education. 1–3 https://doi.org/10.1002/jdd.12350 Martin, F., & Parker, M. A. (2014). Use of synchronous virtual classrooms: Why, who, and how. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10(2), 192–210. McCLelland, L. (2016). 4 tools for synchronous teaching and learning. Top Hat. https://tophat.com/blog/synchronous-teaching-tools/ Mulhall, A. (2003). In the field: notes on observation in qualitative research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 41(3), 306–313. https://doi. org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.2003.02514.x Nobre, C. (2018). Zoom. A user-friendly video conference tool great for online lessons. The Digital Teacher. Retrieved March, 21, 2020 from https://thedigitalteacher.com/reviews/zoom Panos, P. T., Panos, A., Cox, S. E., Roby, J. L., & Matheson, K. W. (2002). Ethical issues concerning the use of videoconferencing to supervise international social work field practicum students . Journal of Social Work Education, 38(3), 421. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2002.10779108 Turnbull, D., Chugh, R., & Luck, J. (2019). Learning management systems: An overview. In A. Tatnall (Eds.), Encyclopedia of education and information technologies. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60013-0_248-1 Vonderwell, S., & Boboc, M. (2013). Promoting formative assessment in online teaching and learning. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 57(4), 22–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-013-0673-x

5 Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-19 Flexible Harmonies in Higher Education Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, and Alberto Cabedo-Mas Introduction The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has profoundly caused loss of life around the world (WHO, 2020), impacting economic, social, political, and education systems around the globe (Anderson et al., 2020; Owusu-Fordjour et al. 2020). This chapter situates itself across two countries, Australia and Spain, where higher education institutes like many other corporate sectors around the world contribute largely to the economy of a country (Audretsch, 2014). Therefore, keeping them open and producing graduates is imperative for the future of a country (Universities Australia, 2020). Australian universities like many other universities around the globe rely heavily on international students. With economic shutdowns caused by COVID-19, many universities suffered revenue loss (Thatcher et al., 2020). International education is Australia’s fourth-largest export (Ross, 2020), and in Spain, it contributes majorly to the Spanish economy (ICEF Monitor, 2020). Over the last two decades, the Spanish higher education community has moved assertively to engage internationally in different ways, meeting rationales and strategies, such as the geopolitics, to open their universities to a wider audience (Rumbley, 2012). Links with Europe and Latin America have been strengthened and new efforts to establish new connections with Africa, North America, and Asia are considered. In Australia, travel bans were imposed on international travel as early as February 2020 due to COVID-19; later, interstate borders were closed to curtail the spread of virus (Scull et al., 2020). The higher education sector responded to COVID-19 in relation to “international student load concerns due to flight restrictions, then to domestic cases, and the requirement for social isolation” (Crawford et al., 2020, p. 11). Many campuses shut down face-to-face (F2F) classes, all teaching moved online. Staff members were forced to rapidly change the delivery of programs

Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-19  51 (courses); they progressively moved to alternative forms of online learning (Johnson et al., 2020; Thatcher et al., 2020). Spain imposed a lockdown on March 16, with social distancing measures and closing all businesses, with the exception of those essential to the country’s supply chains (Tobías, 2020). Two weeks later, on March 30, Spain also implemented a more restrictive lockdown, aimed at reducing the mobility and nonessential industrial activity countrywide (Mitjà et al., 2020). From then until September, with the beginning of the new academic year, Spanish universities have been teaching online. Online (e-learning) is fast growing around the globe with many higher education institutes embracing the trend (Digolo et al., 2011). Online learning is a substitute for F2F teaching and learning (Guri-Rosenblit, 2005). It uses technology as a way to build knowledge and skills (Moore et al., 2011). Unlike many professional and corporate organizations that are adjusting to remote (online) forms of delivery, tertiary educators have worked online prior to COVID-19; they “have a unique take on who [their] students are” (Whitford, 2020). We work in initial teacher education programs as tertiary music educators in the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.), Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), and Master of Teaching (M.Teach). Dawn (Author One) and Rohan (Author Two) are based in Australia, and Alberto (Author Three) is located in Spain. This chapter builds on our previous study, which employed online teaching across three universities (see Joseph et al., 2018, 2020). Since the pandemic, we have continued to collegially connect, communicate, and collaborate with each other to keep “afloat” as we worked from home. Through conversations we shared our practice and discussed ways of teaching, assessing, managing workload, and handling student concerns. We acknowledge that online pedagogy in music is not fully well-known because of the multifaceted nature of music studies and the multiple models of online learning (Bowman, 2014; Johnson, 2017). Few studies “have been published on how music can be taught online in higher education” (Horspool & Yang, 2010, p.16). Employing narrative inquiry, we discuss our different and common experiences when teaching in the online environment (Hernandez et al., 2015). We use the term “flexible harmonies” to discuss ways in which we had to refocus our teaching and assessment tasks as we “moved to online teaching” due to government restrictions in Australia and Spain. Our online teaching took into consideration how students could model online teaching when on placement or in their future classrooms. Dawn has taught undergraduate and postgraduate students F2F and online (off campus) since 2001. From mid-March, she has mentored and managed many sessional (casual/part-time) staff who had never taught online prior to COVID-19. In his previous university job, Rohan taught a couple of units (subjects) online. Since 2019, in his new job, he only taught on campus, but from mid-March, all his teaching moved online. Alberto has been teaching F2F classes since 2009. In the past seven years,

52  Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, and Alberto Cabedo-Mas he taught online, including supervising students in two different master’s programs. At our respective institutes, we used a learning management system (LMS) as a software application to meet our pedagogical goals of delivering content to students (Machado & Tao, 2007). LMS are commonly used at universities around the world, adding a virtual dimension to campus-based teaching, and creating fully online virtual environments (Coates et al., 2005). LMS has the capacity to act as a repository tool that can be used to document and track students’ progress and support their learning (Chapin, 2018). For academics this “can be useful in determining course access rates, frequency and duration of interaction with particular content and course tools and assignment submissions” (Rapanta et al., 2020). We drew on three basic areas of teacher knowledge (content, pedagogy, and technology) as a guide to create coherent learning environments for our diverse cohorts. Technological pedagogical content knowledge, abbreviated as TPCK or TPACK are used interchangeably in this chapter, serving as digital tools and resources (Harris et al., 2017; Mishra & Koehler, 2006; Rets, Thompson & Mishra, 2007; Rets et al., 2020).

Literature Review Teaching is a complex vocation that requires a range of specialized knowledge including “knowledge of student thinking and learning, knowledge of subject matter, and increasingly, knowledge of technology” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009, p. 61). The inclusion of technology in the classroom has “fundamentally altered the practice of distance teaching and learning” (Anderson & Elloumi, 2004, p. ix). It is important that teachers have knowledge about the intersection between technology, pedagogy, and content in relation to what they are teaching (Polly et al., 2010). Teacher education programs initially focused on content knowledge (subject matter) regarding what to teach, later they included pedagogical knowledge (classroom practice) in relation to how to teach, independent of subject matter. Schulman (1986) combined content knowledge (CK) with pedagogical knowledge (PK) and introduced pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). PCK is a blend of “content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular aspects of subject matter are organized, adapted, and represented for instruction” (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, p. 1021). Adding technology knowledge to the two knowledge domains PK and CK results in technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) and technological content knowledge (TCK). Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) is the combination of TPK and TCK (Koehler et al., 2013). As a framework, TPACK integrates technology, pedagogy, and CK to teach a subject effectively (see Figure 5.1). TPACK requires specific knowledge and skills to effectively integrate educational technology into the design and organization of the curriculum

Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-19  53

Figure 5.1   Graphic Representation of TPACK, Source: © Archambault and Barnett (2010, p. 1657).

when teaching a specific content area (Koehler & Mishra 2005; Özgür, 2020). The use of technology has added flexibility to methods of delivering classes online giving way to TPACK (Archambault & Barnett, 2010). The use of modern technologies, such as digital devices and Internet/ online platforms for teaching, is what Koehler et al. (2013) call educational technology and fluency of information technology. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the debates around TPCK, as the framework is still not fully understood (Angeli & Valanides, 2009; Cox & Graham, 2009). Nonetheless, research has shown that the use of technology improves teaching and learning (Graham, 2011; Harris et al., 2009; Su et al., 2017; Voogt, et al., 2013). TPACK is an accepted framework to understand teaching using technology (Rets et al., 2020). It has given us “a language to talk about the connections that are present” or absent when teaching music online and “the relationship between content and technology” (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, p. 1044). While teaching online, Govindarajan and Srivastava (2020) identify the need for teachers to have support on the ground when engaging with technology. Many have varied digital infrastructures with poor support

54  Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, and Alberto Cabedo-Mas services, thus widening the digital divide at universities. Not all staff are accustomed to the shift in practice, which can be psychologically stressful (Morley, 2020). Many teachers are uncomfortable with teaching through virtual classrooms. Teaching online can be stressful for staff during COVID-19 (Gautam & Sharma, 2020). Providing in-service training according to Özgür (2020) is one way to reduce technostress and improve TPACK competency. In addition, Nayar and Akmar (2020) suggest that professional development programs for teachers should include a practical component that permits them to teach with computers in their classrooms. In this way, teachers will be able to reflect on their designs for use in classrooms. With the onset of COVID-19, “the teacher education sector in most countries, including Australia, had not anticipated the shift to off-campus teaching” (Scull et al., 2020). Not all teachers were well prepared for the challenge which proved stressful as “the rapid transition to an online teaching environment has impacted on teachers” physical, emotional and social wellbeing” (ReachOut Australia 2020). In a recent study, Phillips and Cain (2020) found teachers reported that the shift to online teaching has caused “relentless paperwork” and “technical, pragmatic and workload issues”. Teachers were concerned about whether quality pedagogy and curriculum could be delivered online when engagement is not the same as F2F teaching. This coupled with low-quality equipment and poor Internet connectivity does not help the teaching and learning environment (Peters et al., 2020). Such factors added stress and impacted staff and students’ well-being. Sokal et al. (2020) found “when teachers don’t have the resources they need, and especially when sustained job demands are high, teachers experience chronic stress – and eventually burnout”. They added being “flooded with websites, learning platforms and other resources…leading [led] to more teacher burnout”. Therefore, supporting teachers’ well-being inevitably impacts students’ learning and well-being (Collie & Martin, 2020). For teachers, achieving a work-life balance and connecting with others is important when trying to reduce stress and build morale. All of which positively contributes to maintaining well-being (NEF, 2011). Having positive relationships; experiencing feelings of happiness, satisfaction, and achievement; and having a sense of purpose in life positively contributes to well-being (MacDonald et al., 2013; Mansfield et al., 2020).

Methods We focus on our individual experiences that have grown out of practice and experience during the pandemic employing narrative inquiry (Benson, 2005; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Haydon et al., 2015). As an extension to our previous project, we continued to collaborate through email, Skype, and telephone. We communicated about our practice and our sense

Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-19  55 of well-being by meeting online once every two to three weeks for an hour or more for up to six months. We kept personal notes as a way of understanding our experience as we posed questions: What were the challenges we faced delivering music units from home? What were some of the pedagogies we employed? How did working from home impact our workload, stress, and well-being? We employed interpretative phenomenological analysis as our analytic tool to explore our personal lived experience (Callary et al., 2015; Smith, 2017). By sharing our notes and having discussions, we individually and collectively undertook initial codings by bracketing and making notes in the left margin (Amos, 2016; Giorgi, 2012). We then compared our notes before developing them into overarching themes (Lauterbach, 2018; McNarry et al., 2019). We discussed our collective challenges and opportunities and reflected on “what we know, believe, and value within the context of an event (COVID-19)” (Horton-Deutsch & Sherwood, 2017, xxxv). Our narrative resonates with the notion of reflective practice as we thought about our actions in order to alter and modify our future actions and responses (Brooks et al., 2014; Clandinin, 2013; Schön, 1987). Through reflection (Schön, 1983), we explored the concerns and problems we encountered (McEwan & Egan, 1995). We highlighted the experiences that have shaped our social interactions and understanding of our teaching and our students learning during the pandemic (Haydon et al., 2015).

Findings: Flexible Harmonies We call this section of our findings “Flexible Harmonies” because it refers to the different cohorts of students we taught (undergraduates, postgraduates, and seniors). It also refers to the diverse age groups of students within the different programs of study. The use of the word “flexible” is used to capture the different LMS platforms we each employed for teaching and learning (Anderson & Elloumi, 2004). As music educators, interweaving our voices into a single narrative creates a blend of simultaneous harmonies at three different workplaces. Each of us was flexible in our delivery (asynchronous and synchronous) and assessment tasks (formative and summative). Once all classes moved “online” beginning in mid-March 2020, Dawn used Zoom, Kultura, discussion spaces, email, and telephone to communicate with students in the B.Ed. and M.Teach program. This was similar for Rohan and Alberto, who used Google Meet, email, Zoom, and the University Virtual Classroom to connect with their M.Teach, B.A., and B.Ed. students. As agents of change during a time of unprecedented change, we share two key overarching themes: challenges relating to administration and teaching and opportunities encountered.

56  Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, and Alberto Cabedo-Mas Challenges Relating to Administration and Teaching The challenge of teaching “online” meant we had increased administration responsibilities that added to our “usual workload.” We attended more staff meetings than usual, which crept into our teaching day. Reading and responding to the flurry of emails from management about governance, curriculum, and COVID health and safety issues was time-consuming. In addition, we had to carefully plan, prepare, and present classes “online” that connected theory to practice. We were mindful that many of the non-music specialists lacked confidence and competency skills. Therefore, working closely with our respective digital teams and the library officers was essential in providing useful resources that would complement the content we covered “online.” We were challenged by not knowing what music resources our students had or did not have in their homes. We had to be flexible in the ways lessons were delivered online covering TPACK in a short space of time. The challenge for us meant delivering practical hands-on subjects effectively while having no control over the quality of technology or the type of devices students used. Dawn found she had spent many hours supporting sessional staff who had previously not taught online. This involved many more emails and phone calls than usual. While short and sharp professional learning sessions were offered by the university, many did not take up the offer. This meant she had to assist students and mentor staff to navigate the LMS applications. Rohan found preparing classes in this environment challenging, he had to swiftly move to a new LMS. His students, like Dawn’s students, were familiar with F2F teaching, though they found the sudden change difficult and isolating. Rohan used editing tools to produce audio and video recording examples to complement his online teaching when teaching about the creative arts. This approach, although time-consuming was an effective way to demonstrate to students what could be done on placement (practicum) or in future classrooms. It also served as a way to facilitate discussion with the students about methods of teaching and assessing online. While incorporating music software was not new for many of Dawn and Rohan’s students, this was not the case for Alberto’s senior students (65 years and older). As older learners, they preferred F2F teaching. The on-campus classes offered them social connection and new learning opportunities. Meeting with friends greatly contributed to their sense of well-being. Alberto found that he had spent many hours planning and preparing the History of Music classes. He taught 400 senior students in the online environment. Alberto anticipated that his older learners would find it daunting “studying online.” He had to think of ways to engage and motivate them in a virtual space. Moving to an online teaching space with this particular age group meant many lacked the confidence to use technology. Alberto had to be flexible in what he taught and how he taught

Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-19  57 online. He found it challenging to connect the content (subject) through an online environment, his students needed social F2F connections. Many of our students at our respective workplaces encountered poorquality Internet speed and connectivity. Alberto’s younger students in the undergraduate program did not have equal access to the Internet, many of his students shared accommodations or lived in areas where the Internet was not reliable. This was similar for students in Australia. In providing synchronous and asynchronous teaching, Dawn found that the tutors and students had broadband dropouts; these disruptions impacted the flow of the lesson and group performances. This was similar for Rohan, who found undertaking live group performances was not feasible given the delay with real-time (live) streaming. As students progressed through their learning, we each found there were times some students missed the online workshops. This meant it was time-consuming for us to manage voluminous email inquiries about what was missed. We had to be considerate and take into account that students were working from home with limited access to musical instruments. Given this predicament, Dawn redesigned the B.Ed. music assignment question to include nonconventional sounds from home (such as food mixer, eggbeater, hammer, drill, pots) and electronic sounds from devices. She also had to devise ways to keep her students engaged so that they stayed enrolled in the unit and engaged with the music teaching and learning processes. This was not possible though with her primary music classes in semester one. This cohort was taken by another staff member. As the developer of the music content of the unit, Dawn was seeking verbal feedback from the students themselves. However, the staff member did not feel comfortable allowing her to have five to ten minutes in the three-hour F2F Zoom session to obtain student feedback about the content. The F2F engagement is more personal; it provides emotional engagement, which is absent in a questionnaire. This would have benefited Dawn in preparing units for the next semester, as all subjects were to be taught via Zoom again. This negatively impacted her sense of well-being. We found that classes were at times interrupted, for example, by children, as some students had families, or extended families, or pets. This was challenging for us, as we each found it disrupted the flow of learning sequence and left “gaps” in our students’ learning experience. Therefore, it was essential to set up “bite-size” activities that were manageable and connected content, pedagogy, curriculum, and technology. While some students contributed to the chat space, it was not possible to respond to all students. Many of our undergraduate students had their cameras off, making it rather tricky to gauge their body language to know whether they grasped what we taught. In some instances, the cameras were turned off to improve connectivity. Other than teaching, we found we mentored students and staff, offered academic advice, and directed students to support services. We worked

58  Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, and Alberto Cabedo-Mas closely with the placement office, as many students found the issue of placement caused much stress and anxiety. Many schools were not opting to have students on placements. In light of this, students had to either cancel or defer their placement or internship. In Australia and Spain, placements were dependent on the government’s advice on whether schools were open or not. For those students who went on placement, the experience was daunting. In Australia, students worked in an online platform with the schoolteacher and the university staff member teaching school students from home. In Spain, Alberto had to find alternative ways for his students to acquire professional competencies in order to complete their placement component. Linking theory to practice in the online environment proved challenging for our students. We found that many of our students applied for assignment extensions, which also put pressure on us to return feedback to them in a timely fashion. Many experienced a range of difficulties, such as loss of income, being evicted from shared accommodation, relationship problems, loss of jobs, and mental health issues. While the university offers support structures to assist students, our students often reached out to us in the first instance. Managing some of the severe student-related issues impacted our sense of well-being. In Spain, Alberto dealt with students and colleagues who had lost family and friends due to COVID-19. This aspect was particularly emotionally draining, stressful, and confronting for him. Opportunities Encountered As academics, we were familiar with the concept of working from home. However, once teaching went wholly online in mid-March, we felt isolated and separated from our students and colleagues. We intentionally stayed connected with each other and with colleagues through email, telephone communications, skype, and Zoom. The professional conversations we had with each other and with like-minded colleagues meant that we had the chance to update teaching and learning materials. Moving wholly online meant we had the chance to rethink TPACK; it gave us time to reflect on what we did in the past and how we could improve our teaching. Dawn, for example, invited local and international speakers into her online teaching space using Zoom; this was a great opportunity for her students to connect with experts in the field of music. Our time during lockdown meant we had the chance to learn about emerging technologies that our students readily use. We found during this time that we learned more about LMS and new music software programs. Staying connected with each other and our students, talking about our professional practice and research, positively contributed to our overall sense of well-being. This was similar to when we connected with colleagues at local and international conferences. While travel bans prevented us from attending, we had the opportunity to participate through Zoom

Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-19  59 and learn about emerging pedagogies and technologies in music education. This positively contributed to our professional learning. Alberto established new academic collaborations during the time of lockdown. While he felt vulnerable sharing his teaching practice, he found it rewarding to accept feedback from his peers. This newfound opportunity gave him the chance to learn from his peers, particularly in relation to assessment and ways of teaching online. Dawn found she had significantly more contact with staff through video-conferencing meetings. This has paradoxically worked out in her favor, as she generally works in isolation as the music educator on her campus. By holding regular meetings with arts education faculty staff members, she had the opportunity to learn from them about different ways to assess assignments and discovered various useful resources that would assist first-year students with transitioning to higher education. Teaching through Zoom meant that her off-campus M.Teach students could join the classes and collaborate with other students. Rohan found working in teams and posting learning material in modules with instructional videos significantly helped his students understand the work. The prerecorded clips with instructional documents opened up opportunities for constructive discussion with his students. This had a positive impact on them feeling less isolated. With regular staff meetings, we each encountered new windows of opportunity to contribute to conversations at our respective workplaces regarding changes to the curriculum, placements, workplace changes, and health and well-being concerns. In our newfound “online environment,” we also had the opportunity to undertake COVID-safe compliance training online at our different institutes. Dawn found the cybersecurity and code of conduct training useful; it helped her learn more about dealing with student matters. We collectively found the stress of learning from home may have contributed to students’ rudeness, demands, and impatience; some felt entitled to act as “clients.” On the other hand, we equally received many thank-you emails as we intentionally offered ongoing care, empathy, and support to students and colleagues alike.

Discussion Our narrative inquiry outlined some key challenges and opportunities as we adapted our teaching to the “new normal” of working from home due to government and university regulations. Having no F2F contact was not the preferred way to teach or learn. We had to swiftly shift our mode of thinking, delivery, content, and pedagogy. Employing multimodal technologies was challenging for students and staff. The complexity of the online learning environment meant we modeled what was possible (or not). Not having the practical hands-on F2F experience made it difficult for students to connect PCK with TPCK (Archambault & Barnett, 2010; Schulman, 1986). As experts, we had to prepare students with CK that

60  Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, and Alberto Cabedo-Mas connects the learning experience to the curriculum and to pedagogy. In addition, we had to possess knowledge of the curriculum and curriculum materials that integrates technology with learning music in order to develop students’ understanding (TPCK; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). This challenged us to rethink our lessons. Rohan used LMS to plan, redesign, and deliver his workshops to improve his online delivery TPCK (Angeli & Valanides, 2009). The interactive tool (LMS) was user-friendly and flexible as a platform; it enriched his students’ capacity to learn and supported their needs (Kasim & Khalid, 2016; Merrick, 2020). Alberto was challenged to strike a balance between access, resources, and participation. He felt TPK was significantly more important to students than CK. Dawn and her sessional staff focused on PCK, using virtual platforms as a tool to connect TPACK. In this way, students were enabled with “skills and digital resources and technologies” that were enriching, “meaningful, relevant, and engaged [the] learner” (Nayar & Akmar, 2020, p. 60). We found using synchronous and asynchronous teaching beneficial (Dyment & Downing, 2020). In this way, students were provided with specific examples of music content and music pedagogies that they could use when on placement or in their future classrooms. Preparing lessons online provided us with the opportunity to explore and experiment with music software. It also opened up doors to think about diverse ways of teaching. We provided instructional videos that were time-consuming and stressful to prepare but worked well for our students (Özgür, 2020). We found this to be an effective method of providing detailed instructions and feedback (Henderson & Phillips, 2015). In addition, we found providing visuals, charts, written explanations, and recorded instructions useful for students’ learning. They were able to access them at any anytime. Students had the flexibility to play, stop, and replay recorded learning material several times, which was something “manageable”; it offered them opportunities to “digest TPCK” at their own pace. One of the benefits of working online during the pandemic was that our workplaces and software companies offered students and staff free access to software and applications. We used them to edit, record, and layer work using virtual music instrument samplers. The digital tools and resources facilitated opportunities to creatively engage in music and or arts education practice (TPCK; Harris et al., 2017; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). While online teaching was accessible to all students, we also found it did not suit all learners. Admittedly, many of our students (young and old) struggled with online learning. They had to adapt to independent study, self-regulate, and manage their time. They had to set aside time to undertake self-directed learning, which was not easy for many (Sumuer, 2018). Compounded by this, many had network problems, with some having more sophisticated equipment than others, which was not equitable for all students (Govindarajan & Srivastava, 2020). The opportunity

Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-19  61 of embodied learning was not the same as learning online. In our experience, the quality of sound, time lag, and Internet dropouts proved frustrating (Joseph et al., 2020; Burke, 2020). What worked well was placing students in “break-out rooms.” It helped us form relationships with them and enabled them to build confidence as they worked collaboratively and collegially in small groups on practical activities (Burke, 2020). While playing or singing together was not possible “at the same time,” many students managed to produce high-quality video clips, sound clips, and creative compositions using technology, which served as a good teaching and learning experience for all. While the music learning activities were engaging, and students appeared satisfied and happy, they also encountered several other student and personal problems that contributed to their sense of well-being (MacDonald et al., 2013; Mansfield et al., 2020). We found in our role as tertiary educators, amid offering academic support, that we spent a lot of time offering counseling and care. Alberto worked with students at a time when 90.7% of the deceased who died from COVID-19 were over 65 (Spanish Ministry of Health, 2020). He also contacted COVID-19. During his illness, Dawn and Rohan regularly checked on his health and well-being. Their nurturing ethic of care positively contributed to his sense of well-being (Koonce & Lewis, 2020). Dawn sent regular motivational emails to her students that offered support service information on health and well-being. They also included motivational sayings to help promote a sense of togetherness as students worked in lockdown. This was similar to Rohan and Alberto who connected to students online by offering additional academic and counseling support. Fostering a sense of care toward each other helped us to remain resilient. It also enhanced our morale, which positively impacted our students and colleagues (NEF, 2011). The use of multimodal technology during this time of COVID-19 has brought us closer as colleagues; it also connected us to our students in ways that we may not have had when teaching F2F (Tarlow et al., 2020).

Conclusion This chapter supports our previous study that relates to the use of technology when teaching across three sites (Joseph, Nethsinghe, Cabedo-Mas, 2018, 2020). What emerged from our ongoing collaboration meant that we had opportunities to converse about what worked or did not work as we swiftly moved to online teaching (Cheng, 2020; Sahu, 2020). While we each embraced a range of electronic teaching resources to enrich, enliven, and empower our students, we were equally challenged to upskill and rethink our teaching. Our three voices across two countries is a limitation in itself in that we discuss our lived experience at our workplaces. While this may be similar to other academics, generalizations cannot be made.

62  Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, and Alberto Cabedo-Mas We were directed by government and university regulations regarding on-campus restrictions. This meant the sudden move to online teaching and learning was met with much trepidation. While many students faced obstacles that may have impacted their learning (Hammond, et al., 2020; Sahu, 2020), the university offered students ongoing teaching and learning support, financial support, and counseling. At our respective universities, teaching and learning policies were amended to accommodate the “new online” teaching environment. Approval was granted to change some of the practical content and assessment tasks. Due to high-stress factors, students at Dawn’s university, for example, were granted up to threeweek extensions on assignments without question. Moving to an online mode of teaching meant allowances were made for students to intermit studies, reduce the number of units, and ask for a remission of fees. In addition, students who may not have considered studies enrolled midyear into courses because of new government initiatives. Our findings contribute to the wider body of studies that are currently emerging regarding working from home, teaching online, and exploring TPCK in a meaningful way during COVID-19 (Burke, 2020). Whether students thrived or survived during the first half of 2020, at the time of writing this chapter, we supported, guided, and enabled their learning during uncertain times (academically and personally). We agree with Polly et al. (2010) that more work is needed to examine what aspects of TPACK are essential to developing learning experiences for specialized knowledge areas. Working collaboratively with students and staff has offered us a growth mindset about learning new technologies and subject-specific technologies (Omoso & Odindo, 2020). It also has given us the chance to think about ways we can collaboratively work across disciplines and with communities in co-creative spaces. At the time of concluding this chapter, Dawn remained in “lockdown,” having worked from home since mid-March in Melbourne. Rohan was able to work at his office and has had many restrictions lifted in Canberra, and Alberto has returned to work teaching online in Spain. As we navigate the remainder of the year and beyond, universities face significant transformational changes. We recommend staff undertake compliance training in online teaching, well-being and mental health, and COVIDsafe training. Further studies are necessary to explore student attitudes regarding online learning during COVID-19. In addition, a longitudinal study could explore whether the transformational learning experiences during the pandemic prepared students for classroom practice. At a time of global uncertainty with possible redundancies looming, coupled with ongoing lockdowns, connecting with colleagues positively contributes to well-being, building resilience to press on with business as usual. This chapter highlighted the importance of maintaining collegial and collaborative communication at a time when fear and uncertainty have severely impacted our economy and higher education. We contend that staying

Online Teaching and Learning during COVID-19  63 connected and sharing information about practice enriches our professional learning to pursue “flexible harmonies” in a changing world.

Bios Dawn Joseph, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University, Australia. Her research and peer-reviewed publications focus on music education, African music, cultural diversity, aging and well-being in the arts, teacher education, and community music. She serves as a member of the editorial boards of international and national refereed journals. Dawn examines several Ph.D. dissertations and is invited to peer review in international journals. Rohan Nethsinghe, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in Creative Arts Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Canberra, Australia. Rohan publishes in scholarly journals and presents his research nationally and internationally in the areas of music education and multicultural music education. His research in multicultural music has contributed to the enhancement and scholarship of teaching and learning in teacher education. Alberto Cabedo-Mas, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Music Education at the University Jaume I of Castellón, Spain. He is the author of several publications, including international and national books and refereed journals. He is Codirector of the journal Eufonía: Didáctica de la Música and serves as an editorial board member in several national and international academic journals. His research interests include music education, musical heritage, coexistence, interculturality, and the transmission of music across cultures.

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6 The Effectiveness of Authentic Assessments during COVID-19 A Case of RMIT University in Vietnam Huy Pham, Binh Nguyen Thanh, Thai Vu Hong Nguyen, and Jain Upasana Introduction Assessment is a crucial part of learning and teaching that can influence a student’s decision to take a certain course or program and strongly shapes the student experience. Authentic assessments are considered effective in equipping students with skills and knowledge that will enable them to succeed in the workplace (Larkin, 2014; Sridharan & Mustard, 2015). With the purpose of ensuring that graduates are ready for work and life, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Vietnam (RMIT Vietnam henceforth) has implemented authentic assessments in all courses and programs of the School of Business and Management. At RMIT Vietnam, authentic assessments are part of an authentic learning environment that replicates the context within which the students will need to apply their knowledge and skills at their future workplace. The important elements of authentic assessments at RMIT Vietnam consist of industry engagement activities, team projects, simulations, and research projects. Notable examples of authentic assessments at RMIT Vietnam include assessments that are based on real business problems that are presented to the students by industry partners or team projects about creating investment portfolios that are evaluated based on live market data and trading of financial market products in classroom simulations. COVID-19, which is a new (or novel) strain of coronavirus, originated in Wuhan, China, and surfaced in late December 2019. This virus is extremely contagious, and it has infected millions worldwide. The mortality rate of COVID-19 is, however, much lower than that of SARS. At the time of writing, the virus is still spreading rapidly, and the death toll is mounting. COVID-19 has caused several national lockdowns around the globe, and universities are also affected whereby they have to move their activities online. Although online courses have been around for a while, this is the first time in human history that all learning and teaching activities of many universities in the world must take place online. The

70  Huy Pham et al. COVID-19 crisis and the associated social distancing restrictions, which do not allow students to come to campus, thus requiring the need for them to study online, created unprecedented challenges to the authentic assessment practice of RMIT Vietnam in early 2020. The challenges are particularly severe for courses that used in-class simulations and industry engagements as part of the assessments, which usually require face-toface interactions and delivery. This sudden transition might have caused an adverse impact on the effectiveness of learning and teaching activities and, subsequently, led to a reduced student learning experience. From higher educations’ perspective, the ultimate goal is to ensure a similar student learning experience between online and offline settings. However, one of the major concerns is how to provide an effective implementation of authentic assessments during this period. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether it is effective to implement authentic assessments in an online learning environment and examine whether there is an increase or decrease in student satisfaction. This chapter examines how authentic assessments have been implemented in the online learning environment for two fundamental finance courses: Business Finance and Financial Markets at RMIT University in Vietnam. The practice of online delivery of authentic assessments in the online environment in these courses and the associated student satisfaction serve as case studies on the effectiveness of authentic assessments in the online space.

Literature Review There has been a paradigm shift toward a more complex and comprehensive assessment of knowledge and higher-order skill (Baeten et al., 2013; Birenbaum 2003; Shepard, 2000) and authentic assessment; the center of this shift has attracted significant attention among educators around the world. According to Darling-Hammond and Snyder (2000), Palm (2008), Swaffield (2011), and Wiewiora and Kowalkiewicz (2019), the main reasons for an increasing application of authentic assessment in higher education are (1) dissatisfaction with multiple-choice testing, (2) growing interest among educators to introduce alternative assessments, and (3) the desire to equip students with not only academic knowledge but also the ability to apply the knowledge in practical situations. Gulikers et al. (2006) and Swaffield (2011) claim that the authenticity of authentic assessment is based on the nature and context of the tasks whereby the students are required to apply their knowledge to evaluate and address real-world problems. As pointed out by Benner et al. (2009), Raymond et al. (2013), and Villarroela et al. (2018), the authentic assessment consists of realism, contextualization, and problematization when teaching and evaluating course content. Villarroela et al. (2018) show that realism involves connecting knowledge with life and work activities; contextualization indicates situations where knowledge is applied in an analytical and

The Effectiveness of Authentic Assessments during COVID-19  71 thoughtful manner; “problematisation invokes a sense that what is learned can be used to solve a problem or meet a need.” Therefore, the authenticity of authentic assessment plays a significant role in learning and teaching activities in higher education. It has been well documented in the literature that assessment is the key incentive to learning (Boud, 1990). Newman and Associates (1996) press the importance of authentic learning and authentic assessments with the feature of replication of real-world tasks as a strong predictor of student achievement. As authentic assessments require students to examine real-world tasks from multiple perspectives, students develop their skills in presenting their solutions to an audience other than their teachers (Avery et al., 2001). Callison and Lamb (2004) point out that authentic assessment is a key component constituting authentic learning that incorporates workplace information problems, personal information problems, and academic information problems. In line with the beneficial attributes of authentic assessments, Rule (2006) emphasizes the importance for students to apply academic theories to solve real-world problems. Kearney (2013) further points out that authentic assessments have shown their ability to increase student engagement and enhance student learning of critical thinking and creativity skills. From the ontological perspective, real-world tasks from authentic assessments create opportunities to engage and encourage students to take a stand on the knowledge they seek, the way they act, and their ways of being (Vu & Dall’ Alba, 2014). Authentic assessment pedagogy has been implemented in several disciplines. For example, Raymond et al. (2013) observe the improvement in confidence, knowledge, and skills of midwifery students who participate in authentic assessments. Moreover, Wu et al. (2015) provide insights on how authentic assessments can be embedded in the nursing curriculum. Similarly, Chong et al. (2016) find that learning outcomes of nursing students are enhanced when authentic assessment pedagogy is applied in the clinical setting. Nevertheless, research on the implementation of authentic assessment in the business program is still limited and controversial. Farrell (2020) demonstrates how international marketing simulations can be implemented as an authentic assessment for marketing students. Yet the simulations do not receive students’ appreciation in the transferability of skills acquired to other domains of knowledge. Hence, there remains a need to further investigate the effectiveness of authentic assessments in learning and teaching in business programs, especially during the COVID-19 period.

Methodology According to Kaarbo and Beasley (1999) and Baxter and Jack (2008), we can examine a real-time phenomenon within its naturally occurring context using various data sources through the case study methodology.

72  Huy Pham et al. The methodology is used to describe real-life phenomena rather than developing normative statements and allows researchers to concentrate on an individual’s behavior, attributes, actions, and interactions (Brewer & Hunter, 1989). The case study methodology should be applied when the researcher has little control over certain events and the focus of the study is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context (Yin, 1994). Following Yin (1994), we apply the case study research methodology in this chapter. Yin (1994) shows that a case study examines a specific present-day event or action in a bounded environment using various empirical evidence. In addition, case study research requires detailed investigation with empirical evidence to analyze the context and processes involved in the phenomenon (Rashid et al., 2019). Yin (1994) also points out that the objective of case study research is to intensively focus on a specific case, such as individual, group, institute, or community. In this chapter, we focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the effectiveness of authentic assessments at RMIT Vietnam. Specifically, we gather the course-level data, such as the course’s overall satisfaction index (OSI) to examine the effectiveness of the implementation of authentic assessment. Due to the confidentiality constraint, we can only gather the data for two courses: Business Finance and Financial Markets at RMIT Vietnam. Hence, our analysis is based mostly on the outcomes of these two courses.

The Implementation of Authentic Assessment before/ during COVID-19 In this section, we present the case studies of two introductory finance courses: Financial Markets and Business Finance at RMIT University in Vietnam. These two courses are compulsory for first-year and early second-year students of several business programs; hence, it is important to examine the implementation of authentic assessment in these courses before and during COVID-19.

Business Finance Business Finance is a fundamental course in finance whereby the students learn basic and advanced financial mathematics, financial principles, capital budgeting, and project valuation. Authentic assessments are the foundation of RMIT University’s learning and teaching activities, especially Business Finance. In this course, all assessments are designed based on real-world scenarios. In the first assessment, the students are required to establish a retirement plan based on their current and estimated future incomes. This activity requires them to utilize and apply the knowledge from financial mathematics and financial principles to estimate how much they have to save and invest to achieve a comfortable retirement. In the

The Effectiveness of Authentic Assessments during COVID-19  73 second assessment, the students have to apply their knowledge of capital budgeting to conduct a project valuation and make a judgment to select a project based on their valuation, and our industry partners provide the scenarios or offer consultation. The knowledge and feedback accumulated in the first two assessments are used for the final assessment, whereby we invite industry partners to present their current problems in project valuation and capital budgeting, and the students will have to solve these current problems in an actual company and make appropriate judgments based on the application of their knowledge acquired from the course. We witness a significant increase of approximately 23% in the course’s OSI after making the transition from normal assessments to authentic assessments before the COVID-19 period. When COVID-19 hit Vietnam, RMIT University had to move to online teaching for one semester in early 2020. Business Finance is one of the few courses that can keep all authentic assessments similar to the pre-COVID period. Although the course manages to maintain the same assessments, whereby all industry partner’s activities are organized via Microsoft Teams, the result is relatively disappointing, whereby there is a decline of approximately 35% in the course’s OSI. This result is even lower than those before authentic assessments are implemented, which leads to the question of the effectiveness of authentic assessments for the online learning and teaching environment during COVID-19.

Financial Markets Financial Markets is another fundamental finance course in which the students will learn basic financial mathematics, various financial products and markets, and the regulation of financial markets. The authentic assessments for this course before Covid-19 were designed broadly to be conducted in the classroom using RMIT’s state-of-the-art financial trading lab to trade in foreign exchange (FX) and to conduct research in the peer-reviewed journal to find out new issues that are impacting financial markets. The first assessment is an in-class test based on real-life case scenarios, such as fake emails from clients or small case studies to check the critical thinking of the students and to prepare students to be work-ready. This assessment is a mix of calculation and problem-solving questions. It is quite challenging during Covid-19 times to implement the new authentic approach for the first assessment to make it a take-home assignment and to achieve the course learning outcome to check student’s ability to demonstrate an understanding of financial mathematics. During COVID-19, we make this take-home task available for only two hours, and submissions need to be done within this time. Instead of providing the same numbers to all the students, questions were designed to ask students to use their Student ID to get the divergent answers and do some searches on the web to answer theoretical questions. The second assignment is

74  Huy Pham et al. about the FX market view and dealing with session group reports using the financial trading lab, whereby students will take the role of FX traders within their company to either raise capital in particular currencies or to be price makers. This assessment is extremely engaging and provides students with a hands-on experience of what they will be doing in the finance field. During COVID-19, this assessment has been converted into a take-home assignment by giving students only the role of price makers and removing the use of the financial trading lab. This assignment is not well-received by the students, as it is not very engaging since they cannot interact with their peers and use the financial trading lab. The final assessment is about writing a research paper on the contemporary issue that is impacting the financial sector and needs the attention of various central banks globally. To make students work-ready, this course provided the opportunity for them to interact in person and to meet industry partners who talk about contemporary issues in the financial sectors. It is highly valued by our students, as they can relate the industry engagement to the assessment that helps them to develop their research paper, and students also get the chance to interact with the industry partners. Our results show an increase of approximately 15% in students’ OSI when authentic assessments were incorporated into the course during the pre-COVID period. Due to COVID-19, the course manages to keep this industry interaction by asking our industry partners to provide the narrated slides of their presentation and share their experiences with the students. However, similar to the case of Business Finance, we observed a drop of approximately 47% in the course’s OSI, which indicates the ineffectiveness of authentic assessments in an online space.

Discussion In these two courses, all authentic assessments are designed following the four-step model proposed by Villarroela et al. (2018), and the effectiveness of these authentic assessments as benchmarked by OSI was greatly improved when the courses moved from nonauthentic assessments to authentic assessments during the pre-COVID period. However, we observed a decline in OSI in both courses during the semester when all learning and teaching activities were conducted online. This finding suggests that the current authentic assessment framework might not be effective in the online learning environment. In addition, we found an important missing gap in the four-step model from Villarroela et al. (2018). The model consists of four steps (workplace context, design assessment, judgment, and feedback) and our focus is on the feedback step. In this model, the focus of the feedback step is placed mostly on teachers and students in the form of formative feedback, summative feedback, or sustainable feedback. However, a higher degree of adoption of authentic assessment has created another type of feedback, “external-formative” or “external”

The Effectiveness of Authentic Assessments during COVID-19  75 STEP 1 Graduation Profile Work Requirements

STEP 2 Draft a rich context Creating a worthwhile task Recquiring higher order skill

STEP 3 Assessment criteria and rubrics Engage students with criteria Engage the students in judgement

STEP 4 Formative feedback Externalformative/External feedback Summative feedback Sustainable feedback

Figure 6.1  Modified Authentic Assessment Model. Source: © Villarroela et al. (2018).

feedback, which is given by the industry partners who provide the context of the authentic assessment. The external feedback is expected to play an important role in the students’ learning process, and this type of feedback can further bridge the gap between the classroom and the workplace, whereby the students can understand what they should improve to meet the workplace standard. This new type of feedback leads to our proposal of a modified authentic assessment model of Villarroela et al.’s (2018) approach as follows (Figure 6.1).

Conclusions and Implications COVID-19 has created various challenges to learning and teaching activities in higher education institutions around the globe. One of the major challenges is the implementation of authentic assessments and its effectiveness during this period. RMIT Vietnam has been a leader in the implementation of authentic assessments, yet the university finds it challenging to make a transition to an online environment. Our findings suggest that the implementation of authentic assessment leads to a significant improvement in students’ overall satisfaction during the pre-COVID period. However, the current authentic assessments seem ineffective in the online learning environment, as our results show a significant decrease of OSI in these courses during COVID-19. This result suggests that alternative authentic assessments are required to fit the online learning and teaching environment. Another significant implication of this chapter lies in the proposal of the modified authentic assessment model of Villarroela et al. (2018) whereby the “external-formative” or “external” feedback is introduced.

Bios Huy Pham, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Finance at RMIT University in Vietnam and a regular member of the American Finance Association. His research interests are in the fields of fintech, cryptocurrencies, environmental finance, asset pricing, and empirical finance.

76  Huy Pham et al. Binh Nguyen Thanh, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer and Program Manager at RMIT University, Vietnam. Thanh specializes in finance, including financial technology, blockchain, and decentralized finance, and he has published in leading academic journals on those topics. He also regularly provides expert articles and comments on digitalization in economics and finance in leading regional business outlets and is a highly demanded speaker who has presented for high-profile institutions in the region. Thai Vu Hong Nguyen, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Head of Department of Economics and Finance at RMTI University, Vietnam. His research interests include monetary policies, banking performance, financial technology, and cryptocurrencies. He worked for HSBC Bank as a strategist before joining academia. Upasana Jain is an Associate Lecturer in Accounting at RMIT University in Vietnam. She is studying for a doctorate degree from the University of Southern Queensland Australia. She is a qualified and skilled tertiary lecturer with over five years’ experience in training and teaching various accounting, finance, economics, auditing, and taxation courses. She has over eight years’ practical experience in audit compliance, taxation, and accounting in various medium and large companies, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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The Effectiveness of Authentic Assessments during COVID-19  77 Brewer, J., & Hunter, A. (1989). Multimethod research: A synthesis of styles. SAGE Publications. Callison, D., & Lamb, A. (2004). Key words in instruction: Authentic learning. School Library Media Activities Monthly, 21(4), 34–39. https://eric. ed.gov/?id=EJ720701 Chong, E. J. M., Lim, J. S. W., Liu, Y., Lau, Y. Y. L., & Wu, V. X. (2016). Improvement of learning domains of nursing students with the use of authentic assessment pedagogy in clinical practice. Nurse Education in Practice, 20, 125–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2016.08.002 Darling-Hammond, L., & Snyder, J. (2000). Authentic assessment of teaching in context. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16(5–6), 523–545. https://doi. org/10.1016/S0742-051X(00)00015-9 Farrell, C. (2020). Do international marketing simulations provide an authentic assessment of learning? A student perspective. The International Journal of Management Education, 18(1), 100362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijme.2020.100362 Gulikers, J., Bastiaens, T., & Kirschner, P. (2006). Authentic assessment, student and teacher perceptions: The practical value of the five dimensional framework. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 58(3), 337–357. https://doi. org/10.1080/13636820600955443 Kaarbo, J., & Beasley, R. K. (1999). A practical guide to the comparative case study method in political psychology. Political Psychology, 20, 369–391. https://doi. org/10.1111/0162-895X.00149 Kearney, S. (2013). Improving engagement: The use of ‘authentic self-and peerassessment for learning’ to enhance the student learning experience. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(7), 875–891. https://doi.org/10.108 0/02602938.2012.751963 Larkin, T. L. (2014). The student conference: A model of authentic assessment. International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP), 4(2), 36–46. https:// doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v4i2.3445 Newman, F. M., & Associates. (1996). Authentic achievement: Restructuring schools for intellectual quality. Jossey-Bass Publishers. Palm, T. (2008). Performance assessment and authentic assessment: A conceptual analysis of the literature. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 13(4), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.7275/0qpc-ws45 Rashid, Y., Rashid, A., Warraich, M. A., Sabir, S. S., & Waseem, A. (2019). Case study method: A step-by-step guide for business researchers. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919862424 Raymond, J. E., Homer, C. S. E., Smith, R., & Gray, J. E. (2013). Learning through authentic assessment: An evaluation of a new development in the undergraduate midwifery curriculum. Nurse Education in Practice, 13(5), 471– 476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2012.10.006 Rule, A.C. (2006). Editorial: The components of authentic learning. Journal of Authentic Learning, 3(1), 1–10. Shepard, L. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4–14. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X029007004 Sridharan, B., & Mustard, J. (2015). Authentic assessment methods: A practical handbook for teaching staff [Online]. Retrieved May 16, 2017, from https:// blogs.deakin.edu.au/learning-innovations/authentic-assessment-methodsa-practical-handbook-for-teaching-staff/.

78  Huy Pham et al. Swaffield, S. (2011). Getting to the heart of authentic assessment for learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 18(4), 433–449. https:// doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2011.582838 Villarroela, V., Bloxham, S., Bruna, D., Bruna, C., & Herrera-Seda, C. (2018). Authentic assessment: Creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(5), 840–854. https://doi.org/10.1080/0 2602938.2017.1412396 Vu, T. T., & Dall’ Alba, G. (2014). Authentic assessment for student learning: An ontological conceptualisation. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 46(7), 778–791. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2013.795110 Yin, R. K. (1994). Discovering the future of the case study. Method in evaluation research. Evaluation Practice, 15(3), 283–290. https://doi. org/10.1177/109821409401500309 Wiewiora, A., & Kowalkiewicz, A. (2019). The role of authentic assessment in developing authentic leadership identity and competencies. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(3), 415–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/0 2602938.2018.1516730 Wu, X. V., Heng, M. A., & Wang, W. (2015). Nursing students’ experiences with the use of authentic assessment rubric and case approach in the clinical laboratories. Nurse Education Today, 35(4), 549–555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. nedt.2014.12.009

Part II

Impacts of Distance Education on Students, Social Inclusion, and Access during COVID-19

7 Life in 280 Characters Social Media, Belonging, and Community during the COVID-19 Pandemic Jack Reed and Catherine Dunn Introduction In 2020, global higher education (HE), an inclusive term we use to encompass HE institutions across each continent, pivoted away from faceto-face teaching in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For nations such as the United Kingdom, United States of America, Germany, and Australia, this meant shifting toward remote teaching and learning, while shortfalls in funding, a lack of technology, and limited connectivity left HE institutions in nations such as Egypt, Brazil, and India struggling to adapt (Crawford et al., 2020). In the immediacy of such change, the effectiveness of remote pedagogy, the impact on student experience, and the sliding scale of technological inequalities across global HE are not yet fully understood. With such a host of intersecting issues at play, the ability of students to develop and maintain a sense of belonging has been brought into sharp focus. Belonging is frequently considered a defining feature of the HE landscape (Ennals et al., 2016; Flint, 2018). Contributing to the development and durability of learning communities, interconnected relationships and support networks, and a sense of place, a sense of belonging can contribute significantly to HE’s underpinning sociocultural fabric (Ahn & Davis, 2020; Thomas, 2012). When a sense of belonging is overlooked in HE, negative impacts on student experience, engagement, and retention (Masika & Jones, 2016; O’Keeffe, 2013) have been observed. Social media is often neglected in conversations around belonging in HE. Yet Sobaih et al. (2020) demonstrated how social media has been used by students to build and sustain support networks and communities, and thus a sense of belonging, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In times of crisis, social media has been shown to enhance social connectedness, emotional support, and access to information (Smith & Yell, 2020), all of which contribute to a sense of belonging. Given that economically developing countries were the context of Sobaih et al.’s (2020) findings, the potential of social media as a tool to facilitate a sense of belonging across global HE seems a pertinent line of inquiry. Accordingly, this chapter first discusses the place and relevance of social media in HE, drawing key information from HE and community literature, before discussing

82  Jack Reed and Catherine Dunn the significance of a sense of belonging. We then evaluate the extent to which social media has informed a sense of belonging across global HE by adopting three analytical lenses (community, relationships and support, and place) and applying them to empirical studies on social media and COVID-19 in HE across various continents and countries. The chapter then concludes with implications for practice and a summary on social media, belonging, and HE during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social Media and HE Since its emergence in the early phases of the new millennium, social media use has grown exponentially and is now recognized as a core global arbiter of participatory culture, communication and connection, and marketing and consumption (Fuchs, 2017). In 2019 alone, 288 million more people accessed social media, which increased the total number of users to 3.48 billion (Kemp, 2019). As reported by Aichner and Jacob (2015), the term “social media” is a hypernym, which represents 13 subcategories, including forums, virtual worlds, blogs, business networks, and photo sharing. Social media is inherently complex, with Carr and Hayes (2015) and Dyer (2020) showing how no single definition has been broadly accepted in the literature. We recognize its limitations as a term in what is now a hypercomplex ether but acknowledge its place in the zeitgeist of the early 21st century. With that in mind, we use the term “social media” with a degree of hesitancy. This chapter focuses specifically on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WeChat and videotelephony software such as Skype and Zoom. Finn and Holton (2019) noted how the pervasiveness of these varying forms of social media has led to the collapse of physical distance and time between humans and is now so ingrained in our daily lives that reality and virtual reality are becoming increasingly blurred and hybridized. As such, danah boyd (2014) considers our physical realities to be reorganized by our interconnected cyber world with our identities, interactions, and relationships mediated by virtual extensions of our physical spaces. boyd (2014) refers to these spaces as networked publics. The influence of social media on HE and our online networked publics has not escaped scholarly attention. As discussed by Chugh and Ruhi (2018), social media use in HE is continuously rising and evolving and has established a revolutionary platform for teaching, learning, and research. The emerging centrality of social media in global HE has also reframed the construction of the student experience. Virtual interactions frequently serve to cocreate physical student connection, engagement, and retention (Berger & Wild, 2016). Yet while students and staff maintain an active presence on social media, there is noteworthy concern regarding institutional lag in the uptake of such technologies in HE. For instance, in an Australasian study on social media use in HE, Willems et al. (2018) found

Life in 280 Characters  83 that educational digital professionals considered HE’s use of digital affordances underdeveloped and lagging. With COVID-19 placing enhanced significance on our networked publics, our virtual spaces have become pillars of influence in maintaining the sociocultural connections synonymous with working and studying in HE.

Belonging and HE Across the global landscape of HE, the notion of belonging is considered pertinent to student retention and engagement. Yet our understanding of such a concept is largely rooted in face-to-face or on-campus contact and communications, somewhat neglecting the increasingly digitized nature of global HE. In 2012, Thomas’s report on student retention and success across HE in the United Kingdom centralized a sense of belonging as a primary determinant of the student experience. This was similarly described by Wilcox et al. (2005), who suggested a sense of belonging in HE relies on the development of connections and relationships with peers through positive social engagement and support. Interestingly, though Thomas’s (2012) report recognizes the importance of regular contact, social environments, and relationships, it does not explicitly state the requirement for face-to-face contact in fostering belonging. Indeed, Pang’s (2020) study on how Chinese students employed WeChat to maintain a sense of belonging and peer support demonstrates a way in which social networks can play a significant role in ensuring successful student integration and belonging in HE. Building on Thomas’s (2012) report, Ahn and Davis (2020) present four primary domains of belonging in HE: academic engagement, social engagement, personal spaces, and surroundings. Of these four domains, they place the greatest emphasis on social engagement (which entails relationships, peer support, and community) and surroundings (which focuses on the educational, natural, and cultural places associated with a university). When considering the inherent complexity of these two domains, it could easily be concluded that they are both incompatible with an entirely digital landscape. Yet in the last decade, social media has enabled us to blur the lines between physical and virtual spaces (Finn & Holton, 2019), opening HE to the possibility of nurturing place connection and community through university-led and program-specific social media. To expand on Ahn and Davis’s (2020) domains of social engagement and surroundings, we now introduce three key analytical lenses of belonging that relate to social media in a HE landscape shaped by the COVID19 pandemic. These are community, relationships and support, and place. Using these three lenses, this chapter seeks to disentangle the complexities, benefits, and pitfalls of trying to achieve a sense of belonging within HE’s networked publics.

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Community, Relationships, and Places Community Aligning with the perspective of Grabher and Ibert (2017), recognizing social media as an appropriate and productive form of maintaining social connection in HE has presented a fresh perspective on the usefulness of online virtual interaction. Indeed, while Ahn and Davis’s (2020) findings demonstrated the importance of face-to-face communities in facilitating a sense of belonging, they do not rule out the potential of achieving this online. Yet the crux of both community development and maintenance across the global HE landscape has long relied on physical spaces and places. With COVID-19 replacing the physical presence of community in HE with virtual social networks, to what extent has this impacted student community development in global HE? Current literature provides a conceptual and empirical platform from which we can begin to answer this question. At the foundational level, the relationship between community, education, and social media has been described as a unique environment where community development can strengthen knowledge exchange and collective scholarly development (Stephansen & Couldry, 2014). Further, Cuesta et al. (2016) identified Facebook as a place that can promote the development of co-learning communities in Swedish HE and, critically within the COVID-19 context, offer a space for community support and solidarity. It is these supportive virtual architectures that amplify the sense of togetherness and collaboration that Ahn and Davis (2020) found so important to students’ sense of belonging. In the literature concerning social media, COVID-19, and HE, such supportive architectures have been realized in global HE during the COVID-19 pandemic, most notably in economically developing countries. Sobaih et al. (2020) and Dutta (2020) both conclude that social media has enabled powerful community development in Egyptian and Indian HE institutions, respectively, despite a backdrop of limited and/or problematic remote learning provision. However, we recognize that virtual spaces cannot simply mirror the complexity of community development and maintenance. Instead, aligning with Ricoy and Feliz’s (2016) investigation of a Spanish HE learning community on Twitter, we contend that social media has offered a temporary platform that has contributed to building a sense of community across global HE during the pandemic. Undoubtedly, there are numerous critiques and uncertainties embedded within this perspective. In an online space with billions of daily users, Burgess’s (2006) doubtfulness on the likelihood of a single voice being heard in these virtual spaces casts doubt over community inclusivity and accessibility in HE. However, Dutta’s (2020) study demonstrates the importance of social media in increasing accessibility to remote learning

Life in 280 Characters  85 and community development during COVID-19, with social media proving useful for nearly 80% of Indian students while other remote learning approaches were hampered by connectivity issues. Of course, it is important to interpret Dutta’s (2020) findings in the context of Burgess’s (2006); while social media may address issues around physical accessibility to HE communities in economically developing countries, there is limited understanding of how these communities may or may not have promoted inclusivity of thought. Marwick and boyd’s (2011) conception of context collapse on social media presents another hurdle for virtual HE communities. Context collapse recognizes that multiple communities, such as a user’s family, friends, colleagues, and students, all inhabit the same virtual space; the diverse physical boundaries typical of our day-to-day interactions on campus have become blended into one overarching virtual environment. How this contextless virtual space is engaged with by any typical user from any HE institution represents an intricate place where identity presentation and authentic interaction are intensively negotiated and managed. Given the evidence already linking social media exposure to mental health issues during COVID-19 (Gao et al., 2020), navigating the pressures of context collapse within a community situated on social media may further isolate some students in the global HE community.

Relationships and Support Aligning with the work of Whitchurch and Gordon (2017), we recognize contemporary HE institutions to be underpinned by a web of entangled local and global relationships which frame professional practice, social integration for students and staff, and a sense of belonging at program, school, and institutional levels. The sweeping rise of social media has transformed how these relationships develop and endure; our physical and virtual realities have blended to construct a hybridized institutional arena where relationships form and are maintained. With the emergence of COVID-19 rendering our physical HE realities ineffectual, what influence have our networked publics had during the pandemic in sustaining high-quality, supportive relationships in global HE? Literature concerned with the study of relationships in HE has shown how social media can sustain high-quality relationships (Clark et al., 2017). In Australia, McCarthy’s (2010) study of 120 design students observed that 82% of same-culture participants employed Facebook to develop social relationships throughout their course, while in Germany, Kapidzic’s (2019) research indicated that academics draw on social media platforms for professional collaborations and engaging with others. Importantly, Dutta (2020) further found that social media provided foundational connectivity between students and teachers in India during the pandemic and provided technologically disadvantaged students opportunities to

86  Jack Reed and Catherine Dunn participate in remote learning. In Egypt, Sobaih et al. (2020) concluded that social media was fundamental in building the student-staff relationships required in an effective online learning environment. It seems that social media has facilitated the development of relationships and peer support across HE institutions globally during the COVID-19 pandemic, something that Ahn and Davis (2020) consider fundamental to a sense of belonging. However, that is not to assume that these virtual spaces have translated every complexity of HE relationships during the pandemic. The critical nature of on-campus interaction in the development and maintenance of relationships alongside social and academic support cannot be overlooked. For instance, we have observed institutions across the globe using their social media channels to post visual reminders of relationships formed on-campus, but it is not yet understood whether the rich and visceral nature of relationships formed in person can be simulated through engagement in the virtual space. What remains unclear for global HE is whether the cessation of physical interactions during the pandemic has negatively affected personal social integration throughout university communities. This is further compounded when acknowledging digital accessibility and engagement as potential sites of social exclusion. While emerging literature from Egypt and India suggests that social media has enhanced social inclusion in HE during the pandemic (Dutta, 2020; Sobaih et al., 2020), digital accessibility has impacted students across global HE (Crawford et al., 2020). Further, Kapidzic (2019) noted that relationship initiation and management on social media in HE is dependent on a user’s anticipated technological competence, which Dutta (2020) found to affect some students in India. Jordan and Weller (2018) also found that academic reluctance to engage with social media can be based on insufficient digital literacy. Thus, it is not yet fully understood how students’ relationships and support networks with peers and staff may have suffered at the hands of the digital divide during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Places In 1999, Sullivan argued that the success of an institution is rooted in its ability to sustain direction and purpose during times of crisis. Despite its age, Sullivan’s (1999) argument seems increasingly relevant in a HE landscape fundamentally reshaped by COVID-19. In their discussion on belonging, Ahn and Davis (2020) introduce the concept of surroundings as a key mediator of the student experience. Importantly, they place significant emphasis on the cultural, emotional, and physical place attachments to an institution (and the community in which it sits) that impact a sense of belonging. Given the notable absence of literature in this area, it seems pertinent to ask what role has social media played in maintaining a sense of place during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Life in 280 Characters  87 In response to COVID-19, many HE institutions have taken to social media to maintain open communications with students and staff, respond to pressing sociocultural issues, shift on-campus life online, and provide direct engagement relating to student welfare. Rather than operating as a new realm of HE, social media has become a continuation of global institutions, allowing students and staff to attain an “on-campus” feel through networked publics on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WeChat and through various forms of telephonic software. Universities the world over have used Instagram’s stories feature to bring familiar images of campus courtyards and lecture theaters to students, neatly packaging the chronology of a regular day of #universitylife. This may have facilitated the maintenance of a physical place attachment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, there is an increased willingness from universities to engage in sociocultural issues on Twitter, specifically in relation to social fallout from COVID-19. Such engagement appears to fulfill the cultural aspect of place attachment by representing a university’s complex understanding of prominent social issues. However, as Fairnloye et al. (2020) contend, African universities have not yet developed the comprehensive social media communication strategies that are so prevalent in economically developed nations. Therefore, such HE institutions may have struggled to translate the cultural and physical elements of place attachment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The emotional aspect of Ahn and Davis’s (2020) understanding of a sense of place is perhaps the most elusive across global HE when it comes to social media. As discussed in the relationships section, the visceral nature of an emotional place attachment is often diluted in the online space. That is not to say that emotional engagement cannot be achieved. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a notable trend in universities posting powerfully affective films on Facebook, often featuring cinematic music, striking university architecture, and a blue-sky optimism, which belies the global health crisis. Such films seem designed to galvanize a student community whose sense of place may have waned during the pandemic. Yet to many students, such films may not paint a recognizable picture of their HE experiences. Their campus may not be included; their social venues may not be visible; there may be no sense of collective student voice; the optimistic tone may seem to neglect empathy. This highlights one of the primary dangers of relying solely on social media to maintain institutional place attachments; social media, such as Facebook, structurally promotes emotionally driven, provocative content (Vaidhyanathan, 2018), which risks alienating a large portion of the student population. Interestingly, it is worth noting the parallels between the online student experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and the primarily online connection alumni often maintain with their university. In their exploration of persistent alumni engagement, Peruta and Helm (2018) found in the United States that university Facebook pages that demonstrated pride

88  Jack Reed and Catherine Dunn points (content inciting institutional pride), relevance, unifying imagery, and nostalgia were likely to provoke deep emotional engagement from alumni and ultimately encourage them to donate money. Indeed, by actively maintaining a sense of identity in the student population, this fourpoint framework perhaps illustrates a more effective approach to maintaining emotional place attachments through social media. Thus, a focus on collective identity, as opposed to emotionally charged, alienating content, could unlock the final aspect of Ahn and Davis’s (2020) understanding of institutional place attachment, allowing HE to flourish as a networked public beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Implications Having considered the impact of social media on a sense of belonging in global HE during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that there are significant implications for students, staff, and institutions. Returning to Ahn and Davis’s (2020) paper on belonging in HE, they concluded that students’ sense of belonging informs a sense of homeliness at a university. But can a placeless networked public on social media really feel like home? If those who study and work in HE have become displaced from what are often familiar and safe institutional environments, we cannot rely on our virtual architectures alone to stem feelings of social isolation and institutional detachment. If students are no longer feeling “at home,” then the impact on mental health must be carefully and sensitively considered. For instance, Torales et al.’s (2020) work on global mental health as a result of COVID-19 presents outcomes from studies considering mental health during previous societal lockdown scenarios. It becomes clear that stress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia can increase during periods of physical isolation. Further, Torales et al. (2020) discuss how some circumstances can exacerbate these issues, which include persistent social media engagement and reduced socioeconomic status. The long-term impact of reliance on social media to maintain a sense of belonging across global HE is a step into the unknown. What this chapter has unpacked is the problem that arises when networked publics are the sole avenue for achieving a sense of belonging; the virtual space cannot replicate the complexity and visceral nature of on-campus communities, relationships, and place attachments. Further, while early research suggests economically developing countries are adopting social media successfully as a means of maintaining HE relationships and communities, it is not yet fully understood whether this is a consistent experience across the HE landscape. What is clear, however, is that by removing the physical parameters of space and time, social media can temporarily sustain and maintain a sense of belonging during times of crisis. So, in an uncertain future where international, national, and regional pandemic lockdowns may increase in frequency and virtual shifts may occur, global institutions will require comprehensively planned virtual strategies. For example, one such strategy

Life in 280 Characters  89 may be the deployment of virtual support architectures, which permeate the networked publics both students and staff engage with, offering support, a sense of belonging, and a safe “home” for everyone. As Fairnloye et al. (2020) contend, such comprehensive social media communications strategies have not yet been realized in many countries and contexts, so the global HE community must support one another to ensure no HE institution gets left behind.

Conclusion At the beginning of this chapter, we asked how social media has influenced a sense of belonging across the spectrum of global HE. As we have outlined, our networked publics have not only entangled, sustained, and influenced HE during the COVID-19 pandemic but have become so critical in our day-to-day interactions that they have provided a temporary sense of belonging; this is especially relevant in economically developing countries where access to remote learning has been limited and problematic. By exploring the outcomes of Thomas’s (2012) report and Ahn and Davis’s (2020) study, we evaluated belonging in global HE during the pandemic through community, relationships, and place attachments. In doing so, we argue that social media alone can develop, sustain, and maintain a sense of belonging in times of crisis but acknowledge its inability to replicate the visceral nature of belonging felt physically on-campus. With many institutions considering a progression to blended teaching models, where teaching and learning provision are both on campus and online, social media will continue to play a central role in whether a university can maintain a sense of social, cultural, and academic connection in the 2021/2022 academic year and beyond. In developed countries, it is likely that a hybridized physical and virtual reality will characterize most student and staff interactions. For economically developing countries, there may be greater reliance on social media to supplement limited access to remote learning. To what extent both of these pathways nurture a longterm sense of belonging and continued student retention remains unclear. However, the report from Thomas (2012) indicates that our social networks can provide much-needed points of contact for this to materialize. If able to navigate complex matters around mental health, access to remote learning, and collapsing contexts, global HE could benefit from networked publics which supplement a sense of belonging and provide platforms for community development across the spectrum of global HE institutions.

Bios Jack Reed is a Ph.D. candidate at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, where he investigates the extent to which mobile devices and social media influence residential outdoor

90  Jack Reed and Catherine Dunn learning experiences for young people. Jack has coordinated research in digital-based learning, learning communities, and the effectiveness of adventure pedagogy on the transfer of learning. His research interests include identity in the networked space, place-based education, learning communities, and outdoor and environmental education. Catherine Dunn is a Research Associate at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh. Her current work is centered on the development of a living database of outdoor spaces and places used for outdoor learning across the university. Her research interests include girls’ experience of sport and the outdoors and the use of film in education. Catherine has been a filmmaker for over a decade, and her work primarily focuses on sustainability, sport and inclusivity, and diversity in the outdoors. Her most recent feature-length documentary has been screened at international film festivals.

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Life in 280 Characters  91 Cuesta, M., Eklund, M., Rydin, I., & Witt, A. K. (2016). Using Facebook as a co-learning community in higher education. Learning, Media and Technology, 41(1), 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2015.1064952 Dutta, A. (2020). Impact of digital social media on Indian higher education: Alternative approaches of online learning during COVID-19 pandemic crisis. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 10(5), 604–611. http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.10.05.2020.p10169 Dyer, H. T. (2020). Designing the social: Unpacking social media design and identity. Springer Nature. Ennals, P., Fortune, T., Williams, A., & D'Cruz, K. (2016). Shifting occupational identity: Doing, being, becoming and belonging in the academy. Higher Education Research & Development, 35(3), 433–446. https://doi.org/10.108 0/07294360.2015.1107884 Fairnloye, T., Wayne, T., Mogaji E., & Watat, J. K. (2020). Social media for universities’ strategic communication. In E. Mogaji, F. Maringe, & R. E. Hinson (Eds.), Strategic marketing of higher education in Africa (pp. 96–115). Routledge. Finn, K., & Holton, M. (2019). Everyday mobile belonging: Theorising higher education student mobilities. Bloomsbury Publishing. Flint, M. A. (2018). Co-implicated disruptions: Narratives of belonging in higher education. International Review of Qualitative Research, 11(2), 210–230. https://doi.org/10.1525/irqr.2018.11.2.210 Fuchs, C. (2017). Social media: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications. Gao, J., Zheng, P., Jia, Y., Chen, H., Mao, Y., Chen, S., Wang, Y., Fu, H., & Dai, J. (2020). Mental health problems and social media exposure during COVID-19 outbreak. Plos One, 15(4), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231924 Grabher, G., & Ibert, O. (2017). Knowledge collaboration in hybrid virtual communities. In H. Bathelt, P. Cohendet, S. Henn & L. Simon (Eds.), The Elgar companion to innovation and knowledge creation (pp. 537–555). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781782548522.00044 Jordan, K., & Weller, M. (2018). Academics and social networking sites: Benefits, problems and tensions in professional engagement with online networking. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2018(1), 1–9. https://doi. org/10.5334/jime.448 Kapidzic, S. (2019). The social academic: A social capital approach to academic relationship management on social media. Information, Communication & Society, 23(11), 1673–1688. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1610472 Kemp, S. (2019, January 30). Digital 2019: Global Internet use accelerates. https:// wearesocial.com/blog/2019/01/digital-2019-global-internet-use-accelerates Marwick, A., & boyd, d. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313 Masika, R., & Jones, J. (2016). Building student belonging and engagement: Insights into higher education students’ experiences of participating and learning together. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(2), 138–150. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13562517.2015.1122585

92  Jack Reed and Catherine Dunn McCarthy, J. (2010). Blended learning environments: Using social networking sites to enhance the first year experience. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(6), 729–740. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.1039 O'Keeffe, P. (2013). A sense of belonging: Improving student retention. College Student Journal, 47(4), 605–613. Pang, H. (2020). Examining associations between university students’ mobile social media use, online self-presentation, social support and sense of belonging. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 72(3), 321–338. https://doi. org/10.1108/AJIM-08-2019-0202 Peruta, A., & Helm, C. (2018). University Facebook pages: Engaging the alumni community in the digital era. Journal of Social Media in Society, 7(1), 123–150. Ricoy, M. C., & Feliz, T. (2016). Twitter as a learning community in higher education. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 19(1), 237–248. Smith, N., & Yell, S. (2020). The dynamics of place-based virtual communities: Social media in a region in transition. In A. Campbell, M. Duffy & B. Edmondson (Eds.), Located research (pp. 203–222). Palgrave Macmillan. Sobaih, A. E. E., Hasanein, A. M., & Abu Elnasr, A. E. (2020). Responses to COVID-19 in higher education: Social media usage for sustaining formal academic communication in developing countries. Sustainability, 12(16), 6520. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166520 Stephansen, H. C., & Couldry, N. (2014). Understanding micro-processes of community building and mutual learning on Twitter: A ‘small data’ approach. Information, Communication & Society, 17(10), 1212–1227. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/1369118X.2014.902984 Sullivan, W. M. (1999). The university as citizen: Institutional identity and social responsibility. The Civic Arts Review, 16(1), 1–14. Thomas, L. (2012). Building student engagement and belonging in higher education at a time of change. Paul Hamlyn Foundation, 100, 1–99. Torales, J., O’Higgins, M., Castaldelli-Maia, J. M., & Ventriglio, A. (2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 coronavirus and its impact on global mental health. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 66(4), 317–320. https://doi. org/10.1177/0020764020915212 Vaidhyanathan, S. (2018). Antisocial media: How Facebook disconnects us and undermines democracy. Oxford University Press. Whitchurch, C., & Gordon, G. (2017). Reconstructing relationships in higher education: Challenging agendas. Routledge. Wilcox, P., Winn, S., & Fyvie-Gauld, M. (2005). “It was nothing to do with the university, it was just the people”: The role of social support in the first-year experience of higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 30(6), 707–722. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070500340036 Willems, J., Adachi, C., Bussey, F., Doherty, I., & Huijser, H. (2018). Debating the use of social media in higher education in Australasia: Where are we now? Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 34(5), 135–149. https://doi. org/10.14742/ajet.3843

8 “The Course Is No Longer Great” The Need for Socially Meaningful Online Instruction for International Students Vander Tavares Introduction In mid-March of 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to be a global pandemic (WHO, 2020). In response, colleges and universities in Canada promptly switched the modality of classroom instruction from face-to-face to online. Despite the lack of sufficient time to adequately transition to online instruction mid-semester, the resolution made by higher education institutions to proceed remotely was generally welcomed, as physical distancing and isolation have been considered key strategies to help reduce the spread of the novel virus among the community (Government of Canada, 2020). This decision was particularly significant for international students, who oftentimes do not have the same familial or social support mechanisms in place in their host communities when dealing with adversity (Sawir et al., 2008; Sherry et al., 2010). However, the face-to-face classroom experience plays a complex role in meeting many of the needs of international students. As the majority of international students in Canada are multilingual students who speak English as an additional language (CBIE, 2020), the classroom can function as a dynamic and productive space where academic and vernacular registers of the English language may be acquired and practiced naturalistically (Sato & Ballinger, 2016). Furthermore, naturalistic interpersonal interaction allows students, both international and domestic, to expand their social circles and potentially develop new friendships, in addition to participating in cross-cultural learning (Belford, 2017). In spite of such significance and complexity, emergent studies examining the online learning experience of students in higher education in light of the coronavirus pandemic have focused primarily on the potential of technology to facilitate the continuity of instruction (e.g., Daniel, 2020; Schultz & DeMers, 2020) or on the impact of the pandemic on student mental health (e.g., Cao et al., 2020; Husky et al., 2020).

94  Vander Tavares Studies exploring the experiences of students with online learning during the pandemic have illustrated the significance students generally assign to classroom-based social interaction. In their study, Perets et al. (2020) explained that students “noted the importance of more interaction between the instructor and students after the transition to a virtual setting” and that students “desired more group work” on the virtual meeting platform (p. 2444) considering the structured nature of interaction characteristic of virtual instruction. Adnan and Anwar (2020) found that virtual classes posed unexpected challenges for some students in relation to coordinating and completing group work online. Similarly, Naji et al. (2020) found that putting more effort into team building in the traditional classroom prior to the switch to online learning could have made a difference to the students’ virtual interactional experiences. Within this body of literature, considerably less research has been carried out to understand international students’ experiences in particular. Novikov (2020) provided some insight into the potential barrier that online instruction can create for international students who are learning in a foreign language. For instance, the loss of naturalistic face-to-face conversations led some students to feel concerned about their foreign language skills development. One student mentioned wanting “to return to the classroom and talk with the participants to check for errors” (p. 290) because peer interaction that is dynamic fosters opportunities to clarify linguistic misunderstandings. Therefore, it remains necessary to further examine how and if online teaching affords international students comparable opportunities to feel socially satisfied with experiences that take place traditionally within the physical classroom but that are nonetheless unrelated to academic learning. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the multilingual international student experience in the context of an undergraduate course at a large Canadian university. Such an exploration is guided by the following question: How can the switch to online learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic impact the perceptions and experiences of multilingual international students around social interaction? Drawing on the methodology of teacher research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999), I investigate the ways in which the move to online teaching impacted the course dynamics for me as the instructor and the 11 multilingual international students enrolled in a Humanities course in the winter term of 2020. Prior to explaining the design of this investigation and presenting the findings, I critically discuss the multifaceted meaning and value of social interaction, including within the classroom, for multilingual international students. Moreover, I focus on the need to humanize online teaching in higher education, especially for those learning in an additional language, in a time when technology continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace. I conclude the chapter with reflections and recommendations whose relevance transcends the immediate context of the coronavirus pandemic into global scholarship

“The Course Is No Longer Great”  95 as universities continue to invest in the expansion of online education. Consequently, the need to ethically conceptualize online education with the multilingual international student in mind should be a continuous and long-term goal for institutions of higher education. Higher education fulfulls multiple purposes for international and domestic students alike. Particularly for international students in the Canadian context, however, who exceeded 498,000 by the end of 2019 (CBIE, 2020), studying at a Canadian college or university is a high-stakes and long-term financial and sociocultural investment. Further to developing expertise in their academic field, a large number of international students in Canada plan to gain Canadian-based work experience postgraduation and to remain in the country permanently (CBIE, 2018). To attain the latter, many international students go through the Canadian Experience Class program, designed as a pathway for those with higher-level work experience in Canada (Government of Canada, 2020). A Canadian academic degree is thus a means through which international students may access relevant work opportunities toward permanent immigration. Embedded in academic study are opportunities for multilingual international students to learn and use the English language naturalistically. Research has shown that the vast majority of multilingual international students initially encounter difficulties with the academic register of English, despite passing entrance language proficiency examinations (Hung & Hyun, 2010; Martirosyan et al., 2015). The academic classroom is a distinctively constructive site for additional language development, for it presents international students with various opportunities to engage in conversational interaction with their peers and instructors in connection with their subject matter (Tavares, 2019). In turn, peer interaction constitutes a sociolinguistic space in which identities can be constructed and enacted. Linguistic and identity development are also a part and a product of the university or college student experience. Finally, international students also draw upon the higher education experience to expand their social networks. A sense of community is important for international students’ well-being and adjustment (Arthur, 2017). However, linguistic, cultural, and interpersonal differences can seriously impact the social experiences of international students with their domestic peers (Tavares, 2016). A strong social network can help support international students emotionally, culturally, and academically (Sawir et al., 2008) as they navigate their journey in the new community. Institutions of higher education have been called on to participate more intently in this dimension of the international student experience by creating better opportunities for socialization between international and domestic students (Ammigan, 2019). Instructors can also contribute to this experience by designing structured interactive activities between students (Tavares, 2020).

96  Vander Tavares

Social Interaction and Online Teaching Online teaching has grown substantially in higher education over the last decade. Whether online teaching is implemented fully or partially to “blend” it with face-to-face instruction, the need for students to experience meaningful social interaction online remains at the forefront. However, despite the intrinsic desire to support their students, many instructors require adequate training and knowledge to be able to teach effectively online, which includes not only the presentation of content, but also the ability to engage diverse groups of students in learning. As Kilgour et al. (2019) have explained, teaching online requires “shifts that are both ontological and epistemological” and deep engagement with both technology and pedagogy (p. 1427). Online teaching may be even more challenging when teaching multilingual international students, whose needs and expectations often differ relative to their domestic peers. As Lawrence (2014) has argued, “Unless social interaction and social presence are methodically cultivated…there are often reduced opportunities for interaction, learning, feedback, technical support that result in disengagement” (p. 129). However, disengagement with learning is not always the product of the absence of social interaction alone. Other potential factors include students’ attitudes toward technology and online learning, digital literacy on the part of students and instructors, reliable access to the Internet, and equally important, a sense of community, built and maintained by all participating members (Lawrence, 2014). Fostering social interaction online requires instructors to perform the dual role of instructor-participant and to possess both practical and research knowledge of technology-based teaching. Hence the need for online teaching to be adequately conceptualized with a student-centered pedagogy and continuously evaluated with feedback from students (Lawrence, 2014). A mandate to move from face-to-face to online instruction abruptly, like that in response to the pandemic, can pose unexpected challenges to instructors as they attempt to promote social interaction online. The challenge to humanize online teaching can become even more pronounced upon a switch in delivery mode when social interaction is already weak in the face-to-face classroom. In an investigation by Lawrence et al. (2013), one instructor spoke of how many multilingual students “feel isolated to begin with,” and with online teaching, “you’re isolating them more because they’re not making friends, they’re not meeting people and this just increases their isolation” (p. 101). When teaching in such contexts wherein international students’ social and linguistic needs are complex, emotions also influence the manner with which instructors approach online instruction. Naylor and Nyanjom (2020) maintain that instructors’ “intrinsic beliefs, values, and relationships with students are deeply connected” (p. 3) but that changing the

“The Course Is No Longer Great”  97 mode of instruction “has the potential to disrupt these deep and personal connections,” resulting in increased emotional responses in instructors, which, consequently, make teaching even more challenging. Positive emotions are important, as they can influence instructors to consider new strategies to interact with students and to help them succeed in the online environment (Bennett, 2014; Naylor & Nyanjom, 2020). An empathic style to teaching multilingual international students becomes even more critical when teaching online and under atypical circumstances. For empathy to make a difference, Jordan and Schwartz (2018) argue that “the student must sense that the professor has been touched, impacted, or influenced, even slightly, by the student’s situation” (p. 27). When doing so, students are likely to feel less alone and to experience deeper connections with their instructors. The significance of a strong sense of community to meaningful social interaction for multilingual international students in online environments cannot be overstated. In order to achieve a sense of community, Lawrence (2014) suggests that “opportunities for spontaneous interaction are also crucial in group bonding” (p. 132), in addition to interpersonal contact, which stems from group work. Multilingual students may feel more motivated to participate in their learning environments if their relationships with their peers are characterized by quality and familiarity, and if group cohesion is present (Dörnyei, 2007; Sailsman, 2020; Sailsman et al., 2018). Unstructured face-to-face interactions that occur within the physical classroom contribute majorly to bringing a group together. However, replicating this experience digitally is often difficult unless thoughtfully devised opportunities are present.

Research Design The investigation presented in this chapter was designed through the methodological framework of teacher research (Lankshear & Knobel, 2004). As the name suggests, teacher research is a form of inquiry carried out by teachers into their own teaching. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) explain that such research is characterized by “systematic, international, and selfcritical inquiry about one’s work” (p. 22), whose findings foster individual reflection but often also extend beyond into scholarly dissemination. Borg (2006) points out that, by engaging in teacher research, teachers can make “justified pedagogical decisions informed by sound research evidence” (p. 22). One of the benefits of teacher research is the opportunity to examine events, processes, and experiences within the classroom context and then analyze them carefully before changes are implemented (Borg, 2006). Thus, researching and reflecting on teaching and learning go hand-inhand and constitute a single, cyclical, and continuous activity. The institution under consideration is a large, research-oriented university in southern Ontario, Canada. “Southern Ontario University” (SOU,

98  Vander Tavares pseudonym) is known locally for its multilingual and multicultural student population. As of 2019, approximately 50,000 students, undergraduate and graduate combined, attended the university. Figures from its website showed that over 6,000 international students from over 150 countries studied at SOU in 2019. The institution also held exchange agreements with over 80 international partner universities. During the winter of 2020 (i.e., January to April), I taught a Humanities course that introduced students to present-day Canadian culture from critical perspectives. All 11 students were multilingual international students – eight were from China and the others from Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. Only one student was a first-year student; the others were at different stages in their academic programs, from first to fourth year. All Chinese students were enrolled in business and economics programs. Other programs included kinesiology, computer science, and general social sciences. The class met twice a week for a total of six hours weekly and relied substantially on social interaction as a process and product of learning. In-class, project-based pair and group work required students to research, write, and present information on a weekly basis. In addition to having a pedagogical goal, these collaborative activities afforded students the chance to get to know one another on a more personal level. Moreover, class discussions, led by the instructor or students themselves, allowed students to learn from one another on a number of critical topics related to Canadian culture and society, such as immigration, colonization, and multiculturalism, among others. Students frequently contributed to these discussions by speaking from personal experience and perception. As a result, a sense of affinity and openness gradually characterized the classroom environment. Data collection in teacher research is normally integrated into the teacher’s everyday practice. Borg (2014) outlines a variety of strategies available to teacher-researchers and posits that any strategies should be selected in accordance with the question guiding the inquiry. In the present investigation, I was concerned with how the move to online teaching affected the classroom dynamics in terms of social interaction and satisfaction. Accordingly, I gathered data from three sources: my teacher journal, classroom observations, and discussion with students. Teacher journals have been studied for decades, as they afford researchers insight into a teacher’s experience, knowledge, and beliefs (Francis, 1995). My teacher journal contained reflections on a wide array of teaching-related matters, which I tended to write after each class. Some reflections were long while others brief; they were dynamically on par with how much activity and interaction unfolded in each class. In the end, I explored 20 pages of my teacher journal, roughly one page per class. Exploring the journal entries (Bowen, 2009) entailed noting relevant information that relates to the guiding question of the research.

“The Course Is No Longer Great”  99 Conversely, classroom observations were more focused on student engagement. From the beginning of the term, I began observing a number of possible factors that could and might have influenced student engagement. These included the physical setup of the classroom and the arrangement of groups to the kind of activity in place and the number of students present in class. I observed classroom activity every time we met as a class, and some of these were later logged in writing in my teacher journal. Such an approach to observation may be classified as descriptive in nature, in which the teacher-researcher does not select specific events to observe, but rather initially considers everything within the environment under consideration (Angrosino & Mays de Pérez, 2000). Observations were recorded as unstructured entries, which did not follow preset criteria. Lastly, discussion with the students played a central role in my understanding of their social and academic experiences (Kim & Sax, 2017). These were informal conversations, mostly had at the beginning of class when I would allocate time to check in with students or during the breaks in the hallways. Some of the discussions were initiated by the students themselves, whether in private or in the group. Normally, discussions flowed out of concerns students had with respect to the course, such as in asking for clarification on an upcoming assignment, or out of personal experiences they had outside the course. In my teacher journal, I also made reference to the questions and concerns that students expressed during the conversations. Discussions moved to Zoom once the course switched to online delivery. Writing out observation notes in my journal was a process of analysis in itself. As Emerson (1988) has explained, what gets reported from observations, including in what length and order, is not chosen randomly – “description is necessarily analytic” (p. 20). The data from the teacher journal and the classroom discussions were analyzed thematically (Creswell, 2013). I looked for themes in my journal entries by writing key words in the margins and organized the emerging themes under broader predefined categories, such as community, interaction, language, and instruction. Analysis of content discussed in the conversations with students was also approached similarly. On the notes I had taken, I highlighted some of the key words or phrases voiced by the students in their questions or comments to identify specific themes within my written notes. Working with themes and categories helped reduce the amount of data (Gibbs, 2007) before triangulating it. Triangulation helped rank identical categories from all sources of data in terms of prominence.

Findings In the winter of 2020, 11 multilingual international students signed up for a face-to-face Humanities course focused on Canadian culture. The primary objective of the course was to introduce critical perspectives on Canada,

100  Vander Tavares while the secondary entailed the development of multilingual students’ academic language skills. Social interaction was therefore indispensable to help students acquire both academic and linguistic knowledge. Classroom discussions sought to juxtapose the students’ lived experiences as transnationals in Canada with those presented in the course readings, most of which were advocated by First Nations or immigrant authors to Canada. Simultaneously, conversational peer interaction, particularly through pair and group work, was the means through which students could further develop their academic and English language skills. However, the potential of social interaction for the co-construction of academic and linguistic knowledge was contingent on the development of an intimate and harmonious classroom environment. The process of socializing ourselves into a community was far from easy as we navigated (and celebrated) many linguistic, cultural, and individual differences. Nevertheless, the process felt like a productive one, as it was founded on mutual trust, respect, and understanding. During the class meeting prior to the winter break, I asked the students for their general feedback on the course. One student opted to share it orally rather than anonymously in writing, as I had originally requested. She stated that the class environment was very pleasant and comfortable and that our course was the only one within her program where she felt she could and wanted to talk. She complemented that by saying she actually enjoyed coming to class. Other students took advantage of the impromptu open discussion and shared that they were learning “a lot from everyone” and that the classroom environment was “relaxed and fun.” In my view, it was significant that one student’s disposition to provide feedback orally and openly encouraged others to feel comfortable enough to do the same. This collective act spoke to the sense of community we enjoyed prior to the pandemic. Still, on that same day of class, I explained to the students that we would possibly not be returning to the physical classroom after the winter break. The university had been working out a plan in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which was now a nationwide concern. Indeed, a few days later, the official news came into everyone’s email: all classes at SOU were to be resumed online following the winter break. I spent the next few days crafting a plan for the remainder of the course. All learning activities were moved to the online learning platform, while the meetings were to be held virtually over Zoom. To my great surprise, the very first time the class met online felt as if I were working with a completely new group of students. Once I logged into the virtual classroom on Zoom, everyone was already there, but only three students had their cameras turned on. Of course, there might have been other factors behind keeping one’s camera off, but such reticent behavior was accompanied by a distrusting kind of silence I had never experienced in the classroom before. When I asked questions about the content, some of the students would turn to the chat panel on Zoom

“The Course Is No Longer Great”  101 and answer my questions in there instead. This experience was repeated in the second online class. The online platform singled out participation, thus making us more exposed to and aware of our own voices and faces in this computerized space. I realized I was not the only one affected by the impersonal climate of the new modality when one student messaged me privately on Zoom during a lecture, saying, “Professor, I think you should make everyone turn their cameras on.” A heightened awareness of our own embodied existence in the virtual environment brought about feelings of fear and resistance in the students. Learning online meant feeling vulnerable, analogous to the first day of class where first impressions mattered. Yet, unlike that experience, we lacked sufficient time to sequentially overcome vulnerability in partnership while learning online. Switching to online instruction mid-semester required us to direct our energy and attention toward the content so that the remainder of the course could be completed successfully. Besides, the students had previously acquired likely little or no formal knowledge about how to learn online. Within such a challenging context, it was necessary to feel with the students – to empathize with them about feeling disappointed and uncertain with respect to online learning while simultaneously facing a pandemic alone, physically isolated from family and from the classroom where a sense of community had been consistently experienced. Indeed, my first concern was that the human connection previously experienced in the physical classroom could not be reproduced or felt meaningfully online. For the remainder of the course, conversational interactions had become mechanized – the lack of a physical organization, mediated before by our desks within the material space of the classroom, created a flat, one-dimensional experience on the screen. We were side by side but only in small squares on the screen, most of which only had pictures or cartoons rather than a live feed. We had been used to jumping into a discussion to respond to one another’s comments in the physical classroom, but now I had to call on students by name to hear them participating: What do you think? Language was used in a more controlled fashion: I would ask a question to a particular student, they would unmute their microphone, answer the question, and mute it again immediately after. Language-related mistakes became more audible and saying less could help students avoid making them. Second, I worried that the group identity we had built gradually and collaboratively had not survived the switch to online teaching. This meant that the personal identification with learning we each developed on the basis of shared values and experiences could have been missing. Without a collective identity, learning could translate into an isolating and isolated experience. Teaching and learning online brought the very structure to our group dynamics which we had worked to remove. One of the Chinese students from the economics program, who had always participated actively before, emailed me one afternoon to express his dissatisfaction

102  Vander Tavares with the learning experience online. “How come the course is no longer great?” was his honest question to me. His question led me to write this chapter as I reflected on the criticality of face-to-face learning for multilingual international students.

Discussion and Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic has posed far-reaching consequences for international students in higher education. Research continues to shed light on how this global event has affected the lived and hoped-for experiences of international students worldwide. This chapter explored the ways in which the switch to online teaching impacted the experiences of 11 multilingual international students in the context of a previously face-to-face course at a Canadian university. In the investigation presented in this chapter, the face-to-face classroom experience offered diverse opportunities for international students to potentially develop skills beyond those of only an academic nature. However, once instruction was moved from face-to-face to virtual delivery, students generally felt dissatisfied as a result. I argue that such dissatisfaction with the academic experience originated from the lack of meaningful social interaction online. Although effective online teaching has enormous potential to foster and facilitate social interaction, it can only do so with careful and adequate planning. Nevertheless, understandingly, the switch to online instruction occurred abruptly, which compromised my ability, even as an experienced instructor, to research and develop online instruction with critical attention to the specific needs of the students in the course. For many international students, the face-to-face classroom experience may be the primary source of skill development in multiple domains of experience. Meaningful social interaction is tied to linguistic, social, cross-cultural, academic, and professional growth. Mutee Ur Rehman, an incoming international Ph.D. student at a Canadian university, discussed his needs and expectations once he learned about online instruction. He explained, “Interaction with my supervisor and my group members is very important…a campus atmosphere is a stimulus and motivates you” (Alam, 2020). Consequently, as instruction is expected to proceed online in the fall of 2020, sufficient opportunity for international students to appropriately experience the human feel in virtual interaction is necessary. Drawing on previous research, as well as this one, the following points should be considered as a springboard for college and university instructors: •

Assign time early in the course for students to post information about themselves, their goals, expectations, and needs in a community-like style (Lawrence, 2014); • Provide tools for synchronous and informal interaction between students outside the course in which the students can interact freely (Lehman & Conceiçao, 2010);

“The Course Is No Longer Great”  103 • “Monitor learner interaction at the start of a program to gauge progress, to model online interaction and community development, and to check in with learners” (Lawrence, 2014, pp. 138–139); • Devise interactive activities in small groups to help gradually build and foster group cohesion (Lawrence, 2014); • Implement pair or group activities whose conclusion/solution depends on an exchange of personal knowledge and experience between international students; and • Diversify the kind of interactive activities online (e.g., synchronous, asynchronous, audio, video, imagery, writing) so that the mode of interaction is not repetitive. The aforementioned recommendations are broad enough that they may be adapted to fit different courses online. The findings from the investigation presented in this chapter reflect a specific academic context and cannot represent the experiences of all multilingual international students. Many international students may experience online instruction differently from how those in my course did. Nevertheless, the findings reinforce the need to bring (and maintain) the international student to the center of the teaching and learning experience online, especially when it comes to social interaction. This chapter provided a window into the complexity and importance of meaningful social interaction for skill development and personal satisfaction with online instruction. As colleges and universities continue to expand and intensify online education, instruction should be designed with the multilingual international student as the target student rather than the occasional international student in the class. Courses whose design attends to the needs of multilingual international students are more inclusive to domestic and international students alike. Finally, in the context of current and future global scholarship, it is significant that institutions of higher education better prepare multilingual international students to learn effectively online so that they may maximize opportunities for social interaction, language acquisition, and content knowledge development.

Bio Vander Tavares, Ph.D., is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education at Høgskolen i Innlandet (Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences). His major research interests include internationalization of higher education and the international student experience; the relationship between language, culture, and identity; and second-language acquisition. He is the Editor of Multidisciplinary Perspectives on International Student Experience in Canadian Higher Education (IGI Global) and the author of International Students in Higher Education: Language, Identity and Experience from a Holistic Perspective (Lexington Books).

104  Vander Tavares

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106  Vander Tavares Naylor, D., & Nyanjom, J. (2020). Educators’ emotions involved in the transition to online teaching in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1811645 Novikov, P. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 emergency transition to on-line learning on international students’ perceptions of educational process at Russian university. Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 11(3), 270–302. Perets, E. A., Chabeda, D., Gong, A. Z., Huang, X., Fung, T. S., Ng, K. Y., Bathgate, M., & Yan, E. C. (2020). Impact of the emergency transition to remote teaching on student engagement in a non-STEM undergraduate chemistry course in the time of COVID-19. Journal of Chemical Education, 97(9), 2439–2447. Sato, M., & Ballinger, S. (Eds.). (2016). Peer interaction and second language learning: Pedagogical potential and research agenda. John Benjamins. Sailsman, S. (2020). ESL students learning online: A review of literature. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 21(1), 45–52. Sailsman, S., Rutherford, M., Tovin, M., & Cianelli, R. (2018). Cultural integration online: The lived experience of English-as-a-second-language RN-BSN nursing students learning in an online environment. Nursing Education Perspectives, 39(4), 221–224. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000301 Sawir, E., Marginson, S., Deumert, A., Nyland, C., & Ramia, G. (2008). Loneliness and international students: An Australian study. Journal of Studies in International Education, 12(2), 148–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315307299699 Sherry, M., Thomas, P., & Chui, W. H. (2010). International students: A vulnerable student population. Higher Education, 60(1), 33–46. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10734-009-9284-z Schultz, R. B., & DeMers, M. N. (2020). Transitioning from emergency remote learning to deep online learning experiences in geography education. Journal of Geography, 119(5), 142–146. Tavares, V. (2016). The role of peer interaction and second language learning for ESL students in academic contexts: An extended literature review [Unpublished master’s thesis]. York University. Tavares, V. (2019). A review of peer interaction and second language learning for ELL students in academic contexts. Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education/Revue Canadienne des Jeunes Chercheures et Chercheurs en Éducation, 10(2), 113–121. Tavares, V. (2020). Multilingual international students from the perspective of faculty: Contributions, challenges, and support. In V. Tavares (Ed.), Multidisciplinary perspectives on international student experience in Canadian higher education (pp. 102–119). IGI Global. World Health Organization (WHO). (2020, June 30). Timeline of WHO’s response to COVID-19. Retrieved July 18, 2020, from https://www.who.int/ news-room/detail/29-06-2020-covidtimeline.

9 Expanding Equitable Access or Exacerbating Existing Barriers? Reexamining Online Learning for Vulnerable Student Populations Romana Manzoor and Wayne Bart Introduction The rampant outbreak of the newly identified infectious disease, COVID19, has agitated global normalcy at various levels. In the realm of higher education, colleges and universities struggle to address a plethora of cascading challenges related to the equitable access of educational resources and outcomes for underrepresented communities. This includes access to appropriate technology, the structuring of online courses, and proper online support services. In order for higher education institutions (HEIs) to maintain their mission, contractual duties, and accreditation-related approvals, instructors and students must resume their academics in alternative formats. In this chapter, we review existing literature from over the last 20 years on challenges associated with online learning and support services that inhibit equitable access to learning resources and outcomes. We focus on the experiences of first-generation, undocumented, indigenous, and international students enrolled in institutions located in English-speaking countries in the Global North. This literature includes academic journals, case studies, and material from research foundations, to name a few. Though it is quite dated and sparse, it is meaningful and telling as it illuminates the need for reenvisioning. We also review current literature as it relates to institutional responses to COVID-19. Since both government and institutional responses are evolving based on the present nature of the pandemic, current literature comprises interviews captured in news articles, federal and state agencies, and universities and colleges themselves. This critical review aims to revive the conversation and research on existing barriers marginalized communities experience with online education. We discuss how institutions can address these issues in order to keep the outbreak from widening the equity gap. Finally, we propose that the widespread shift to online learning during the pandemic offers an occasion

108  Romana Manzoor and Wayne Bart to conduct a reenvisioning process, especially as online learning may have a staying presence for its flexibility and recruitment outreach as higher education responds to its new reality.

First-Generation Students First-generation students experience varied challenges related to equitable access of learning resources, which influence retention and persistence. These obstacles include cultural differences, economic security, language acquisition, and others. This section will examine the challenges as they exist in order to help us understand how the current pandemic may impact them. First-generation college students are educational pioneers (Inkelas et al., 2006). This population has many features; they are more often minority students from lower-income backgrounds and are more likely to be older, married, have children, or work while taking classes (Dennis et al., 2005; Inkelas et al., 2006; Majer, 2009; Petty, 2014; Williams & Hellman, 2004). Often, first-generation students are less equipped by their secondary education to be successful in a college environment (Dennis et al., 2005). This missing preparation leads to poor academic performance and higher dropout rates, and students require more time to complete a degree (Dennis et al., 2005; Inkelas et al., 2006; Majer, 2009; Petty, 2014; Vuong et al., 2010). First-generation students experience challenges on many levels; in part, they are trying to create new traditions of education in their families. However, in doing this, they are also breaking traditions by attaining a degree, which may create a rift in their lives, whether perceived or actual (Williams & Hellman, 2004). First-generation students are more likely to attend a community college to improve skills for job placement or achieve an associate’s degree needed for future employment (Nomi, 2005). Nearly one-third of community college students are the first-generation to attend college (Beer, 2020). Lower tuition costs, varied enrollment options, and the racial, ethnic, and cultural demographics of their diverse student bodies make community colleges an attractive alternative to a four-year institution (Majer, 2009). First-generation students taking classes virtually may struggle to graduate, as an overwhelming number of community colleges went “primarily online” in fall 2020 due to the rise in COVID cases (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2020). Consequently, students at these institutions will likely experience added challenges related to their altering life structures, such as family, money, health, and educational environment. Researchers have found that success among first-generation students is related to their environment, and being integrated into the greater college community has shown promise in retention and persistence to degree completion (Dennis et al., 2005; Inkelas et al., 2006; Petty, 2014; Vuong et al., 2010; Williams & Hellman, 2004).

Expanding Equitable Access or Exacerbating Existing Barriers?  109 International research on first-generation college students conducting their studies online reveals similar barriers to completion. A 2014 report from the Australian Government Department of Education and Training indicated that only 44.4% of students who conducted their studies online graduated compared to an overall completion rate in the same time period of 72.3% for those who conducted their studies on campus (Stone et al., 2016). Though the geographical location and higher education context are different from that of the United States, this statistic reveals that firstgeneration college students struggle with the online platform. The pandemic has illumined existing barriers to the equitable access of learning resources and support services that impact retention and persistence of first-generation college students. This unprecedented time presents HEIs an opportunity to reimagine ways to provide online learning to this population. Further research as these issues evolve may demonstrate improved strategies and models for addressing these challenging circumstances. Retaining students during the pandemic is a short-term benefit. However, development of quality standards based on equity may promote persistence beyond the pandemic and well into the future.

Undocumented Students One hundred and twenty-four countries around the world criminalize undocumented immigration, though not all deal with children and young adults the same way. The common theme with undocumented students is the acute awareness and the impact their lack of status plays within their lives and, by extension, their education (Valenzuela et al., 2015). They may experience discrimination from their peers, faculty, and university staff (Chavez et al., 2007). In the United States, undocumented students have looming fears of deportation, and so they are less likely to seek help when needed. Undocumented students are more frequently contributors to their household finances, and as a result, they struggle to balance their studies and work (Kantamneni et al., 2015). The literature indicates that undocumented students have challenges with access and support. However, the literature is generally focused on accessing higher education. In reporting, the undocumented often get combined with the greater immigrant population, which masks struggles that come with being undocumented, such as attending college under a threat of deportation. This threat can disincentivize students from interacting with the college (Hsin & Ortega, 2018). For undocumented students, as with other populations, integrating with the greater college community is key for undocumented students in persisting toward obtaining their degrees (Gildersleeve & Vigil, 2015; Kantamneni et al., 2015; Valenzuela et al., 2015). Students can experience income and language challenges and are often first-generation college students, if not first to attend college in the United States (Chavez et al., 2007). In these instances, online

110  Romana Manzoor and Wayne Bart education can exacerbate preexisting issues regarding equitable learning opportunities The structuring of online technologies, online curricula, and the online modality of teaching or online pedagogy reflect the dominant Western culture. U.S. researchers Smith and Ayers (2006) state, “Western culture may be amplified through the way in which instructional technology mediates interaction among participants in the learning experience” (p. 401). Based on their research, they stress that educators must understand the cognitive and psychological ethos of non-Western peoples (p. 402). Learning styles and cultural perspectives of students should be considered when outlining online courses. For example, collaboration with peers in the classroom is a preference among non-Western communities. Variability and flexibility should be considered when thinking about online delivery. Maintaining culturally sensitive resources and integrating culturally enlivening material allow for underrepresented students to feel represented and valuable (Smith & Ayers, 2006). Throughout the review of the literature on the undocumented population, questions regarding online learning, and how it might be used to serve their needs, remain largely unaddressed. An institution’s ability to be flexible with undocumented students does help with retention and persistence (Hsin & Ortega, 2018). This is a start, but further research is needed to identify solutions to the challenges of undocumented students. While immigration systems are often impacted by national policies, those involved in higher education may be well served to find alternative avenues for support for undocumented students, be it financial, emotional, or academic. The literature suggests that undocumented students will likely discontinue their studies rather than take leave. Innovation in outreach, support, and delivery may keep staying in college a more viable alternative. The pandemic presents an opportunity to review what is working and correct what may need to be corrected for life beyond the pandemic.

International Students in the United States COVID-19 responses have impacted international students more directly, with attempts at curtailing international student enrollment in the United States by implementing policy adjustments that impact their educational journey to completion. This has resulted in added discourse about equitable access to educational resources and completion for international students, while issues remain regarding existing challenges with online learning. Beginning on March 6, 2020, HEIs started to close their campuses and move their instruction online, resulting in 1,100 campus closures by midMarch (Smalley, 2020). Moreover, more than 150 countries had closed their borders by March 16 (The Economist, 2020). Then on July 6, the Trump administration in the United States announced that international

Expanding Equitable Access or Exacerbating Existing Barriers?  111 students with F-1 or M-1 visas must either leave the country or transfer if the institution in which they are enrolled will offer online classes in the fall. Additionally, the Trump administration temporarily suspended the Optional Practical Training for international students, which gave them career-ready skills, as well as some income. For many international students, costs associated with the visa process, travel, tuition, housing, and other related expenses had already been processed; these policies not only disregarded their educational efforts and expenses but also directly marginalized the international student population. Furthermore, these policies undermined international recruitment strategies and negatively impacted international student enrollment, which financially hurt HEIs in the United States and the economy; they also damaged international relations. Hence, the policies were met with immediate backlash from a number of HEIs. Harvard and MIT sued the U.S. government two days after the announcement was made, calling it “unlawful and arbitrary” (Treisman, 2020). The case resulted in the policy being rescinded. However, the impact is still being felt. Visa process delays, adjustments, embassy closures, travel expenses, and political tensions have caused a drastic decrease in U.S. international student enrollment in fall 2020, stifling both access and completion (Fox, 2020). Apart from the reverberations of this controversial setting, research shows that international students face challenges with online learning. First, the language barrier remains an obstacle in the online format. For example, synchronous online courses often involve students having to engage in virtual discussion boards via typed conversations, which demand quick thinking in a language that is not their own. As Zhang and Kenny (2010) explain in their research, non-native English speakers require considerably more time to draft posts. Second, international students also face challenges in the cultural dimension of the course design (Liu et al., 2010). Multicultural content specific to the host country inadvertently alienates the international students and prevents them from participating. Language barriers, technical-academic jargon, and other culturally informed communicative lingo also hinder online participation. Third, some cases reveal difficulties in participating in synchronous online classes. For example, international students have to manage time zone differences, making it especially problematic for those who are also juggling work and family life (McDougall & Zhao, 2008). Asynchronous sessions also present students with individualized pacing, which is helpful for those who struggle with reading and writing in English. For others, synchronous sessions are preferred, especially for those who are not severely impacted by time zone differences. Synchronous sessions allow for interactive discussions, engagement with faculty and peers, and the opportunity to ask clarifying questions in real time (Richards, 2020). This yields the chance for a meaningful exchange of ideas. Synchronous classes effectively lessen the

112  Romana Manzoor and Wayne Bart distance in distance learning, which positively impacts the overall student learning experience. With the abrupt move to online learning in the middle of the spring term, there was little room for institutions to assess which method of online instruction suited their international students best. Fourth, and finally, while transition to an online environment requires that students utilize online resources, international students grapple with sifting through the overflow of information (Hughes, 2013). This becomes especially hard for international students who may not have had the exposure to searching their institution’s online resources. Libraries should offer accessible services for distance students; library staff should announce that online services are available (Huwiler, 2015). Thus, students can perform academic research for class assignments and final papers. Research tutorials given by faculty or the library would be a significant avenue to address this issue; these tutorials would also communicate to students that supportive services are a valuable online resource to support student academic success.

Indigenous Students in the United States The outbreak has exacerbated socioeconomic conditions for the indigenous community in the United States. The closing of many HEIs during the period of lockdown forced students to return home, which meant that they had to find alternative ways to finish their current courses virtually. Many Native American students have limited access to the Internet and technology. As many as 60% of Native Americans do not have access to the Internet on tribal lands (Federal Communications Commission, 2020). Cournoyer, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and executive director of the National Indian Education Association, reported, “Most Native students don’t have the ability to purchase a laptop, and even if they received a Pell grant or scholarship, they were used for childcare, living expenses or food” (Blackburn, 2020, para. 4). Many Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) on the reservation were not equipped to make the sudden change to remote learning. Those that had the technology in place were unfamiliar with how to use it (Retta, 2020). Another pitfall is the level of student support services diminishing for the Native American community. Many relied on campus employment and work-study opportunities to support their studies. However, with campus closures, many students lost their jobs. Most Native American students returned to the reservation during this crisis, but work opportunities are limited, and as a result of the outbreak, there were even fewer job openings. Native American students attending TCUs on the reservation lost access to food and housing. Nearly all options for food on campus have been closed or eliminated, which has made things difficult, said Brandon Dennison, a senior at the University of Utah in Navajo Nation. I used to eat on

Expanding Equitable Access or Exacerbating Existing Barriers?  113 campus daily to utilize my dining dollars, which have now essentially become obsolete. (Retta, 2020, para. 7) The closing of casinos and national attractions has hurt the Native community economically as well. As a consequence, the indigenous community is not able to respond to the health toll the virus is taking, thus impacting the Native community and its students disproportionately (Mineo, 2020, paras. 3–4). As a result of the sudden and unfortunate outcomes for Native students, TCUs and other institutions of higher education are confronting the reality that exists sharply for them and other communities of underserved students. The Oglala Lakota College of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota purchased laptops and mobile phones with hot-spot capabilities for their students. Cournoyer recommends that a collaboration be established with other HEIs, particularly TCUs, to share digital tools and to research various technological platforms that have proved successful without high costs. A list of American Indian–serving organizations has been provided in support of Native students referenced by Blackburn (2020). These are some of the measures taken by TCUs and the communities supporting them to address the immediate needs of their students. The digital divide reminds us that access to online learning is not accessible for all.

Exploring Avenues to Expand Online Access and Tighten the Digital Divide The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted institutions of higher learning to reenvision the structure and delivery of online learning and its support services. Based on the research, the following suggestions address equity concerns that impact underrepresented students. Online Learning First, the purchasing of software that offers closed captioning and voice and audio features would benefit students with disabilities and those whose first language is not English, such as international students, indigenous, and undocumented students. Second, flexibility in offering synchronous and asynchronous online class formats would meet the varying needs of students. Most international students prefer asynchronous classes because they remove time differences as a barrier, and they also extend the time needed to complete the reading and writing assignments for non-English speakers (Fischer, 2020). Nonetheless, synchronous sessions are favored in almost all other cases. Synchronous sessions provide students the opportunity to ask clarifying questions in real time with an immediate response following. They also give students a chance to interact with their peers and their professors, which positively impacts the overall student learning

114  Romana Manzoor and Wayne Bart experience (The Best Schools, 2018). Third, involving minoritized voices in the development of online courses is a great way to address cultural variances and assessment of learning outcomes for traditionally underrepresented students, which includes students who are first-generation college, undocumented, international, and indigenous. Issues revolving around basic access to online education and support services are an existing and common concern for the global indigenous, international, and undocumented population. Moreover, implementing a constructivist-based pedagogy to creating online content that is culturally inclusive is another way to address the equity gap (Smith & Ayers, 2006; McLoughlin & Oliver, 2000; Liu et al., 2010). McLoughlin and Oliver (2000) proposed a bi-cultural model of education in order to meet the diverse learning needs of the indigenous-aboriginal in Australia. The model includes cultural maintenance, ownership of learning, communities of inquiry, and provisions of multiple perspectives. Having students develop their own assessment criteria of learning outcomes, for instance, allows them to feel that they are owners of their distinguished knowledge. This methodology promotes inclusivity and creates buy-in for students. International literature reveals that underrepresented students in English-speaking countries in the Global North experience financial hardships disproportionately, which impacts their educational journey. Though the specificities of their experience may be nuanced, socioeconomic status, the digital divide, language barriers, and misunderstood cultural variables are obstacles to online learning that are shared across the Global North, making this methodology a useful tool for promoting equity and cultural sensitivity in distance learning for the underrepresented student populations mentioned in this chapter. Support Services Library services, as well as other services that assist the holistic learning of students, such as advising, career guidance, and emotional support, should be conducted online with easy access to related staff. HEIs have already responded to these challenges by implementing, for example, chat boxes, uploading tutorials, conducting virtual office hours, and hosting virtual recruiting and admissions events. Accessibility of support staff, personalized attention, and prompt responses are important facets of online support services, as they positively impact the overall online learning experience for the student (Thorpe, 2001). A lack of interaction and a feeling of isolation influence a lack of motivation, which in turn yields a negative learning experience. These often attribute to student attrition rates. “Identity,” “individualization,” and “interpersonal interaction” are three interrelated characteristics of learner support services. A suggested model for achieving this is called, “scaffolding.” Scaffolding provides more structure to students in

Expanding Equitable Access or Exacerbating Existing Barriers?  115 the earlier stage of the course and then gradually encourages them to be responsible and lead themselves through the material. This builds their inner motivation (Ludwig-Hardman & Dunlap, 2003). A student-centric approach, such as this, helps meet students where they are in their educational journeys. Establishing direct access to the academic advisor and registrar while studying online are supportive facets of online learning. However, the digital divide remains a great obstacle, especially for those living in rural areas and those living on reservations due to a lack of financial infrastructure and support. Through government funding, a number of institutions have been able to provide technological support in various ways. In Illinois, for example, educational agencies like the Illinois Board of Higher Education made a decision that all federal and state monies be allocated directly to serve the needs of the underrepresented student population (Illinois Student Assistance Commission, 2020). The funding covers technological services that bolster online student support services, financial assistance, emergency relief, and professional development and training for instructors (Illinois Student Assistance Commission, 2020). For those living on the reservation, it’s been suggested that TCU’s explore digital collaborations (Retta, 2020). Digital collaborations would lower costs associated with online technology, allowing for funds to go to supporting students’ technical needs (Retta, 2020). Governments across the world, including that of the United States, have taken measures to allocate funding in support of students during this difficult time. Specifically, the U.S. government has passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. “The funding will be distributed using the existing formula that is based on student counts, in addition to targeting student needs related to mental health and safety, staff training, and information technology investments” (U.S. Department of the Interior: Indian Affairs, 2020, para. 1). Additional accommodations have been made, such as converting ongoing classes to a pass/fail grading basis, eliminating entrance exams as part of the admissions requirement, and the issuance by many institutions of financial relief and/or adjusted pay schedules. These are key examples from around the world as to how to address equity issues faced in the spring term so that students who are first-generation college, undocumented, international, or indigenous encounter fewer hardships in the fall term.

Conclusion Issues regarding equitable access to learning resources and outcomes disproportionately impact students from marginalized communities, which have widened the gap as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. With college and university closures, financial strife, and an overall health scare, a number of students from traditionally marginalized communities withdrew or took a leave of absence. Basic needs insecurities, lack of technological access,

116  Romana Manzoor and Wayne Bart and a lack of technological accommodations are some major examples of the struggles facing higher education amid the pandemic. These examples show that within this new emerging reality in higher education, there are reminders of the long-standing struggles of vulnerable populations. The World Economic Forum has suggested that the virus has caused a revolution in education, commenting that “just as the First Industrial Revolution forged today’s system of education, we can expect a different kind of educational model to emerge from COVID-19” in support of a wholesale transition to online education (Kandri, 2020). In many ways, online education opens new avenues to accomplish this. Educators and student affairs staff members have been perseverant in meeting students’ needs and innovative in how to utilize competing platforms to conduct interactive teaching. The COVID-19 experience, while challenging for institutions, has presented opportunities to expand equitable access, as well as create spaces where students of all backgrounds are more able to succeed. Reimagining industry norms can be difficult, but it is necessary. President of Valencia College, Sanford Shugart suggests, “Anyone can learn anything under the right conditions” (Johnson, 2012). Perhaps this could serve as a guiding principle for our new normal. In recognizing that conditions for learning have shifted, educators find an occasion for improvement. HEIs have the ability, and the opportunity, to not only meet these new challenges but also correct deficiencies that have been ignored in the past.

Bios Romana Manzoor is the Director of Institutional Research and Effectiveness and College Programs at American Islamic College. She holds an M.A. in interreligious studies and is pursuing an M.Ed. in higher education at Loyola University at Chicago. Her research interests include existing issues around equity and representation for underrepresented students, international student mobility, and the development of Muslim institutions of higher education in North America and Europe. Wayne Bart is an Academic Advisor at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida and holds a M.Ed. in international higher education from Loyola University at Chicago. His research areas include student affairs policy, study abroad, international education, international student movement, and immigration policy in higher education.

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10 Using Information Communication Technologies for Interactive Open and Distance Learning Experiences in the Era of COVID-19 Mmabaledi Seeletso Introduction The 2019 novel coronavirus had a grave impact on education systems the world over, Botswana included. The outbreak greatly affected education activities, rendering distance education the most feasible option to replace classrooms, with the intention of reducing the risk of infection and spread of the virus. It is important to note that out of the challenges brought by COVID-19 emerged a moment to develop alternative education opportunities. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global public health emergency on March 11, 2020. UNESCO (2020) reported that by March 2020, over 1.5 billion students were out of schools due to closures as a result of COVID-19. It further reported that more than 181 countries, constituting 88% of the worlds’ student population, were affected by this closure to prevent the spread of the virus and attempt to “flatten the curve” across the world (UNESCO, 2020). Online intervention was considered necessary for teaching and learning to continue with minimal disruption. Governments, globally, encouraged institutions to switch to digital learning to avoid gaps in teaching and learning. Mailizar et al., (2020) noted that school closures in Indonesia due to the pandemic “left 45.5 million students and 3.1 million teachers dependent on online teaching and learning” (p. 1). Authorities closed all schools (learning institutions) to allow for social distancing and enforcement of other health protocols. This marked the start of a major challenge where learning institutions had to move from the conventional environment to distance and virtual learning. Defining Key Words In the next section, key words as used in the context of the chapter are explained.

Using Information Communication Technologies  121 2019 Novel Coronavirus – Zu et al. (2020) define the 2019 novel coronavirus as “pneumonia associated with a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus 2,” a definition further corroborated by Zheng et al. (2020). In this chapter, the 2019 novel coronavirus will be abbreviated as COVID-19. COVID-19 developed into a pandemic that ravaged the world since the beginning of 2020, having started in China in December 2019. The virus greatly disrupted peoples’ lives and most of the activities on the face of the earth, including education. Digital Divide – A gap or uneven distribution between those with have access to computers and Internet connection and those who do not have this access. In this chapter, access also refers to both skills and competencies to use computers and the Internet, as well as a lack of money to buy both the devices and data. Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) – A form of unified communications that allow users to access, store, transmit, and manipulate information to their own benefit. These unified communications are also recognized as catalysts of change (Ratheeswan, 2018). Online Education – For the purposes of easy understanding, online education in this chapter will mean the same as electronic/e-learning when referring to electronically or technology-supported teaching and learning. This mode of study requires the Internet for the facilitator(s) and students to interact with each other and with content. The students and facilitator(s) are usually separate and in different geographical places. Online teaching and learning can be carried out at the same time (synchronous) or can be flexible and happening at different times (asynchronous). Open and Distance Learning – In this chapter, open and distance learning (ODL) will mean the same as distance education. This is a philosophy of teaching and learning in which the learner and the facilitator are separated and away from each other. Over the years, the philosophy of ODL has helped overcome education access barriers. Pandemic – In this chapter, pandemic refers to a widespread, prevalent, and uncontrollable disease, such as COVID-19. Social Exclusion – In this chapter, social exclusion refers to a condition of complete removal, blocked from access to a prevailing social system and its rights, privileges, and other perks as a result of belonging to a particular section of a population, society, or group.

The 2019 Novel Coronavirus Experience Measures for social distancing and lockdown policies to control and stop the spread of the virus spiraled globally as governments encouraged studying and working from home. This promoted ODL that was supported by ICTs, especially computers and the Internet. Due to extended periods of closure because of COVID-19, institutions were forced to come up with interventions to allow education to continue. Domecini (2020) pointed

122  Mmabaledi Seeletso out that distance education became the only option that was to be used to ensure that learning continued undisrupted. He further argued, “Distance learning and distance education appeared to be the most and only way to assure the continuity of education and learning of students at all school and university grades” (p. 3). The pandemic led to a huge shift toward digital forms of education. Students were kept at home and socially isolated from the classroom learning that they were used to, while teachers were in turn encouraged to be innovative and create online teaching and learning resources. From research, it is apparent that countries and institutions of higher learning had varying preparedness for this emergency. Online learning came as a “foreign” learning experience brought by the sudden shift from traditional face-to-face to online virtual learning. This came as a shock, especially to developing countries. However, in developing countries like Botswana where there are ODL universities and other ODL institutions of higher learning, the transition was much easier. In some instances, such as at Botswana Open University (BOU), even before the pandemic, distance education was the mode of delivery used, and at some point, it was supported by ICTs to reduce learners’ isolation. The sudden transition, however, remained a serious challenge for institutions that have always been conventional, offering teaching and learning only through the faceto-face mode of delivery. Since students and facilitators are away from each other, the students remain at the center of their study, as they are alone most of the time. ODL students experience isolation; hence, in institutions such as BOU, ICTs have been introduced to bridge the communication gap brought about by isolation to facilitate interaction. ICTs have revolutionized ODL and made it more interactive. The Internet has introduced a new element of electronic learning commonly known as e-learning or online learning. This is a type of ODL supported by technology.

Structure of the Chapter This chapter is divided into five sections. In the first section, the introduction, definitions to key words used in the chapter are provided – namely, COVID-19, digital divide, online education, ODL, pandemic, social exclusion. The author undertakes the task of clarifying the terms the way she understands them, as they are used in the chapter. She will proceed to foreground the topic through the lens of Gosky et al.’s (2004) theory of instructional dialogue. Issues surrounding the use of technology for interactive ODL will be discussed. The next section on educational responses to COVID-19 will cover interactive experiences during COVID-19 using ICT, as well as the challenges of using ICT to support teaching and learning in the advent of COVID-19. Finally, the chapter will conclude by summarizing key discussions from the study.

Using Information Communication Technologies  123 The information in this chapter is largely from documents, as well as observations and experiences as the author is an ODL practitioner, working for an ODL institution.

Research Questions This chapter is guided by the following exploratory questions: 1.  How can ICTs be used for ODL experiences? 2. How can ICTs be used to facilitate interactive learning experiences in an ODL environment during the COVID-19 pandemic? 3. What challenges have students experienced as a result of online teaching and learning during COVID-19? 4. What are the expected positive outcomes, as well as challenges, from using ICTs post-COVID-19 pandemic?

Gorsky, Caspi, and Trumper’s Theory of Instructional Dialogue The discussions in this chapter have been informed by the theory of instructional dialogue (2004). The theory underpins dialogue as key to effective online and distance education (Gorsky et al., 2004; Seeletso, 2016). The theory foregrounds the interaction as being between learners themselves, learners and their facilitators, and learners and the content they are learning. In distance education and online learning modes, this content is mainly instructional (study) materials with conversation from a face-to-face setup. Rowntree (1990) suggests that for ODL materials to be interactive enough, developers design them as if they are sympathetic tutors. Learners should be able to interact and understand their materials with no or very little assistance from the tutor. Rowntree (1990) further advises that this conversation can be presented by using visuals, activities, and feedback, together with the use of conversational pronouns, such as “I” and “we,” as if one is addressing learners in person. The theory of instructional dialogue was propounded in 2004 by theorists Gorsky, Caspi, and Trumper (Seeletso, 2016). The theorists consider that learning is an individual activity mediated by interpersonal dialogue (Gorsky et al., 2004; Gorsky et al., 2007). Gorsky et al. (2007) contend that not only is human intervention required for successful ODL but also structural resources. These resources include different media that ODL students need to use as peers for dialogue and interaction about their studies. Seeletso (2016), however, warns that the theory takes for granted that all distance learners will have access to all these resources. The reality on the ground is that for developing contexts, some learners study in isolated settings with no access to some of the required resources, especially the Internet.

124  Mmabaledi Seeletso According to the theory of instructional dialogue, one can, therefore, not underestimate the importance of resources needed to encourage learning, such as technology tools, especially Internet connection, to facilitate online teaching and learning. Technology has the potential to initiate and maintain effective dialogue. Instructional dialogue, irrespective of resources involved, is normally geared toward giving achievement, satisfaction, and positive results. Teaching and learning methodologies for ODL need to close the distance gap between students and their course facilitators. To ensure this, the theory of instructional dialogue can be used to guide the design and development process of the study materials to be able to be delivered and supported through different modes. Many governments, including that of Botswana and other developing countries, had implemented a noble intent of using online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to ensure the interaction of students, hence continuity in teaching and learning. Unfortunately, this is destined to facilitate further social exclusion and digital divide.

Pertinent Issues on the Use of Technology for Interactive ODL With the introduction of online learning delivery and support in schools and institutions of higher learning, interaction has become key to effective ODL and online experiences. The intervention was necessary as a response to the pandemic, though with challenges.

Educational Responses to COVID-19 When governments closed learning institutions and prioritized online teaching and learning to contain and curb the spread of the virus, societal and educational inequalities between public and privately owned educational institutions became more predominant and more apparent between institutions, as well as between individual students. As the pandemic rages on, countries continue to implement emergency plans to delay and circumvent the spread of the virus (UNESCO, 2020). They are as such, preparing and embracing for extended disruption of schools and university attendance with most remaining closed. UNESCO (2020) reported that China provided a large share of its students with access to online learning opportunities. This was imminent as educators and students started to work remotely following the closure of schools. China took a step in the right direction, as there was a great need to immediately mobilize different forms of online education, as well as educational resources. With the virus causing unstoppable havoc and increasing mortalities, there is a need to encourage technology companies to make their resources available for free to enable and inspire institutions to diversify their modes of delivery.

Using Information Communication Technologies  125 Some governments, such as Indonesia, developed free online learning platforms through their Ministries of Education. The provision of learning support materials, however, has not been adequately addressed since it has been done hurriedly. In some parts of the world, the pandemic has brought people together as technology companies have provided tablets and other gadgets to disadvantaged schools and individual students. The same gesture of goodwill has been embraced by Internet companies that started to provide programs to economically disadvantaged families at no cost for the duration of the pandemic – which no one knows how long it will last. There is a need to encourage institutional collaboration. Institutions, for instance, need to collaborate mutually on issues of development and the use of open educational resources. Institutions need to provide educators with the necessary resources and digital learning opportunities. This will encourage them to share their resources and provide each other with peer feedback. This will further enable educators to develop and share resources for free. ODL experts have been sharing skills and possible tools to use effectively for online delivery. Since the beginning of 2020, there have been signs that we are in a period of emergency with lots of unknowns and unpredictables. This, therefore, calls for extra patience with students as they also tread during this era toward the unknown, and this has to be faced by institutions and all stakeholders equally. Some developed countries are advanced and way ahead in terms of digital teaching and learning. Malatyinszki (2020) contends that the government of Hungary has observed that technology-supported learning is now not a matter of choice but an inevitable phenomenon that everyone must be prepared for to remain relevant in the 21st century.

Interactive Experiences during COVID-19 Using ICT Learning is a social development. Therefore, the closure of schools due to the pandemic forced students to remain isolated at home and socially isolated from their classmates. This isolation caused educators to explore different tools, such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, and others to facilitate online teaching, learning, and support. Some of these tools facilitate both asynchronous and synchronous (where students can attend a teaching session as it runs) learning environments. Students can also follow and view recordings at a later time, which would have been recorded for them earlier, in the event they missed the live sessions. This is very important for students who may have problems with bandwidth or a challenge accessing the live-streamed content. Despite “filling the gap,” there is still the negative attitude in certain parts of the world that distance education “is inferior and not as effective as conventional learning” (Adnan & Anwar, 2020, p.42). COVID-19 has unleashed positive opportunities for the education sector. Teachers

126  Mmabaledi Seeletso and students have been, for instance, exposed to most digital advances. Face-to-face mode is largely teacher centered, resulting in passive students. ODL, which has now been prioritized by many institutions, places students at the center of teaching and learning; it is activity based, thus promoting higher-order thinking skills and critical problem-solving. Though governments encourage institutions, students, and employees to work from home, the arrangement has proved very difficult. Several studies, including one by Malatyinszki (2020), have established that students from face-to-face institutions prefer to continue working at the institutions with colleagues. They emphasized that they feel more comfortable working in their communities. Most educators and students feel it is difficult to work from home with students and family there for them to manage. Online learning facilitates collaborative learning and brings students together virtually while physically apart. It further enhances learner-facilitator and learner-learner interactions. This results in increased learner persistence and improved academic performance. For online learning to be successful, all students need to have the necessary resources. Availability of devices is no longer a luxury but every student’s right in order to receive education. Key to online learning is student interaction and engagement, which facilitates access to content. In Botswana, one of the few institutions of higher learning that continued with its operations during schools’ closures is the BOU. BOU is a purely distance learning institution that offers secondary school programs to out-of-school youth, while its tertiary wing offers tertiary programs to all interested people across disciplines through the ODL mode of delivery. BOU uses the Moodle platform as its learning management system. This is where teaching and learning take place. It is an interactive platform that allows for both synchronous (same time) and asynchronous (delayed) learning platforms. To support its students during COVID-19, BOU signed an agreement with Mascom Botswana, an Internet service provider in the country, to provide zero-rated access to BOU’s learning portal as an initiative to provide free access to all students who may wish to access the content. This arrangement was initially to operate between April and September 2020. Online learning facilitates social presence, which provides virtual but immediate learning space necessary for effective distance education. Collaborative learning facilitates social presence in a virtual classroom. Renn et al. (2016) consider teaching presence as something that can help facilitate students’ classroom engagement, and it is normally higher in synchronous learning. In the synchronous approach, students present at the same time through platforms such as videoconferencing, chats, Zoom, Hangouts, Skype, and other platforms. Synchronous approaches are highly interactive. The asynchronous approach, on the other hand, does not require

Using Information Communication Technologies  127 the presence of students and is highly flexible. This includes discussion forums, prerecorded tutorial sessions, quizzes, and other platforms. Since the asynchronous approach involves delayed interaction, communication with instructional materials should be included right at the start of content design and development to facilitate this interaction. The designing of distance learning instructional materials should facilitate interpersonal communication between students, and there should be a “human voice” in text. This will help facilitate learners’ self-efficacy and engagement with both the content and learning tasks (Blaine, 2019). It is important to always take into account the emotional well-being of students and their families during this transformation to allow for good learning experiences. This should, however, continue even after the pandemic. Adam (2020) underscored the importance of students’ emotional well-being and extension of support, as they would have lost their sense of community or safety, hence suggesting that spaces of belonging be created for students. Students can help each other in synchronous chats, which most prefer because of real-time peer interaction. The synchronous approach facilitates psychological closeness among students, which is associated with social presence in a virtual class. The synchronous approach also facilitates collaborative learning, as students feel connected to their peers; hence, they socially interact and mutually appreciate each other. The most positive impact of synchronous learning is that students can interact among themselves and solve problems together as peers. This creates autonomous students who can construct their own knowledge during their interactions with each other. Adnan and Anwar (2020) observed that though ICTs facilitate interaction in an online delivery mode, their use in the advent of COVID-19 is not without challenges. They further argue that observed that due to various reasons, including inability to access the Internet and other key resources often work against desired results in some developing countries. (They further argue that for various reasons, including the inability to access the Internet, technology-mediated learning often works against the desired results in some developing countries.) In their study carried out in Pakistan, Adnan and Anwar (2020, p. 45) noted, The findings of the study highlighted that online learning cannot produce desired results in under developed countries like Pakistan, where a vast majority of students are unable to access the internet due to technical as well as monetary issues. In some developing countries, Internet and other service providers engaged with institutions to extend support for online learning. They negotiated data for students’ studies and zero-rated university and other relevant websites needed for students to study. Through this arrangement,

128  Mmabaledi Seeletso students were able to freely access the information, as was the situation in Botswana, South Africa, and Kenya. This initiative has proved effective in reducing disparity in the availability and use of ICT equipment and bandwidth across households, especially among the disadvantaged areas and members of our society.

Challenges of Using ICT to Support Teaching and Learning in the Advent of COVID-19 Universities had unequal access to ICT platforms necessary for online teaching and learning and effective online delivery. When educational institutions resumed online teaching and learning, most of them simply replaced class notes with online lectures. This was a clear indication that both students and educators were unprepared for this sudden transformation. The sudden closure of schools unsettled and disoriented students. Interaction became a great challenge as connection and support were problems on their own. During COVID-19, online learning was rapidly implemented. This was so sudden, and a number of both students and educators were caught off guard – some without experience nor the resources. Institutions had no budgets for emergencies like COVID-19. There were minimal budgets for IT adoption and uptake, so COVID-19 only worsened a situation that was already difficult to address. Online learning platforms were nonexistent in most conventional universities, even though governments insisted on online delivery. There was also a challenge of accessing devices by students who had no or very limited access. Private institutions in developing countries such as Botswana resorted to providing staff and students with laptops, but access to devices in most public institutions remained a challenge. ODL institutions transformed much better and faster to online learning practices since they were already accustomed to noncontact teaching and learning. Though learning devices were provided by some institutions, Internet connection remained a problem due to power outages and low bandwidth. One key challenge of COVID-19 was the lack of readiness by schools, students, and educators for online teaching and learning. The majority of higher education students were not ready when schools closed and had reservations about online or digital learning. They cited a lack of access to Internet facilities, lack of proper interaction, and ineffective technology (Adnan & Anwar, 2020). In Botswana, even the largest public university had to stop business while the open university had most of its operations running, with minimal disruption. Now, with the lockdown and the pandemic not going away any time soon, institutions of higher learning have to implement ODL methodologies with no expertise and limited resources to achieve it.

Using Information Communication Technologies  129 Lynch (2020, p. 192) made reference to the crisis that came with working from home by stating that students won’t be able to be as focused as usual because they aren’t in a classroom setting. They aren’t safe from all destructions at home. And those destructions are now multiplied because of other difficulties such as having the entire family at home, further noting other people may be trying to work from home and needing the internet for their work. Many families will be trying to work from home and needing the internet for their work. Many families will be facing economic devastation and wondering where their food is coming from or if they will continue to have roof over their head. Lack of ICT skills and expertise was another challenge for students and educators due to their limited experience with online teaching and learning. Developing countries experienced a shortage of resources, such as the Internet and devices that were needed to facilitate and support teaching and learning; a clear challenge is access to fast, affordable, and reliable Internet connections. The most affected remained rural students from remote areas and those among the marginalized and communities in challenging circumstances, such as inmates. Internet signals remain problematic, with already limited access. The Internet is also too expensive, with prohibitive costs for regular online connections and gadgets. Some students, mainly from disadvantaged backgrounds, do not have their own gadgets nor the money to buy them. Some may have smartphones to access online learning, but then they have no data bundles to access materials. Some may have access to devices and not the necessary digital skills to effectively study online. Most of the students will not be able to develop online skills on their own, and staying home will only worsen the already volatile situation. The problem of the digital divide has, therefore, brought even more negative results now than ever before. Some students were dependent on school resources before COVID-19 and now lack motivation and zeal to embrace online learning without the access they had before COVID-19. Others feared the unknown, something they did not have experience with, sufficient knowledge, and skills to handle online applications. Other institutions lack the necessary infrastructure to support online teaching and learning. In most developing countries, there is still a shortage of the latest technology. This impacts negatively on the responsiveness of institutions and students’ capacity to fully participate in digital learning. Poor network connection, especially in rural areas, led to frustrations and anxiety among students who failed to do their schoolwork. The “new normal” posed serious challenges to students who had to switch immediately to online learning. Some students from conventional institutions had to miss lessons, including examinations, which had to be written

130  Mmabaledi Seeletso online. Institutions are now faced with the challenge of upgrading technological infrastructure to support online learning. Lack of readily available funds, therefore, means that there could be no meaningful online activities undertaken during the pandemic. COVID-19 has resulted in educational isolation, leaving students with no access to physical learning environments. Online learning facilitated social communication and promoted physical distancing and then than social distancing (Kanno, 2020). Some institutions of higher learning experienced resistance to online learning and a lack of motivation. Some teachers resisted this rapid transformation and were not willing to change their normal practice. Some students and teachers were technophobic and had a negative attitude toward ICT, while others were discouraged because of the extra budget facing them, as they had to buy their own gadgets and pay for their own Internet connections. There was also an obvious mismatch of content/curriculum and the new mode of delivery. Most students have been taught content developed for a face-to-face mode of delivery. As such, this sudden change of teaching and learning brought a great mismatch between teaching and supporting students. Content that was developed and prepared for face-to-face delivery had to be offered online and may as such not adequately support technology-supported teaching and learning. The most affected was the assessment. While students were used to onsite assessment, they now had to sit for online assessments, including examinations. The sudden change of teaching and learning methodologies marked a complete departure or deviation from the norm. Adnan and Anwar (2020, p. 45) observed, “The lack of face-to-face interaction with the instructor, response time and absence of traditional classroom socialization were among some other issues highlighted by higher education students.” For some institutions students used to interact with teachers online, though at a very minimal scale. This interaction was now to replace face-to-face interaction and remained a challenge. Virtual classes became a turnoff to students who were used to face-to-face contact sessions and classroom socialization. There was a lack of campus interaction, lack of socialization, and delayed response from instructors, unlike immediate feedback from face-to-face sessions. Online learning did not have immediacy. Generally, both students and educators considered face-to-face more effective than online and distance learning due to the delays, especially on the provision of feedback. Real-time discussions and knowledge sharing suddenly became a challenge. Before COVID-19, many students have been dependent on university onsite resources such as electricity, reliable Wi-Fi, and a conducive environment to study in. With the study-at-home policy, students were deprived of such resources. COVID-19 made obvious the digital divide and inequality between institutions, as well as between students within the same institution. Some would be better equipped and more experienced than others.

Using Information Communication Technologies  131

Implications In this chapter, I explored the contribution of online learning to the education sector in the advent of COVID-19. I looked at learning experiences using ICTs during this time of the pandemic, as well as the challenges that the students and educators face. A study by Mailizar et al., (2020) found that there are challenges that need to be explored further that hinder students from achieving their learning goals if exposed to ODL mode from their normal face-to-face classes. It is, therefore, important for institutions to have a policy on curriculum review to cater to such eventualities. ODL institutions need to create cooperative environments to prepare for an online mode of delivery. From this study, it is clear that institutions need to collaborate rather than compete as education providers. Face-to-face universities may have not been prepared for online education, which was introduced as an immediate “quick fix” during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is now becoming clearer that institutions will make the online mode of teaching and learning part of their systems going forward. There should always be provision for ODL and distance education delivery. Teachers, even those in the conventional institutions, and students should always be ready to embrace alternative modes of teaching and learning deliveries, whether there are pandemic outbreaks or not. Institutions and Internet service providers need to have a conversation about the provision of education to students as a right. This would encourage Internet providers to facilitate the provision of zero-rated services for school content. Lynch (2020, p. 195) observed, We need to embrace these changes as a long-term response that will develop and improve over the next few years. That response should include the development of better infrastructure, policies, quality improvement, accessibility standards and strategic plans for continued access in the future. COVID-19 has, without argument, created an opportunity for ODL, which now has to vigorously introduce online learning to surely become an iconic brand in higher education.

Limitations This chapter was written when most countries were experiencing their second wave of COVID-19 and experiencing rising cases. However, it would have been ideal to note how the changes in learning institutions in response to health protocols impacted the teaching and learning experiences of both teachers and students and what lessons conventional institutions have learned from the pandemic.

132  Mmabaledi Seeletso

Bio Mmabaledi Seeletso, Ph.D., is Lecturer and Head of the Department of Educational Management and Leadership at Botswana Open University. Seeletso specializes in issues of open and distance learning content planning, design, and development, as well as assessment of tertiary programs for teacher education. Dr. Seeletso was a recipient of both the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship and the University of South Africa (UNISA) postdoctoral fellowship.

References Adam, T. (2020). The privilege of #pivotonline: A South African perspective. Open Development and Education. https://opendeved.net/2020/04/22/ the-privilege-of-pivotonline/ Adnan, M., & Anwar, K. (2020). Online learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Students’ perspectives. Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology, 2(1). http://www.doi.org/10.33902/JPSP.2020261309 Blaine, A. U. (2019). Interaction and presence in the virtual classroom: An analysis of the perceptions of students and teachers in online and blended advanced placement courses. Computers & Education, 132, 31–43. Domecini, V. (2020). Distance education in chemistry during the epidemic COVID-19. Substantia, 4(1). http://www.doi.org/10.10128/substantia-961 Gorsky, P., Caspi, A., & Trumper, R. (2004). Dialogue in a distance education physics course. Open Learning, 19(3), 265–277. Gorsky, P., Caspi, A., & Smidt, S. (2007). Use of instructional dialogue by university students in a difficult distance education physics course. Journal of Distance Education, 21(3), 1–22. Kanno, M. (2020). Maintaining and enhancing students’ collaborative learning in a Japanese EFL higher education context. Journal of Education, Innovation, and Communication, Special Issues, June 2020, 91–106. https://doi. org/10.34097/jeicom_SP_june2020_4 Lynch, M. (2020). E-Learning during a global pandemic. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 189–195. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3881785 Mailizar, A. A., Maulina, S., & Bruce, S. (2020). Secondary school mathematics teachers’ views on e-learning implementation barriers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The case of Indonesia. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 16(7), em1860. Malatyinszki, S. (2020). Experiencing digital education. Easy Chair (pre-print No.3674). Ratheeswan, K. (2018). Information communication technology in education. Journal of Applied and Advanced Research, 3(S1), 45. Renn, N., Maor, D., & McConney, A. (2016). Investigating teacher presence in courses using synchronous videoconferencing. Distance Education, 37(3), 302–316. Rowntree, D. (1990). Teaching through self-instruction: How to develop open learning materials. Kogan Page.

Using Information Communication Technologies  133 Seeletso, M. K. (2016). Instructional materials: Design and development as determiner of academic success of open and distance learners [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University of Pretoria. UNESCO (2020). COVID-19 impact on education. https://en.unesco.org/ covid19/educationresponse. Zheng, Y., Ma, Y., Zheng, J., & Xie, X. (2020). Cardio-vascular system. Nature Revies Cardiology, 17(259), 259–260. Zu, Z. Y., Di Jiang, M., Xu, P. P., Chen, W., Ni, Q. Q., Lu, G. M., & Zhang, L. J. (2020). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019): A perspective from China. Radiology, 296(2), E15–E25.

11 Suddenly Online How Russian Students Switched to Distance Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic Ivan Gruzdev, Evgeniia Shmeleva, Raman Kalinin, and Kseniia Vilkova Introduction In the middle of March 2020, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation issued an order requiring the universities to organize the learning process outside campuses because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As most Russian universities are public, they had to comply without question. This meant that Russian universities had to switch to fully online and to adjust the curriculum very quickly. Putting this order into effect proved to be quite difficult. Beyond the difficulties common to all countries, the educational system in Russia has some features that made this sudden transition, from face-to-face to distance learning, especially challenging. There are at least three reasons why organizing distance learning was a struggle for the Russian higher education system. First, the institutional landscape of the educational system is highly diverse. A high level of heterogeneity of universities was historically planned (Kuzminov et al., 2013) by supporting the most promising of them with extra funding and exacerbating academic excellence programs that favor these universities.1 It led to the increasing heterogeneity among Russian universities in terms of availability of resources, professional qualification of faculty, and the experience of using digital technology. It was clear that switching to online would not equally transition across all institutions, and some of them would find it challenging. The second reason is that the majority of faculty members were critical of online technology in the learning process before the COVID-19 pandemic (Ajmaletdinov et al., 2019). The results of a qualitative study, which was carried out in January and February 2020 (Abramov et al., 2020), suggest that even the faculties from the leading Russian universities are skeptical about including online courses in the curriculum. They see very few benefits of the university learning management systems and, generally, tend to consider digital and online educational tools as a threat to the quality of the learning process.

Suddenly Online  135 The third reason deals with the features of the curriculum in most higher education programs within the Russian Federation. According to data gathered within the Student Experience in the Research University Consortium (2015), undergraduate students at HSE University Moscow (the only Russian institution that takes part in the Consortium) spend much more time in classrooms, compared to students at U.S. or European universities. A large proportion of traditional face-to-face lectures within the curriculum is typical for most Russian universities. Thus, going online touched upon an essential part of the entire learning process. All the aforementioned issues make especially relevant the analysis of problems that emerged when face-to-face learning was replaced by the distance mode. Such an analysis can be done from different perspectives. In this chapter, we touch upon these issues from the perspective of undergraduate students from various Russian universities. More precisely, we focus on the difficulties that students faced during distance learning and discover what factors lie behind the satisfaction from their learning experience. Using survey data collected in late May 2020, we reveal several factors that explain some differences in the distance learning experience in Russian universities during the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss them in the context of further prospects for online education. Throughout the chapter, we use the term “distance learning” instead of “online learning” because we consider both the online and offline experience of students yet focus mostly on the former. The term also covers all the learning practices that students and instructors were involved in during the lockdown. As it turned out, all the parties of the learning process implemented various ways to organize it remotely. For instance, some lectures were held on Skype and Zoom, while students and instructors mostly communicated via emails and social networks. At the same time, some universities recommended using their learning management systems or online platforms. Finally, some lecturers just sent the study materials and literature to the students, stopping any interactive communication with them.

Literature Review Digitalization in Russian Universities before the COVID-19 Pandemic In recent decades, digital technologies have drastically changed traditional higher education (Glazier & Harris, 2020), resulting in the adoption of online learning in institutions of higher education and investment in infrastructure for digitalization. These changes were mostly influenced by government initiatives (Tømte et al., 2019). In line with this trend, the Russian government has launched a project called “Modern Digital Educational Environment in the Russian Federation.” The project aims to increase the number of students taking online courses to 11 million by

136  Ivan Gruzdev et al. the end of 2025 (Proekt “Sovremennaja cifrovaja obrazovatel'naja sreda v Rossijskoj Federacii,” 2015). However, there has been limited implementation of online courses prior to the pandemic. Roschina et al. (2018) indicated that, in 2016, 74% of Russian students had never heard of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In 2019, only one-third of instructors stated that they used digital technologies during the learning process (Ajmaletdinov et al., 2019). Research by Klyagin et al. (2020), specified that 26% of programs in Russian universities cannot be implemented in a distance or online format since the learning process during these programs is practically oriented. Despite government initiatives, online learning was not a common part of the student experience before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Student Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 crisis has caused a significant disruption in student learning experiences. Researchers indicate that, during spring 2020, students experienced a wide range of obstacles related to poor Internet connection, an unfavorable study environment at home (Kapasia et al., 2020), and a sense of stress, anxiety, and loneliness (Elmer et al., 2020). These problems were also common among students from the USA (Aucejo et al., 2020), India (Kapasia et al., 2020), and Switzerland (Elmer et al., 2020). Similar results were derived from surveys of Russian students (Aleshkovskiy et al., 2020; Zener & Oshkina, 2020). Research shows that the effects of the pandemic on students are heterogeneous, and some students may be at higher risk of facing difficulties. The differences were observed in students’ expectations of difficulties in the new format, as well as in actual challenges that occurred during the distance learning. For instance, Larionova et al. (2020) found that at the beginning of the pandemic, several categories of students were more likely to expect difficulties in learning under distance learning: freshmen and sophomores, students with lower self-regulated learning skills, intrinsically motivated students, and students who expected challenges with student-faculty communication. These are important findings since the students who have doubts about their abilities to cope with learning show also lower engagement and lower performance in both traditional and distance learning (Honicke & Broadbent 2016; Jung & Lee 2018; Vayre &Vonthron, 2019). Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic had a larger negative effect on students with lower socioeconomic status (Aucejo et al., 2020) since they are more prone to experience technical problems or lack a favorable studying environment at home (Kapasia et al., 2020). The effect of the pandemic on student experiences has also varied for different majors. During the lockdown, some of the students majoring in chemical engineering, education, and clinical medicine were not able to complete courses in the online format (Klyagin et al., 2020). As a result, Russian

Suddenly Online  137 students from applied sciences were not able to form and develop practical skills during the spring term (Zakharova et al., 2020).

Students’ Preferences for Course Format Recent research indicates that student distance learning experience during the pandemic affected students’ preferences for the course format. Aucejo et al. (2020) specify a decrease in the students’ perceived likelihood of taking online classes in the future. However, we do not have much information about students’ preferences for instructional format during the COVID-19 pandemic. To put this issue in context, we survey the research that was made before the pandemic. There have been tremendous efforts to make traditional higher education more digitalized. Despite the massive integration of MOOCs and digital services into universities, still, a lot of students prefer face-to-face classes over distance education. Course preferences are related to issues involving student demographics, self-regulated learning skills, and learning outcomes. There are some demographic and educational characteristics of students, such as age, occupation, online learning experience, socioeconomic status, and major. According to Tichavsky et al. (2015), students enrolled in online classes tend to be older and have full-time jobs compared to students enrolled in face-to-face classes. These students preferred the framework of online classes, regardless of individual experiences (Artino, 2010). Self-regulated learning skills can also shape students’ preferences. Most students think that online learning requires more self-teaching (Weldy, 2018), and students with higher self-efficacy tend to prefer taking online classes instead of face-to-face (Artino, 2010). Establishing positive relations with peers and instructors still requires face-to-face communication; however, students advocate online learning for the opportunity to receive faster feedback from instructors (Paechter & Maier, 2010). Learning outcomes, which students expect to receive, are related to students’ preferences for the learning format. According to Weldy (2018), students believe that they retain less information during online learning. This may be explained by the fact that students tend to spend less time learning online and experience a lack of communication with peers and instructors compared with face-to-face classes. While the shift to distance learning made in the spring of 2020 was devastating to many students, it has been addressing a number of difficulties we mentioned before. However, it is not clear how particular difficulties, which students had during the COVID-19 crisis, may affect their preference for distance learning in the future. The purpose of our study is twofold. First, we aim to identify students who are more likely to encounter difficulties during distance learning. Second, we are going to describe the characteristics of students who prefer distance learning over face-to-face.

138  Ivan Gruzdev et al.

Research Method Participants The data were gathered with an online survey during the last week of May 2020 among the full-time undergraduate students from Russian universities (N = 22 699). The respondents were recruited through three channels: administrative mailing (65% of the sample), advertising in social network services (29%), and the online opt-in panel of students (6%). The nonrandom sample consists of students from 714 universities (74% of institutions), with a median number of students per university equaling four (M = 33, SD = 156). The median age of the students is 19; the share of male students is 32%. We used 17,618 observations for the analysis after deleting the observations with missing values.

Analytical Strategy The analysis consists of three parts. First, we use principal component analysis to identify the groups of difficulties for students during distance learning in spring 2020. We used a checkbox question, “Do you have any difficulties with the distance learning format?” with 13 types of difficulties, including the option, “The distance learning format does not cause any difficulties for me” (Table 11.1). The “distance learning” definition Table 11.1  Difficulties with the Distance Learning Format (N = 17,618). Difficulty The distance learning format does not cause any difficulties for me. It is difficult for me to find a convenient place for distance learning. I don’t have any suitable devices (for example, a computer with an Internet connection). I find it difficult to understand the interface of online courses and programs. I find it difficult to keep my attention when watching video lectures. It is difficult for me to concentrate when studying the study material on my own. It is difficult for me to ask questions to the instructors in the absence of offline communication. It is difficult for me to answer the instructor’s questions and clarify what I do not understand. I can’t discuss the study material with my classmates. I experience a lack of communication with my classmates. I experience a lack of face-to-face discussions with instructors. I feel more alone and isolated. It is difficult for me to study at home. There are technical problems and interruptions to the Internet connection. Note. Question: Do you have any difficulties with the distance learning format?

Share in % 12.7 24.4 9.5 11.9 29.9 40.4 37.3 36.6 22.3 45.2 42.2 32.0 41.2 54.5

Suddenly Online  139 wasn’t directly provided in the question itself, but it was understandable in the context of the previous questions of the survey. Second, we estimated the differences in the values of the extracted factors between different groups of students using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-tests. Third, to identify the characteristics of students who prefer distance learning over offline learning, we use binary logistic regression. The model estimates the coefficients for student educational and sociodemographic characteristics, the factors indicating student difficulties with distance learning, and their beliefs about distance learning. To identify the students who prefer distance learning over traditional face-to-face learning, we used a variable, indicating the degree to which the students agree to the following statement, “I like distance learning more than face-to-face learning” (Table 11.2). This initially 5-point Table 11.2  Independent Variables (N = 17,618). Variables

Share in %

Sociodemographic characteristics Male Employed Socioeconomic status, category 1 Socioeconomic status, category 2 Socioeconomic status, category 3 Socioeconomic status, category 4

31.6 29.3 16.3 22.7 54.2 6.8

Educational characteristics Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 and 5 State funding Mathematical and natural sciences Social sciences Computer science Engineering, technology, technical sciences Education and pedagogical sciences Humanities Arts and culture Health and medical sciences Other majors Grades in the last session: only A’s Grades in the last session: mostly B’s and some A’s Grades in the last session: mostly A’s and B’s but some C’s Grades in the last session: mostly C’s

31.7 25.4 21.7 21.2 72.0 10.5 12.8 11.5 18.8 6.6 8.7 5.4 12.0 13.7 22.5 43.6 18.9 15.0

Beliefs about distance learning and satisfaction My learning has become less effective during the distance format of education I am satisfied with the way how distance learning was organized at my university

62.2 23.4

140  Ivan Gruzdev et al. Likert scale variable (from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree” with an option “Do not know”) was dichotomized so that options “Strongly agree” and “Somewhat agree” were coded as “1,” others including “Do not know” were coded as “0.” Three groups of independent variables were used: (1) student educational characteristics (a type of funding, year of study, major, and academic performance (grades)), (2) sociodemographic characteristics (gender, the status of employment, socioeconomic status), and (3) factors reflecting types of difficulties occurring during distance learning. The socioeconomic status was measured with the question, “How do you assess the financial situation of your family?” with four options: – We live very sparingly; we have enough money for daily expenses, but buying clothes is already difficult (category 1 in the following analysis). – There is enough money for food and clothing, but buying large appliances without applying for a loan is problematic (category 2). – We are secure, but we cannot afford expensive purchases (travel, car, etc.) without applying for a loan or saving the necessary amount (category 3). – We can easily afford to buy a car or an expensive vacation (category 4). The student’s satisfaction with the experience of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic was measured with the question, “How satisfied are you with the way distance learning is organized at your university?”, with a five-point Likert scale from “Absolutely not satisfied” to “Absolutely satisfied” with the neutral option “Do not know.” The belief about the effectiveness of distance learning was measured by the statement, “My learning has become less effective during distance education,” to which students could express the degree of their agreement on a five-point Likert scale (from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree” with an option of “Do not know”). These variables were dichotomized so that options “Strongly agree”/ “Absolutely satisfied” and “Somewhat agree”/ “Somewhat satisfied” were coded as “1”; others, including the neutral option, were coded as “0.” The distributions of the independent variables are presented in Table 11.2.

Results Difficulties of Distance Learning Only 13% of students did not indicate any of the problems related to the distance learning format. On average, students tended to choose not a single but several problems at a time. The most common difficulties during distance learning are technical problems related to the Internet

Suddenly Online  141 connection (55%), a lack of communication with peer students (45%) and instructors (42%), difficulties with concentrating on learning material (40%), and studying at home (41%). The least common difficulties are a lack of suitable devices for distance learning (10%) and difficulties with understanding the interface of online courses and programs (12%; see Table 11.3). As a result of principal component analysis, four components were extracted, accounting for 55% of the total variance in the selected variables. The first factor, “Difficulties related to student-student interactions,” has higher correlations with the variables indicating the difficulties related to interactions with peers. The second factor, “Difficulties with self-regulated learning,” correlates more with the variables referring to the difficulties with concentration and focus while studying. The third factor, “Difficulties related to student-faculty interactions,” correlates with the variables indicating difficulties related to communication with faculty. And the fourth factor, “Technical difficulties,” correlates with the variables related to technical issues, Internet connection, and a lack of suitable devices for distance learning. The items, factors, and values of Cronbach’s alpha showing the degree of internal consistency are presented in Table 11.4. The factor loadings are omitted for the sake of brevity.

Difficulties of Distance Learning The results of the ANOVA tests and t-tests showing the differences in the four types of difficulties across different types of students are presented in Table 11.5. The students from families with lower socioeconomic status, students earlier in their studies, students who believe that distance learning is less effective than face-to-face learning, and those who are not satisfied with the way it was organized at their university indicate more difficulties across all four types of problems.

Table 11.3  Dependent Variable – Preference for Distance Learning over Traditional Face-to-Face Learning in Original and Binary Format (N = 16,718).

Strongly agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree Do not know

Share in the Original Variable (in %)

Share in the Binary Variable (in %)

10.1 19.2 28.6 35.5 6.7

29.3 70.7

Note. Question: Indicate the degree to which you are agree with the following statement: I like distance learning more than face-to-face learning

142  Ivan Gruzdev et al. Table 11.4  Factors (N = 17,618). Factors

Difficulties

Difficulties related I can’t discuss the study material with my classmates. to student-student I experience a lack of communication with my interactions (α = 66) classmates. I feel more alone and isolated. Difficulties with selfI find it difficult to keep my attention when watching regulated learning video lectures. It is difficult for me to concentrate when studying the (α = 63) study material on my own. It is difficult for me to study at home. Difficulties related Is it difficult for me to ask questions to the instructors in to student-faculty the absence of offline communication? interactions (α = 63) Is it difficult for me to answer the instructor's questions and clarify what I do not understand? I experience a lack of face-to-face discussions with instructors. Technical difficulties It is difficult for me to find a convenient place for (α = 52) distance learning. I don’t have any suitable devices (for example, a computer with an Internet connection). I find it difficult to understand the interface of online courses and programs. There are technical problems and interruptions to the Internet connection.

The results also show that student academic performance is positively related to difficulties with the problems with student-student interactions and negatively with difficulties due to a lack of self-regulated learning skills. The students with higher academic performance experienced more problems related to peer-to-peer communication and fewer problems with self-regulated learning. Technical issues are more common among students who pay tuition compared to the students with state funding, male students compared to female students, and students majoring in arts and culture. Not employed students experience more difficulties related to self-regulated learning and student-faculty interactions compared to employed students. A lack of communication with peers is most common for students majoring in arts and culture and least common for students majoring in computer science. Difficulties concerning self-regulated learning are most common for students majoring in humanities and arts and culture and least common for students studying pedagogics. A lack of communication with faculty is more common for engineering students and less common for students majoring in education and pedagogical sciences.

Suddenly Online  143 Table 11.5  Factor Scores by Student Characteristics (N = 17,618).

Male Female SES category 1 SES category 2 SES category 3 SES category 4 Paid tuition State funding Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 and 5 Mathematical and natural sciences Social sciences Computer science Engineering, technology, technical sciences Education and pedagogical sciences Humanities Arts and culture Health and medical sciences Other majors Grades in last session: only A’s Grades in last session: mostly B’s and some A’s Grades in last session: mostly A’s and B’s but some C’s Grades in last session: mostly C’s Not employed Employed Distance learning format is not less effective Distance learning format is less effective

Difficulties Related to Student-Student Interactions

Difficulties with SelfRegulated Learning

Difficulties Technical Related to Difficulties Student-Faculty Interactions

0.06*** −0.14 0.10*** 0.01 −0.02 −0.05 0.01 0.00 0.09*** 0.02 −0.03 −0.13 0.04***

0.01 −0.02 0.13*** 0.06 −0.04 −0.18 0.01 −0.01 0.22*** 0.08 −0.04 −0.38 0.10***

−0.01 0.01 0.19*** 0.04 −0.05 −0.20 −0.02 0.01 0.08*** 0.05 0.02 −0.20 0.06***

0.06*** -0.13 0.49*** 0.12 −0.16 −0.27 0.12*** −0.05 0.04*** 0.01 −0.01 −0.06 0.04***

0.04 −0.19 −0.03

0.04 0.04 0.06

−0.04 −0.05 0.25

0.01 −0.24 −0.16

−0.09

−0.22

−0.19

0.14

0.14 0.29 0.03

0.14 0.12 −0.18

−0.07 0.02 −0.08

0.12 0.24 0.04

−0.05 0.11***

−0.12 −0.15***

−0.11 0.00

0.11 −0.08***

0.02

−0.03

0.00

−0.01

−0.03

0.11

0.04

0.04

−0.19

0.15

0.02

0.10

0.00 0.01 −0.46***

0.02*** −0.06 −0.65***

0.01 −0.01 −0.54***

−0.02 0.05 −0.27***

0.28

0.40

0.33

0.16

144  Ivan Gruzdev et al. Table 11.5­  (Continued) Difficulties Related to Student-Student Interactions Not satisfied with the way distance learning was organized at university Satisfied with the way distance learning was organized at university

Difficulties with SelfRegulated Learning

Difficulties Technical Related to Difficulties Student-Faculty Interactions

0.13***

0.13***

0.19***

0.09***

−0.41

−0.44

−0.65

−0.29

Note *** −p < 0.01 ** − < 0.05 * −p < 0.1. The significance levels are presented for the whole variables, not the separate categories.

Regression Results The results of the regression analysis are presented in Table 11.4. The model has high prediction accuracy (area under ROC curve = 81%) and explains 22% of the variation in preferences for distance learning. The mean VIF value of 1.17 indicates a low level of multicollinearity. All the factors indicating the difficulties substantially decrease the preferences for distance learning. The difficulties related to student-student interactions differentiate the student preferences at the highest rate (OR = 0.626) and technical issues at the lowest rate (OR = 0.928). Preference for distance learning is also related to beliefs about the effectiveness of online learning and satisfaction with the way distance learning was organized at their university: the students who believe their learning did not become less effective and who are satisfied with the arrangements at their university are more likely to prefer distance learning over offline learning (OR = 0.355 and OR = 2.328, respectively). The results show no differences across the years of studying except for the third-year undergraduate students who prefer distance learning compared to first-year students. The students with the lowest academic performance (getting mostly C’s) are almost twice (OR = 1.813) as likely to prefer distance learning compared to students getting only A’s. Employed students are slightly more likely to prefer distance learning (1.240). Socioeconomic status does not differentiate student preferences for distance learning. Males and students paying tuition are slightly less likely to prefer distance learning. The preferences for distance learning over offline do not vary much across the majors, except computer sciences, indicating the highest chances of preferences (Table 11.6).

Suddenly Online  145 Table 11.6  Regression Results (N = 17,618). Construct

Odds ratio

Difficulties related to student-student interactions

0.626*** (0.011) 0.793*** (0.014) 0.870*** (0.016) 0.928*** (0.017) 0.355*** (0.015) 2.328***

Difficulties with self-regulated learning Difficulties related to student-faculty interactions Technical difficulties Belief that learning became less effective during distance learning Satisfaction with the way distance learning was organized at university Constant McFadden’s Adj R2 Area under ROC curve

(0.102) 0.259*** (0.029) 0.22 0.81

Note *** − adjusted p < 0.0004, ** − adjusted p < 0.002, * − adjusted p < 0.004. The significance thresholds were adjusted using Bonferroni correction to reduce the chances of Type I error. We followed Maloshonok (2020) for the procedure. The following variables were omitted from the tables for the sake of brevity: gender, type of funding, socioeconomic status, major, year of study, academic performance, status of employment.

Discussion and Conclusions This study aimed to explore the difficulties that students faced when distance learning was suddenly thrust upon them at Russian public universities because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the attempts of the Russian government to accelerate the digitalization of the national education system, the universities were not completely ready for the sudden transition into distance learning. The problems that Russian universities experienced during the COVID-19 lockdown did not noticeably differ from universities in other countries, and the types of problems students faced are also quite similar (Agasisti & Soncin 2021; de Boer 2021; Jung et al., 2021; Tamrat, 2021; Yang & Huang, 2021). According to our results, Russian students faced communication issues with other students and faculty, difficulties related to self-regulated learning skills, and technical problems. However, the reaction of students to restrictions implemented due to COVID-19 has some interesting peculiarities. For instance, students’ satisfaction levels remained quite high: 59% claimed they were satisfied or almost satisfied by the way distance learning was organized at their university. Despite the fact that most students in

146  Ivan Gruzdev et al. Russia had access to the Internet prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the technical problem relating to poor Internet connection is the most common one. Yet other problems, such as lack of communication with other students and instructors, as well as difficulties relating to concentration, were also highly pronounced. However, the magnitude of these problems varies across different groups of students. There are some categories of students who are more vulnerable because they experience more problems than others. These include first-year students and students with lower socioeconomic backgrounds. These findings are consistent with previous research about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on students from different socioeconomic backgrounds (Aucejo et al., 2020). To our surprise, according to our data, students majoring in engineering and technology (excluding computer science students) also experienced the whole spectrum of problems. This might be due to the practical sides of the courses related to these majors. There are certain groups of students who experience only one or several kinds of problems but not others. For example, students with higher academic performance tend to experience more problems related to a lack of communication with peers; at the same time, they rarely faced difficulties with the faculty, self-regulation, and technical issues. These results are in a line with the research by Lindner and Harris (1993), showing that the ability to self-regulate the learning process relates to students’ GPA. Naturally, communication with peers cannot be compensated by good discipline only. Conversely, employed students claimed fewer problems related to self-regulation and communication with faculty. It seems that they might be more satisfied with distance learning because it allows them to combine their work and studies, spending less time on the route between their work and university. Although most of the students experienced some of the considered problems, there was still a third of students who preferred distance online learning to traditional face-to-face learning. The perceived quality of institutional readiness to provide and support the conditions for distance learning is related to the aforementioned difficulties, which are more common for the students who are not satisfied with the way that their university arranged the distance learning. Similarly, the difficulties also correlate with the student belief that online education is less efficient than face-to-face format. Therefore, it is not surprising that students who experienced fewer problems during the lockdown are more likely to prefer distance learning over face-to-face.

Bios Ivan Gruzdev is the Director for Institutional Research and Student Academic Development at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. His major research interests lie in the area of

Suddenly Online  147 university dropouts, student success, student networks, and governing boards in higher education. Evgeniia Shmeleva is a Ph.D. candidate and a Research Fellow at the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education, Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Her major research interests lie in the area of student academic dishonesty, student attrition, online learning, and integration of educational technologies at the secondary level of education. Raman Kalinin is a Ph.D. candidate and a Junior Research Fellow at the Centre for Institutional Research, National Research University Higher School of Economics. His major research interests lie in the area of judgments about justice, reactions to injustice, and underlying social processes. Kseniia Vilkova is a Ph.D. candidate and a Junior Research Fellow at the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education, Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Her major research interests lie in the area of online learning, retention in Massive Open Online Courses, and self-regulated learning.

Note 1 https://www.5top100.ru/en/

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Part III

COVID-19 as a Catalyst of Change – Lessons for the Longer Term

12 Could COVID-19 be a Catalyst for Disruption in Higher Education? Raffaella Borasi, Richard DeMartino, Nathan Harris and Dave Miller Introduction In the early 2010s, the growth of for-profit online universities, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and stackable certificates led to dire predictions for traditional higher education institutions (HEI). For example, Michael Horn, cofounder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, stated, “I think 25% of schools will fail in the next two decades…. It’s going to be brutal across American higher education” (CBS News, 2019, para 3). Indeed, online courses and programs have increased dramatically over the last two decades. In 2018, 35% of all undergraduate students (over 5.5 million) enrolled in at least one distance course (U.S. Department of Education, 2019), compared to 8% in 1999 (Walton-Radford & Weko, 2011). The COVID-19 forced move to remote teaching may further accelerate future adoption of online learning, raising the question, Will online technologies become a “disruptive technology” (Christensen, 2013) for higher education, similar to what digital cameras have been for photography? Christensen described the “disruptive technology” phenomenon as follows: • A new technology makes it possible to develop a significantly cheaper solution of lower quality but with new functionalities – thus appealing to a new group of customers. • Overtime, with technology advances, the quality and functionalities of the new solution improve, while price decreases. • A tipping point is reached when the new solution’s quality and functionalities become comparable to those of the traditional solution – so even customers used to the traditional solution will switch, making the traditional solution obsolete. Christensen also observed that powerful forces within established firms and organizations tend to resist the adoption of new technologies, causing them to stick to traditional solutions until it is too late. First, incumbent

154  Raffaella Borasi et al. firms are hesitant to abandon the very products and operations that made them successful (referred to as the “Innovator’s Dilemma”). Radical innovations may also require changes in internal norms, thinking, and processes, thus causing further resistance. In this chapter, informed by this conceptualization of “disruptive technology,” we first evaluate whether online solutions are sufficiently advanced to potentially cause a “tipping point,” assuming a pedagogical perspective to examine how the quality of online offerings (broadly defined) has changed over time and may be further affected by this pandemic. We then move to examine conflicting business and marketing factors affecting customer demand and acceptance of alternative higher education products and the potential impact of COVID-19 on them. Finally, we turn to higher education organizational theory to examine the forces operating within HEIs (as the “incumbent firms” in this case) that can help explain higher education’s resistance to widespread adoption of online solutions so far and the possible post-COVID implications. The chapter ends with considerations that we hope will inform HEIs’ post-COVID decisions about leveraging online solutions.

Literature Review and Conceptual Analysis Is the Quality of Online Alternative Solutions Close to What Is Needed for a “Tipping Point”? According to Christensen’s model of technology disruption, a “tipping point” is reached when most consumers perceive the new technologyenabled solution as comparable in quality to the traditional solution – in addition to being more affordable and having new valuable functionalities. For higher education today, the “new solution” is represented by the options offered by a growing number and variety of online offerings – a term we use to encompass a wide range of learning opportunities that leverage online teaching technologies. Examples include credit-bearing online courses offered by traditional residential colleges and for-profit online universities, non-credit-bearing online professional development provided by various entities, and “free” MOOCs. Using pedagogical considerations and building on the rich literature of empirical studies about online teaching and learning, we argue that the quality of online offerings is now on par with comparable traditional offerings and that the remote teaching experienced during the pandemic may lead more key stakeholders to this realization. A Pedagogical Analysis of the Quality of Online Offerings over Time Early online offerings had many limitations, as they mostly consisted of video-recorded lectures followed by online quizzes, only allowed for asynchronous communications between teacher and students, and used notso-user-friendly platforms to access materials. Despite these limitations,

Could COVID-19 be a Catalyst  155 early online courses opened up new markets for postsecondary education, as they offered not only cheaper options but also new functionalities, such as flexibility in time, location, and access – each extremely valuable for nontraditional populations, such as stay-at-home parents, people with jobs, or home-bound individuals. Thanks to rapid advances in digital technologies, however, the design quality of online offerings has dramatically increased. Today’s sophisticated learning management systems make it easy to organize, access, and interact with diverse content and activities. Synchronous sessions allow students and teachers to interact in real time as a class or in small groups. Online courses can also include animations and virtual simulations to better understand complex phenomena. While some experiential learning and sensitive discussions may be better served face-to-face, the pedagogical quality of well-designed online courses today is equal – and in some cases even superior – to equivalent face-to-face courses. It is important to note, though, that higher quality in design also involves higher costs, as more faculty time and technology investments are needed to design quality online courses than traditional courses – as personally experienced by one of the authors in her previous role as dean! Since the cost of delivering an online course is still dependent on the faculty-student ratio, savings can occur only if HEIs are willing to significantly change that ratio (Poulin & Taylor Straut, 2017). Another dimension of quality we should consider is the learning outcomes achieved by students who complete online offerings. While comparing learning outcomes in online versus face-to-face offerings is challenging, there is an extensive body of research on this topic. Meta-analysis of those studies concluded that online versus face-to-face delivery does not have a significant impact per se; rather, learning outcomes are more affected by the quality of the design and implementation of the course (Nguyen, 2015; Zhao et al., 2005). This, in turn, highlights the importance of faculty preparation to teach online. Another possible measure of quality is the student completion rate of online versus face-to-face offerings. Empirical evidence suggests a lower completion rate in online courses than face-to-face offerings. This is especially true for MOOCs – as, for example, a median completion rate of 12.6% was reported in a study of 221 MOOCs (Jordan, 2015); since completion is not a goal for most MOOC students, though, this measure may not be meaningful in this case. Statistically significant lower completion rates in credit-bearing online versus traditional courses have also been reported (Atchley et al., 2013), suggesting that online students may encounter unique obstacles. Indeed, research has shown that motivation, time management skills, self-directedness, and a minimum of technical skills are prerequisites for success as an online student (Kauffman, 2015). Therefore, evaluating the quality of a HEI’s online offerings should include a review of the support provided to its online students.

156  Raffaella Borasi et al. COVID-19 Implications on the Perception of Online Offerings While the previous analysis suggests a comparable quality of online and traditional offerings was already reached pre-COVID-19, the emergency remote teaching caused by the pandemic may have implications for stakeholders’ perceptions of such quality. On the one hand, the sudden move to online teaching in spring 2020 allowed little time for training and support, thus producing online courses of variable quality, which may negatively affect overall perceptions about online alternatives. On the other hand, social distancing restrictions are making “traditional courses” and residential programs less desirable – as everyone must wear masks in class, in-person group work is compromised, extracurricular activities are significantly reduced, and concerns about health safety may interfere with learning. In these circumstances, students’ evaluation of the relative quality and desirability of online alternatives may increase – especially at HEIs that made investments in faculty training and technology infrastructure. Are Student Demand and Acceptance of Online Offerings Close to What Is Needed for a “Tipping Point”? Reaching a “tipping point” in Christensen’s model of technology disruption also requires that most potential customers be willing to switch to the new technology-enabled solution. This calls for examining customer demand and acceptance of alternative online higher education products through a business lens. While much of traditional higher education is confounded by intense government subsidies, oblique price and benefit scenarios, and cultural norms, business research concepts and tools can help us understand why existing products/services that leverage digital technologies have not yet led to the predicted disruption of higher education and derive other implications of the current pandemic. A Business Analysis of Forces Affecting Customer Demand and Acceptance of Online Alternatives Dramatically increased costs of traditional college education have caused students and parents to assume considerable student loans, thus impacting early adult life decisions about purchasing a home, lifestyle-work balance, and even when to start a family. As a result, students and families are seeking to understand the opaque “return on investment” (ROI) of specific HEI programs (Carnevale et al., 2019; Pew Research Center, 2011). While policy makers and scholars have long substantiated the returns on higher education for students (Cappelli, 2020; Hout, 2012), a surprising percentage of students, parents, and the general public (upwards of 50% in some surveys) no longer view higher education as a worthy investment (Dann, 2017; Gallup, 2015).

Could COVID-19 be a Catalyst  157 Potential customer dissatisfaction with the cost/value of higher education, combined with the widespread availability of online educational products and college-age students’ comfort with technology, would suggest a market ripe for change. Yet other forces have so far prevented postsecondary students and their families from giving full consideration to cheaper online alternatives. These include risk considerations, a general lack of knowledge of alternative approaches to traditional higher education, cultural perceptions reinforced by parents and school counselors, and uncertain price differentials, as elaborated next. Risk Reduction. In terms of time and resources, a college education is one of the most substantial investments individuals make. How do students and parents assure their degrees have value? Educational standardization, accreditation, rankings, institutional reputation, and community social acceptance all contribute to reducing customer risk to some degree. Employers also play a central role in the reduction of consumer risk. Current hiring and promotion processes show that companies’ still value traditional baccalaureate degrees from high-profile institutions, thus providing important support for traditional programs – as alternative credentials, while having some acceptance in the technology (primarily software) industry, have failed to gain broad acceptance among employers. Pathways Knowledge. Even consumers interested in leveraging online alternatives for higher education lack the knowledge to navigate the best pathways to achieve their goals. The pathways offered by traditional universities are well-known and accepted. In contrast, there is yet no clearinghouse of information for valuable curricular and employee skill needs, nor credentialing methods to assure learning outcomes that could assuage the concerns of both learners and employers. This barrier to reform motivated Christensen and Eyring (2011) to argue that accreditation should focus on courses and competencies, instead of degrees. Cultural Perceptions. Perhaps the most significant barrier, particularly among the upper- and middle-income classes, is the perception that the process of professional and social success is associated with a traditional residential baccalaureate degree. In a culture where parents, friends, and high school counselors have all navigated this process, the traditional pathway becomes more than an expectation – it becomes an imperative. Price Differentials. Uncertain price differentials also hinder higher education choices. While some graduate markets benefited from cost reduction associated with online delivery modes, universities mostly employ online courses for convenience rather than cost reduction. Pricing is further complicated by the “bundling” of many services in the tuition costs of residential HEIs – including (beyond the delivery of instruction) an increasing number of student services, extracurricular activities, expensive infrastructures, and even the cost of research and services to the community. It is also worth considering that demand for higher education is not monolithic. For example, adult and continuous learning customers have

158  Raffaella Borasi et al. embraced the online educational modality much more than traditional baccalaureate programs given the value they associate with higher flexibility and convenience because of their work and family responsibilities. In contrast, traditional baccalaureate customers enter university with very different educational desires and motivations (Horn & Moesta, 2019). COVID-19 Potential Impact on Customer Demand and Acceptance As previously summarized, so far, many negative forces have balanced postsecondary students and their influencers’ desires for more affordable alternatives to HEIs’ traditional programs – thus effectively decreasing their acceptance of nontraditional options and delaying a “tipping point.” While not directly affecting risk reduction, pathway knowledge, or cultural perceptions, students’ personal experiences of online learning during the pandemic may dispel common misconceptions, thus making them more open to online-based alternatives. Even more importantly, the crisis surrounding the pandemic will inevitably make students and their families even more price sensitive. The ROI of a traditional residential college experience may be further challenged as campus reopenings in the fall of 2020 have curtailed many extracurricular and social activities that are an integral part of the value offered by residential colleges – thus potentially making students and their families more reluctant to pay current high costs. These developments may force HEIs to reconsider their pricing models in order to stay in business – especially when considering the already predicted decrease in college enrollment due to increased college costs and changed demographics. In particular, there may be pressures for HEIs to “de-bundle” tuition prices so as to provide more affordable alternatives to students who want the academic quality and credentials offered by highprestige universities but are willing to do without other aspects of a residential experience. This, in turn, may lead HEIs to try out new business models that would have been inconceivable pre-COVID-19. Which Internal Dynamics Are Contributing to HEIs’ Responses to Online Innovations? From the experience of industries disrupted by digital technologies, as examined in “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (Christensen, 2013), we can expect that traditional HEIs (as the “incumbent firms” in this case) will face internal resistance toward embracing new technology innovations that challenge their existing norms and practices. It is therefore important to turn to the field of higher education organizational theory to better understand key forces at play within HEIs that may affect acceptance of and/or resistance to online solutions. To help explain why faculty and administration resistance to online education has been so impactful so far

Could COVID-19 be a Catalyst  159 and how that resistance may be affected by this pandemic, in this section, we examine the origin and influence of faculty authority over academic affairs, along with the circumscribed authority of senior administrators. This requires the introduction of key concepts and theories from higher education organizational theory that are particularly relevant to explaining these phenomena – most notably professional bureaucracy, decentralization, and revenue-centered budget models. An Organizational Dynamics Analysis of What Has Contributed to HEIs’ Adoption of and Resistance to Online Education so Far The curious organizational realities of colleges and universities begin by considering faculty authority over academic affairs and the circumscribed authority of senior administrators. First, a special form of bureaucratic structure, professional bureaucracy (Mintzberg, 1979), describes the organizational design of most universities. The foundational features of bureaucracy – standardizing work by instituting policies and procedures and creating a vertical hierarchy of managers to monitor and evaluate work – cannot efficiently accommodate the complexity and diversity of teaching and research across a university. Even a skilled administrator would unlikely possess sufficient expertise to evaluate specific, even idiosyncratic, details of teaching and research across many unrelated disciplines. To address this conundrum, the professionals – professors, in concert with colleagues who serve as department chairs – assume authority for most decisions associated with teaching and research, including curricular and programmatic decisions (Lattuca & Stark, 2009; Lombardi, 2013). Second, the specialization of expertise by academic discipline, which forms the foundation of professional authority, necessitates a high degree of decentralization in HEIs. While HEIs have developed centralized bureaucracies to support administrative and student services, the academic core remains fragmented by academic specializations in the form of different departments and schools, resembling an “academic holding company” or “a federation of quasi-autonomous subunits” (Birnbaum, 1988, p. 17). Academic departments and schools within the same institution can look and feel quite different from each other by preserving their own missions and identities, developing their own structures (e.g., procedures), and cultivating their own cultures (e.g., norms). Weick (1976) describes this organizational phenomenon – subunits exhibiting distinctive identities and operations while demonstrating nominal linkages to other units – as loose coupling. Decisions about curriculum or research in one school, for example, might not affect academic operations in other schools at all. Third, recent shifts in university budgeting practices have amplified these tendencies toward loose coupling and decentralization. Many institutions have replaced centralized, incremental budget models with decentralized, revenue-centered budget models (American Academy of Arts & Sciences,

160  Raffaella Borasi et al. 2016; Deering & Lang, 2017). These models (such as responsibility center management) devolve budgetary authority from presidents and provosts to deans in academic units (Hearn et al., 2006). Deans emerge as entrepreneurial chief executives who develop programs that increase enrollments (and revenues), trim expenditures, and accumulate reserves to reinvest into programs (Carlson, 2015; Curry et al., 2013). These three organizational features of universities – (1) faculty authority over academic affairs, (2) the loose coupling of academic departments, and (3) the emergence of revenue-centered decentralized budgeting – help to explain both the adoption of digital technologies in higher education and frustration with scaling these technologies within institutions. On one hand, curious and enterprising faculty members possess the authority to adopt new instructional technologies in their courses. Department chairs who hope to stimulate innovation can encourage their colleagues to experiment with digital technologies (Lieberman, 2018). Entrepreneurial deans who want to tap into new student markets and generate new tuition revenues can incentivize faculty by offering grants to design new online offerings (Selingo, 2017). So, while some schools might not embrace digital technologies beyond flipping some traditional classes, other schools might transform their modes of instruction, even converting some degree programs into hybrid or fully online offerings. The same organizational dynamics, however, impede opportunities to scale local adoption. Prior to March 2020, collegiate faculty’s negative opinions of online learning could lead them to refuse to adopt digital technologies by exerting their professional authority over teaching and learning, thus thwarting the development of online education at many universities. A 2016 study showed that only 18% of full-time instructors agreed that online courses could achieve equivalent learning outcomes as in-person courses, whereas 57% of full-time faculty disagreed with this claim (Jaschik & Lederman, 2016, p. 19). Prognosticators and scholars have offered numerous rationales for these perceptions, ranging from sentimentalizing classroom teaching, questioning the reliability and validity of enabling technologies, realizing few returns from early initiatives (such as MOOCs), and fearing erosion of curricular authority (Allen & Seaman, 2015; Betts & Heaston, 2014; McQuiggan, 2012; Meisenhelder, 2013; Picciano, 2016). Second, as presidents, chancellors, and provosts possess limited authority to implement academic reforms without securing support from faculty, chairs, and deans (Bastedo, 2012; Bok, 2015; Lombardi, 2013), they have also been affected by faculty’s negative perceptions about online learning. For example, survey data revealed 32% of chief academic officers reporting that faculty attitudes posed a significant obstacle to developing online education, whereas only 17% disagreed that faculty attitudes were an obstacle (Allen et al., 2016, p. 47). Without faculty support, presidents and provosts shy away from large-scale online interventions, settling to support many fragmented experiments that enjoy local support.

Could COVID-19 be a Catalyst  161 COVID-19 Potential Impact on University Responses The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has disrupted these long-standing organizational dynamics. The urgent necessity to migrate from in-person to online instruction in March 2020 nullified conventional impulses to resist experimentation and revert to standard practices (Christensen, 2013; Hannan & Freeman, 1984, 1993) and presented an even more extreme exogenous shock than those stemming from most disruptive innovations. This abrupt adoption of remote learning transforms the prospects of online education for many colleges and universities. During spring 2020, many students and faculty experienced online learning and teaching for the first time. Throughout transitions to remote teaching, faculty demonstrated astonishing adaptability. This initial exposure has increased the curiosity, competence, and confidence of faculty to teach more online courses (Fox et al., 2020; June, 2020). The shift to remote teaching also satisfied many college students’ demands for courses that leverage digital technologies, thus enabling other aspects of their lives (Biemiller, 2014). While students, faculty, and administrators reported mixed satisfaction with remote learning and teaching over spring 2020, they attributed many frustrations to the crisis circumstances (June, 2020; Lederman, 2020). These positive experiences of students and faculty are bound to mitigate skepticism about online education, thus opening new opportunities to expand and refine online offerings. Furthermore, fiscal crises due to the pandemic are testing stakeholder claims on decision-making authority within HEIs. Under the direction of senior administrators, institutions have slashed expenditures to mitigate revenue shortfalls, including furloughing staff, cutting salaries, and delaying capital projects (AAC&U, 2020; Carlson, 2020; Friga, 2020; Kelderman, 2020b). In fiscal crises, time is money; pressing decisions, including those about fall 2020 reopening, expose the gradual pace of shared governance, testing the resolve of even the most collaborative administrators. This increased administrative influence, if only out of exigency, could catalyze online options. In the short term, senior administrators report plans to increase investments in online education, including expanding professional development for faculty and scaling course offerings as “insurance policies” (Kelderman, 2020a; Lederman, 2020). With these investments, deans are bound to investigate opportunities to offer more online courses and programs beyond the pandemic to increase and diversify enrollment (Kelderman, 2020a). These pressures to trim expenditures and generate revenues, coupled with widespread exposure to online education for students and faculty, may push institutions closer to a tipping point in which online education can be framed as a viable alternative to in-person instruction.

162  Raffaella Borasi et al.

Conclusions Technology disruptions have occurred in many industries whenever quality, cost, and new functionalities of new technology-enabled solutions gradually reached a “tipping point” that made them preferable for most customers. Despite the increasing popularity of online education, preCOVID19, such a tipping point had not been reached in higher education. However, the experiences during the move to remote teaching in spring 2020, followed by changes imposed by social distancing requirements for the following academic year, have resulted in reduced resistance to online options, more pressure from customers to lower college costs, and numerous fiscal pressures on HEIs. When taken together, these factors are likely to accelerate a tipping point. Yet these changes may also act as a catalyst for traditional HEIs to embrace new solutions leveraging online technologies. Faculty ability to switch quickly to remote teaching in early 2020 is a testament to this potential. New technology-based instructional innovations tried during the pandemic may eventually improve the quality of all institutions’ educational programs, thus blurring the line between traditional and online instruction. New, nonresidential options at differential prices may emerge, thus opening up new, more affordable, and accessible pathways to acquire a quality college education and new business models for HEIs as well. These innovations could make traditional HEIs more responsive to customer demand and thus more competitive but will require HEIs to overcome their natural resistance to radical innovation, as well as changes in current norms and processes. Let’s remember that, even in industries affected by disruptive technologies, becoming obsolete is not the only option – as there are always organizations that manage to thrive. After all, universities are among the oldest existing institutions and have survived many other disruptive technologies in the past – including printing! This could not have happened without universities’ willingness and ability to “reinvent” themselves over time. To effectively embrace new online solutions post-COVID-19, though, HEIs will need to be ready to take certain steps. More importantly, this will require investments in faculty preparation to ensure the design and delivery of high-quality online courses, services to provide the supports needed for student success when learning remotely, and experimental alternative programs (with differential pricing) to better understand what is possible and doable.

Bios Raffaella Borasi, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Learning in the Digital Age (LiDA) at the Warner School of Education, University of Rochester, Rochester. In her role, Borasi helps educators leverage digital

Could COVID-19 be a Catalyst  163 technologies through a combination of research projects, program offerings, networking opportunities, and services. Originally trained as a mathematics educator, Borasi’s expertise now also includes teacher education, education reform, entrepreneurship in education, and LiDA. As a former dean, Borasi led the start-up of online offerings in her school and successfully launched a program to prepare online instructors. Her publication record includes 5 books, 12 book chapters, 23 peer-reviewed articles, as well as numerous practitioner articles and multimedia products. Richard DeMartino, Ph.D., holds the Albert J. Simone Endowed Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He also serves as the Director the Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at RIT. DeMartino’s research and teaching interests include radical innovation, technology commercialization, entrepreneurial motivation, and small business growth. DeMartino has received external funding from the Kauffman Foundation, U.S. Department of Commerce, National Science Foundation, VentureWell, and NY Empire State Development. His current administrative responsibilities include promotion of the RIT Innovation and Entrepreneurship ecosystem, where he has developed various incubation and acceleration education programs. Nathan Harris, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester. In his research and teaching, Harris explores problems of university governance and leadership through the conceptual lens of organization theory. His work spans academic deans’ leadership and management behavior, the antecedents of ethical misconduct in colleges and universities, and how academic leaders engage their senior administrative teams. He has published in New Directions for Higher Education and Planning for Higher Education, and his commentary has been featured in numerous media outlets, including the Chronicle of Higher Education. Prior to earning his doctorate at the University of Michigan, Dr. Harris worked as a senior analyst at the Corporate Executive Board in Washington, D.C., and as a special assistant at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dave Miller, Ed.D., is a Clinical Associate Professor of Education at the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester where he also serves as Associate Director for the Center for LiDA. Miller’s expertise includes an unusual combination of technology, business, entrepreneurship, and teaching. A textbook author and former owner of a start-up edtech company, Miller now teaches a variety of online courses at the Warner School, directs the Warner program preparing K–12 digitally rich teachers, supports other Warner faculty in designing and teaching online courses, and serves on the Steering Committee of the K–12

164  Raffaella Borasi et al. Digital Consortium (a K–12 university collaboration between the LiDA Center and 21 local school districts involved in instructional technology innovations).

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Could COVID-19 be a Catalyst  165 Deering, D., & Lang, D. W. (2017). Responsibility center budgeting and management ‘lite’ in university finance: Why is RCB/RCM never fully deployed? Planning for Higher Education, 45(3), 94–110. Fox, K., Bryant, G., Srinivasan, N., Lin, N., & Nguyen, A. (2020, October 6). Time for class – COVID-19 edition part 2: Planning for a fall like no other. Tyton Partners. Friga, P. N. (2020, April 3). The hard choices presidents will have to make. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Gallup. (2015). Great jobs, great lives. The relationship between student debt, experiences and perceptions of college worth. Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural inertia and organizational change. American Sociological Review, 49, 149–164. Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1993). Organizational ecology. Harvard University Press. Hearn, J. C., Lewis, D. R., Kallsen, L., Holdsworth, J. M., & Jones, L. M. (2006). “Incentives for managed growth”: A case study of incentives-based planning and budgeting in a large public research university. Journal of Higher Education, 77(2), 286–316. Horn, M. B., & Moesta B. (2019). Choosing college: How to make better learning decisions throughout your life. Jossey-Bass. Hout, M. (2012). Social and economic returns to college education in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology, 38(1), 379–400. Jaschik, S., & Lederman, D. (2016). The 2016 Inside Higher Ed survey of faculty attitudes on technology. https://www.insidehighered.com/ booklet/2016-survey-faculty-attitudes-technology. Jordan. K. (2015). Massive Open Online Course completion rate revisited: Assessment, length and attrition. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(3), 341–358. June, A. W. (2020, June 8). Did the scramble to remote learning work? What higher ed thinks. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Kauffman, H. (2015). A review of predictive factors of student success in and satisfaction with online learning. Research in Learning Technology, 23. Kelderman, E. (2020a, June 1). Spurred by coronavirus, some colleges rush to move online. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Kelderman, E. (2020b, October 8). 2020 has been a hard year for higher ed. Could 2021 be worse? The Chronicle of Higher Education. Lattuca, L. R., & Stark, J. S. (2009). Shaping the college curriculum: Academic plans in context (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Lederman, D. (2020, April 27). Low-income students top presidents’ COVID-19 worry list. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/presidents-biggestcovid-19-worries-low-income-students-and-colleges-financial-strain Lieberman, M. (2018, March 14). Overcoming faculty resistance – or not. InsideHigherEd. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/ 2018/03/14/experts-offer-advice-convincing-faculty-members-teach-online-or Lombardi, J. V. (2013). How universities work. Johns Hopkins University Press. McQuiggan, C. (2012). Faculty development for online teaching as a catalyst for change. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 16(2), 27–61. Meisenhelder, S. (2013). MOOC mania. Thought & Action: The NEA Journal of Higher Education, 29, 7–26.

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13 Global Higher Education and COVID-19 A Virtual Autoethnography of a Faculty Anatoly Oleksiyenko Introduction The global infrastructure of academia was paralyzed in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world, throwing one country after another into highly regulated and restrictive lockdowns (Bisht et al., 2020; Mishra et al., 2020). Educators and students were directed to work and study from home. Classes, student consultations, theses examinations, job recruitment activities, faculty meetings, seminars, international conferences, and other live events were redirected to video conference rooms (Jena, 2020; Niner et al., 2020). The virtual world suddenly emerged as an inescapable and pervasive artifice supporting the continuation of academic activities, which previously relied primarily on face-to-face interactions (Chan, 2020). Cyberspace became the main setting for communication and learning locally, as well as internationally (Watermeyer et al., 2021). This development could be a cause for gratitude and resentment at the same time; often, however, these conflicting and complicated feelings would remain hidden behind people’s digital screens, in their isolated physical spaces. International scholars and students seemed to be divided in how they perceived this new reality (Marinoni et al., 2020; Zhai & Du, 2020). While global academic media channels widely reported on the challenges (see 2020 articles in University World News, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education), narratives also emerged, inspiring hope regarding efficient crisis management (Zheng, 2020), environmental rejuvenation, and the positive aspects of curtailed international mass tourism flows (Toquero, 2020). Nonetheless, many idiosyncratic accounts remained floating in the sea of generalizations and relentless “breaking news” on escalating rates of infection and death from COVID-19. Even if one could engage researchers to share their idiosyncratic points of view through individual or collective writing (see, for example, Oleksiyenko et al., 2020), the reflexive parts of learning from the disaster were often ambiguous. Idiosyncratic scholarly reflections tended to be limited to the confines of small communities of qualitative researchers (Chang, 2017; Denzin, 2009), while traditionally positivist journals remained skeptical of

168  Anatoly Oleksiyenko idiosyncratic analysis. As a result, many valuable insights were left trapped in isolated pockets of the pandemic-affected academia – overlooked and unexplored. In cyberspace, the flows of academic narratives are temporal, and it is impossible to capture them in their entirety; yet it is important to consider select insights from disparate parts of cyberspace, as we recognize the unavoidability of crisis-produced bubbles of virtual existence and seek to understand their positive and negative impacts on the future of teaching and learning. This chapter seeks to draw out such insights from the virtual global higher education space created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Higher learning in cyberspace urges ambitious participants to aim higher – beyond the “normal” aspirations bound by curricula and credential requirements of a tertiary education institution or its particular academic or professional programs (see more on this in Oleksiyenko, 2018a). Within the cyberspace created by the global pandemic, international learning is a transboundary concept in which the formality of educational processes is supplementary rather than central, and the process of self-education is predominant in achieving a higher degree of cognitive development and emotional intelligence. Autoethnography is a central part of such learning. As Trahar (2009) notes, reflections rooted in the lived experience, with all their emotional insights, open conversations, and exchanges of information, play a significant role in revealing the complexity of the academic narrative. This also applies when the lived experience moves online.

Virtual Autoethnography This chapter examines the narratives, memories, and reflections that defined my professional and social cyber existence during the COVID-19 pandemic. As I see it, the virtual world is both a sanctuary and a space where pandemonium erupts, created by idiosyncratic and collective forces that produce a multitude of emotional and cognitive strains, which stimulate anxieties and tensions. The cyberspace of global higher education is a vast international setting consisting of idiosyncratic digital niches, each of which is shaped by an individual’s choices of computer interfaces, supported by an Internet infrastructure of various velocities and capacities, and endowed with options defined by software, settings, and filters. The cyberspace around digital niches is packed with flows of private messages and images, social stories, corporate news, and advertisements – all pushed by various providers and their algorithms (Hjorth et al., 2017). To reflect on the interaction of idiosyncratic and social flows in the global cyberspace, I have engaged virtual autoethnography, which allows for selfexamination and heightened self-reflexivity in the digital world (ibid.). The methodology has its detractors (Anderson, 2006) and “has been criticized

Global Higher Education and COVID-19  169 for being self-indulgent, narcissistic, introspective, and individualized” (Stahlke Wall, 2016). Yet this method enables me to explore in-depth how the virtual world, with all of its technological settings and choices, shaped relations between “virtual me” and “virtual others” at a time when teachers and students across the world had no other choice but to operate virtually – this being the only option for engaging “important others” in learning processes (Oleksiyenko, 2015). In pandemic-driven remote existence, individuals were compelled to continue performing their disparate roles – as scholars, citizens, family and community members – yet on a broader scale and in a more synthetic set of roles: as cyber citizens, cyber parents, cyber teachers, cyber learners, etc. The technologically and epidemiologically bound mix of these roles defines people’s cyber existence and learning perspectives. As cyberspace becomes global (in some countries, where the Internet is circumscribed by firewalls, it is not global though), cyber-bound learning becomes a reflection of local regulations and individual behaviors, such as self-censorship. Interactions in the cyberspace of global higher education are different from those in the real world, where embodied gestures, looks, outfits, and emotions register meaning to others present in classrooms, lecture halls, and libraries (Shachar & Neumann, 2010). In the cyberspace linked to a private living area, expressions and emotions explicit in social in-person interactions become hidden or are exposed to very few people who are traditionally outside the formal educational space. Instead of class-based human interaction, one encounters avatars on Google, Teams, or Zoom accounts as various actors congregate in cyberspace and project their virtual identities and backgrounds onto each other, expressing themselves through artistic renditions, curated photos, or colored quadrants with enigmatic initials. These digital interfaces indicate the presence and readiness of the camouflaged participants to engage with others online while periodically going beyond their disguised representations through random sounds, chat notes, and emojis, etc. The voice-based and image-driven exchange of ideas and emotions seemingly enhances the social presence of their virtual embodiments. Different participants in the global academic cyberspace respond differently to the junctions between idiosyncrasy and sociality. Some are more inclined to stay camouflaged and secluded, while others strive to be socially engaged. At the same time, common preoccupations emerge that unite them – e.g., uncertainty about the duration of the pandemic and concern about the return to the “old normal” (no matter how treacherous that normality had been), basic safety strategies, or hope for solutions, such as effective vaccines that will enable us to overcome the crisis. This particular intersection of idiosyncratic and social beliefs is what makes these memories and narratives interesting and valuable for international learning.

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Idiosyncrasy and Sociality in International Higher Learning The COVID-19 crisis made me reevaluate the meaning of international learning. It required learning from disaster and learning throughout the disaster. Suspended between Canada and Hong Kong, my intellectual life was torn by temporal and spatial discontinuities. Before the crisis stranded me in a different time zone than my students, I never had a chance to teach at 6 a.m. Suddenly, I had to conference in from Toronto in the early morning, continue with my offline academic work throughout the day, while facilitating educational assignments and teamwork for my students in Hong Kong in the evening, and sometimes at night. Separated from me by 13 hours and 12,500 km, my postgraduate students, many of whom hold daytime jobs, were nonetheless eager to immerse themselves in a three-plus-hour-long, cross-continental exchange of ideas at the end of their day – some doing so three to four times a week, others less frequently. Each class started with a discussion of social and organizational issues faced by communities and governments in Hong Kong, mainland China, India, and Canada – with participants weighing in on the situation in their physical locations. Our geo-locations produced vastly different perspectives on our “common” predicament – some hopeful, others more despondent. In all courses, my key purpose was to help my students meet their learning objectives and expectations, as well as to seed more hope about the value of what they were learning. Some students had broad objectives, such as furthering their professional development or analytical skills in the field of higher education, while others had a narrower focus – for example, to learn how to put together an effective presentation or a capstone project. Regardless, I was made keenly aware that the curriculum was designed in pre-pandemic times. I questioned whether the theories and strategies we had been using remained relevant or valuable in the new order of global higher education unleashed by the pandemic. I began asking my students, Did you find value in what we read, discussed, and the questions we posed? What exactly did you learn? Could we make adjustments in our coursework and include new cases that would encourage thinking about policies and management solutions that do not currently exist? Developing the sense of innovation seemed to be the only sensible way to urge future higher education leaders and managers to learn how to be resilient and responsive to uncertain and volatile circumstances and to equip them with the skills to design unconventional interventions in response to new crises in the future. Enhancing the aptitude of the trained university professionals for greater critical inquiry, as we pursued in the original design of the program (see Oleksiyenko, 2017), required continual reexamination of the aims of higher learning, with a focus on the global crisis as something very central and unavoidable rather than fleeting and circumstantial. Was this the right mindset to shape?

Global Higher Education and COVID-19  171 Meanwhile, our aspirations and abilities to be critical were curtailed by political circumstances; following a year of massive and at times violent street protests, China’s top legislature passed a new national security law for Hong Kong. According to Altbach and Postiglione (2020), The new law [did] not include travel restrictions in either direction for students or academics. Yet after it was promulgated, one prominent international scholar issued a warning to “be very careful collaborating with Chinese colleagues or Hong Kong academic colleagues now,” and a major international academic association sent a statement to its members noting that the new “legislation’s vague working and expansive categories of offence make it impossible to know what speech and actions will result in severe legal consequences.” The type of international status anxiety that once primarily existed in the higher education systems of repressive regimes (Oleksiyenko et al., 2018) appeared to be leaking into Hong Kong’s higher education. Instead of entering a new and more hopeful “normal,” which many had contemplated (Oleksiyenko et al., 2020), Hong Kong was being pushed back into a renewed “old.” Nobody had a clear idea of what to expect in the future as the government began to arrest activists, and many students and professors were under scrutiny and suspicion. In the social context of Hong Kong, the COVID-19 health crisis conjured up frightening memories of the past and imaginings of the future, which dovetailed with recollections of previous crises: SARS and avian flu outbreaks, a string of social revolutions, and changes in political regimes (Holliday & Postiglione, 2020). When teaching, it was impossible to discount the effects of these unceasing anxieties. According to Choy (2020), reporting on a University of Hong Kong survey, Some three-quarters of Hongkongers are harbouring negative thoughts in the aftermath of last year’s social unrest and amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with young people suffering significantly more from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms, a new study has found. Ongoing stressful events over the past year, including the antigovernment protests, Covid-19 and difficult personal life events have cumulatively resulted in “alarming” levels of negative feelings, such as persistent fear, anger, self-doubt and thoughts of death, according to the University of Hong Kong (HKU) survey. Almost half of those surveyed (c.11,500) aged 24 or younger reported symptoms of PTSD (almost 46 per cent) or depression (just under 50 per cent). “We see very clearly that the situation is even worse for young people,” Chen said. “We have to do our very best to protect ourselves,

172  Anatoly Oleksiyenko friends and family members. We cannot control what happens around us, we cannot control stress events…but we can control our reaction to these events. Mutual support is very important.” Certainly, I tried to be more critical in my interpretations of the confluences of politics and the pandemic in Hong Kong. Our community of international higher learning would be wholly ineffectual if we put excessive anxiety about what we studied above the needs of critical inquiry that academic thinkers required at a world-class university. However, the new reality was giving rise to a set of uneasy questions: What did it mean to practice critical thinking within an undemocratic society? Was Asia’s world city turning into a police state? Would our words and activities be controlled? If one was an international learner who had enrolled at Hong Kong University expecting the freedoms that existed in the city before the lockdown, how should he or she deal with the lost opportunity to study in an open-minded democratic environment? Had those freedoms simply disappeared? What would it mean to study in a new social construct where there was no guarantee of free speech? Fears of political repression, coupled with the isolation caused by COVID19, became a double burden for both local and international learners linked to the city (Lo, 2020). The crisis experienced by Hongkongers was unlike any other. Meanwhile, cyberspace – a refuge from the dangers of the public health crisis – was nonetheless treacherous, as Jackson eloquently explained (see Peters et al. 2020). Codes, passwords, stored data, records, etc., seemed like a source of particular vulnerability during the crisis, with many concerns about cybersecurity. The problems with Zoombombing (Ling et al. 2020) kept reminding all of us reliant on the popular platform that we were not as protected as we might wish.

Common Spaces and Recombinant Flows As an international scholar, I am used to moving between numerous socio- and techno-existentialities, including short- and long-haul commutes between cities and countries I often visited for my research and fieldwork. On many occasions, I spent as much as 24 hours on transpacific flights, feeling uncomfortable in my seat and guilty about my carbon footprint, while binge writing, reading, watching videos, and using that time of disconnection from the world (and Wi-Fi, in particular) just to think. At the end of each tiring flight, however, there was a reward: exploring new cities and cultures, expanding networks and ideas, making new friends. Conversations with colleagues from other parts of the world inspired me to reexamine previous assumptions and conclusions about the world of higher education. New layers of interpretation emerged as colleagues discussed nuances in their thinking, many of which were not explicit in

Global Higher Education and COVID-19  173 their published papers and conference presentations. “Confessional tales” (Van Maanen, 1988) were shared in the corridors at conferences and during joint visits to local restaurants, historical museums, art galleries, and remote archeological sites. None of those social constructs of academic existentialities could be replicated in the time-bound tunnels of cyberspace we all entered during the pandemic. Linking online was a poor technical replica of spending time alone on a long-haul flight but without the promise of a rewarding experience at the end, rife with unexpected possibilities. The previously held comforts of established frameworks of scholarly communication also disappeared. Spaces, flows, and participants from physical and virtual realities overlapped and competed. Drawing on the experiences of the attendees at an international conference of the Human Genome Organization (originally meant to be held in Perth, Australia, but rescheduled and hosted virtually), Fleming (2020), a science writer based in Bristol, provided a colorful illustration of an unexpected clash between virtual and physical realities on Zoom: Unexpected attendees included Shu, Forrest’s three-year-old daughter, who was heard shouting “Daddy, Daddy” during a session he was chairing, and a cat that walked across the foreground during its owner’s talk. More serious problems included a fault during the live streaming of one of the plenary lectures, issues playing back ondemand videos and delays in questions reaching speakers during some live sessions. At the same time, A cocktail party using video-conferencing software failed to replicate the spontaneous social interactions and discussions that might have been expected had it occurred in real life. “It wasn’t a disaster,” says Forrest. “But a Zoom meeting with 40 or so people listening to one person just doesn’t have the same feeling as a party where people form little groups and talk properly over a beer or wine.” Thrust into cyberspace, I was forced to recalibrate my sense of networking. I had to develop a better sense of digital nomadism while moving all aspects of my academic life online: teaching, research, program admissions, doctoral supervision and examination sessions, administrative meetings, and scholarly conferences. My working day was getting longer as I tried to accommodate as many external requests as possible in view of the increasing stress experienced by disparate students and colleagues. Doing work across time zones allowed me to develop a better sense of appreciation for colleagues who were considerate of my distance and willing to accommodate me when scheduling meetings. In turn, I tried to be more accommodating in addressing their calls for unexpected assignments, keynotes,

174  Anatoly Oleksiyenko and collegial advice. While human relations were adaptable, technological tools imbued work with an element of rigidity and tyrannical pressure – one was expected to comply with protocols entailing the use of systems within their limited functionality, as well as lack of accommodation for individual users’ needs, capacities, and emotional states. Managing those instruments in large-scale webinars sometimes created havoc, as some users were inevitably more challenged than others when it came to their connectivity, technical capacities, and/or user skills. Responding to anxieties about virtual teaching and learning, university administrators urged academic faculty members to train in online course design and delivery. Educational technology managers disseminated webinars encouraging the use of new platforms that could steer the learners’ emotions to a greater satisfaction. But what exactly could technology do to relieve the stress and despair felt by students affected by immobilization, de-socialization, and growing anxiety about their future? Would a more extensive menu of emojis, gifs, and memes really help them to reframe the social emoscapes of despondency? My students seemed to care very little about the artificial embellishing of my online lectures. Many did not bother to personalize their profile settings. What they cared more about was my attitude toward their personal circumstances, work-study balance, and their disrupted opportunities for social being. Many joined the program to enhance their sense of organization and leadership through real-time projects that nurtured emotional intelligence. The online format curtailed those opportunities. The virtual world provided fewer chances for honing a sense of empathy toward peers, as well as for learning from them – the major benefits noted by many students in pre-pandemic course evaluations. Alas, technological platforms were limited in their capacity to nurture social comfort and confidence, which the development of emotional intelligence necessitates. Yet my introverted students seemed to relish their time in cyberspace. In response to my after-class blitz surveys and in private correspondence, some shared with me that they felt a greater sense of control over the social space and more in charge of their learning process. With less need to pay attention to their physical and emotional expressions, they were free to focus on the learning flows and eager to adjust to and persevere in their online studies. In cyberspace, they felt more comfortable focusing on verbality and messaging, as was their preference, without being shamed for being asocial. It seemed that the introverts were relieved of anxiety and the pressure they previously felt to express themselves through gestures, outfits, and manners in a way that would define their social identity, image, and impact. In virtual classes, they were less focused on their surroundings, less distracted by externalities, and better able to attune to the discussion at hand. Being an introvert myself, I could relate.

Global Higher Education and COVID-19  175

Recalibrating Senses and Sensibilities When reflecting on living in pandemic reality, most of my interlocutors reinforced what most of us already knew – retreating online does not mean that we are free from the politics and pre-pandemic constraints of the material world (Gaulee et al., 2020). With our professional and intellectual existence suddenly suspended in cyberspace, there was still concern about maintaining the integrity of our physical spaces. Watching the anti-mask movement take form in Toronto was shocking, particularly for someone from Hong Kong, where mask wearing is a standard practice in cases of any respiratory illness. Yet some Canadians (and even more Americans) eschewed expectations that we should all wear face masks in public spaces to slow the spread of COVID-19, insisting that they preferred death over losing the freedom to do as they pleased (in this case, necessarily translating to the freedom to infect others; Hapuhennedige, 2020). Meanwhile, many small and medium businesses were concerned about survival (Beland et al., 2020; Deschamps, 2020). For them, lockdowns meant ruin. On campuses separated from urban centers, small food and convenience stores became increasingly vulnerable, as their main customers, the students, suddenly disappeared; meanwhile, food insecurity increased for many students in general (Lederer et al., 2020). In the academic world, many campuses embraced the “work from home” (WFH) mode due to large student populations, coupled with limited carrying capacities. The massification of higher education had been previously justified as a means to solicit income generation (as was communicated in professional circles) or meet demands for access and equity (as was communicated to the greater public; Scott, 1995). Given the 2-m social distancing rule mandated by most jurisdictions, it was hard to satisfy the access and equity quotas for larger numbers of students in overcrowded and poorly ventilated spaces. Classrooms, lecture halls, and libraries were all exceptionally susceptible to the transmission of infectious disease via both air and touch. Moreover, some campus managers also became cognizant of potential liabilities arising from students contracting COVID-19 on campus, especially if parents sued them over a mandatory classroom attendance requirement that led to their children’s deaths. Accordingly, “stay home,” “learn from home,” and “WFH” were framed as better options. Everyone was urged to anticipate a long-term WFH confinement, as experts warned of potential virus mutations and the fallacy of believing in quick fixes, which were being promoted by some desperate neoliberal managers and news outlets. As citizens and scholars, many of us were pressed to reconceptualize the old “normal” (Jung et al., 2021; Metcalfe, 2021). Clearly, the new model required better management of complex discourses and emotive flows overlapping and clashing across personal networks, scholarly communities, and social media. Within international learning communities,

176  Anatoly Oleksiyenko these complexes were particularly burdensome and ungainly. Scholars and students stranded in foreign places and cultures faced cognitive and organizational changes and pressures that were often simultaneously bewildering and mentally devastating (Zhai & Du, 2020). While being removed and distanced from their offices, classrooms, and libraries, many academics had to redefine their relations with the old frames of governance at their institutions. For colleagues from selffinanced community colleges and corporate universities, WFH proved to be a particular challenge, as managers and supervisors worried about their ability to assess performance and conduct evaluations. In some cases, these had previously been closely linked with superiors’ abilities to show face around their busy offices, at meetings, and in corridors, all the while controlling their employees’ time, bodily presence in and out of the office, monitoring outfits and haircuts, and rebroadcasting compliance reminders (Oleksiyenko, 2018b). In authoritarian environments, the legitimacy of managerial hierarchies was suddenly challenged by the pandemic, as it was not clear how the implementation of managerial control would be maintained under WFH orders. Some supervisors ignored the risks to their employees’ health and urged their subordinates to manifest their loyalty by going back to offices and maintaining long workdays. Meanwhile, some faculty members required to WFH experienced mounting fatigue and anxiety amid competing priorities and responsibilities (Mavin & Yusupova, 2020; Nash & Churchill, 2020). The situation was especially precarious for pretenured academics, single-income householders, families with small children, and those with inadequate home-based resources to support online work and/or study. For the scholars whose home workspaces consisted of exposed areas amid a busy household, conducting classes online or finishing papers on time sometimes required sneaking back into their closed offices on empty campuses in order to find space conducive to concentration and uninterrupted work. Some felt guilty about leaving their families for the sake of enhancing performance records and being unable to resist the global neoliberal design of higher education (Oleksiyenko & Tierney, 2018). The situation seemed to be somewhat different in places where “servant leadership” emphasized “empowerment, involvement and collaboration” and where academic leaders were placing “the interests of others above their own” (Fernandez & Shaw, 2020). As far as I could observe from my exchanges with colleagues at research universities, it seemed that pandemic-driven changes and challenges were handled well in academic divisions and programs where professors were treated as intellectual leaders in charge of their own courses and allowed to make improvements by utilizing student feedback, collegial advice, and outcomes from their own research projects. Crucially, these professors would also be in control of maintaining their individual pipelines of readings, writings, “revise and resubmit” papers, and peer-review assignments within bounded knowledge fields and niches. Throughout the pandemic, they maintained the

Global Higher Education and COVID-19  177 freedom to choose how to develop and communicate knowledge locally and globally (see more on the privileges and challenges of intellectual leadership in Macfarlane, 2013; Macfarlane & Burg, 2019; Oleksiyenko & Ruan, 2019).

Concluding Remarks In the previous sections, I have provided a brief overview of my “field trips” through the crisis-driven cyberspace of global higher education. The social worlds I was able to observe or partake in online were complex and ill feeling. One way to deal with the anxiety associated with the health crisis and the emoscapes of the neoliberal academia was to pay attention to the idiosyncrasies of disparate intellectuals who shared helpful and thoughtprovoking ideas and stories (Shahjahan et al., 2020). I frequently felt frustrated with the demands and tensions arising from my suspended existence in cyberspace, which was a disquieting place of pandemonium more often than an intellectual sanctuary. Like all my colleagues, I was deeply affected by uncertainty, and analytical writing was helpful in defining the disruptions (Jung et al. 2021). The experimental investigations in virtual autoethnography were thought-stimulating too. However, on various occasions during webinars and interviews, I felt nostalgic for face-to-face interactions and the atmosphere of camaraderie and solidarity experienced in a common physical space. Instead of making life easier and providing easy access to wider networks, working behind a digital screen reinforced my feelings of solitude and isolation. Would my existence be different after the pandemic? How would I conceptualize my virtual identity, commitment, and workplace in the future? What would I want to leave in the past from these cyber-experiences, and what would I like to take into the future? With a return to the “old normal” unlikely, it seems to be important to answer these questions as we forge ahead with creating a new reality that distills the most positive aspects of our idiosyncratic and collective experiences.

Bio Anatoly Oleksiyenko, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Coordinator of the Master of Education (M.Ed.) Higher Education Specialism, as well as Director of Comparative Education Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on the agency of internationalization in higher education and dilemmas of governance and leadership in neoliberal and post-Soviet research universities. He addresses these issues in his books: Global Mobility and Higher Learning (Routledge), International Status Anxiety and Higher Education: The Soviet Legacy in China and Russia (coedited, CERC-Springer), and Academic Collaborations in the Age of Globalization (Springer). Oleksiyenko currently serves as Cochair of the Comparative and International Education Society Higher Education Special Interest Group.

178  Anatoly Oleksiyenko

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180  Anatoly Oleksiyenko Oleksiyenko, A., & Tierney, W. G. (2018). Higher education and human vulnerability: Global failures of corporate design. Tertiary Education and Management, 24(3), 187–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/13583883.2018.1439094 Oleksiyenko, A., Zha, Q., Chirikov, I., & Li, J. (Eds.). (2018). International status anxiety and higher education: The soviet legacy in China and Russia. CERC/ Springer. Peters, M., Rizvi, F., McCulloch, G., Gibbs, P., Gorur, R., Hong, M. ... & Misiaszek, L. (2020). Reimagining the new pedagogical possibilities for universities post-Covid-19: An EPAT Collective Project. Education Philosophy and Theory. Online First. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1777655 Scott, P. (1995). The meanings of mass higher education. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Shachar, M., & Neumann, Y. (2010). Twenty years of research on the academic performance differences between traditional and distance learning: Summative meta-analysis and trend examination. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 6(2), 318–334. Shahjahan, R. A., Sonneveldt, E. L., Estera, A. L., & Bae, S. (2020). Emoscapes and commercial university rankers: The role of affect in global higher education policy. Critical Studies in Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/175084 87.2020.1748078 Stahlke Wall, S. (2016). Toward a moderate autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 15(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1609406916674966 Toquero, C. M. D. (2020). Will COVID-19 bring the Armageddon? Expanding psychosocial support and environmental care: An autoethnographic research. Aquademia, 4(2), ep20022. https://doi.org/10.29333/aquademia/8438 Trahar, S. (2009). Beyond the story itself: Narrative inquiry and autoethnography in intercultural research in higher education [41 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(1), Art. 30, http:// nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901308 Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field. University of Chicago Press Watermeyer, R., Crick, T., Knight, C., & Goodall, J. (2021). COVID-19 and digital disruption in UK universities: Afflictions and affordances of emergency online migration. Higher Education, 81, 623–641. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10734-020-00561-y Zhai, Y. & Du, X. (2020). Mental health care for international Chinese students affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(4), e22. Zheng, Y. (2020). Mobilizing foreign language students for multilingual crisis translation in Shanghai. Multilingua, 1(ahead-of-print). https://doi. org/10.1515/multi-2020-0095

14 Sustaining Liberal Education by Online Learning in the Era of Global Crises The Case of Community Colleges in COVID-19 Hong Kong Hei-hang Hayes Tang, Beatrice Y. Y. Dang, Rosalind Latiner Raby, and Joanna W. Y. Yeung Introduction The global crisis of COVID-19 has severely impacted the entire higher education sector (Marinoni et al., 2020) and spurred timely, innovative, radical, and entrepreneurial responses from educational institutions across the sector and the world. The focus of much of this attention has been on universities and the higher education sector in general (University World News, 2021). However, the impact of COVID-19 has been specific or even more severe on other institutional types, such as community colleges and global counterparts. The global higher education sector, serving 200 million students, is differentiated and segmented in terms of educational purposes, institutional types, and public/private operation modes. Instead of generalizing the overarching impact of COVID-19 on the global higher education sector, this chapter focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the everyday practices of teaching and learning and the lessons learned for the reimagination of the future of higher education in the context of community colleges located in Hong Kong. The scope and outcomes of the impact of COVID-19 will uncover themselves over the long term in post-COVID times (Altbach & de Wit, 2020). Many in the international higher education community maintain that higher education will come out of the pandemic crisis with stronger institutional rigor, resilience, and capacity for entrepreneurial responses. Apart from the “new normal” emerging in research activities, academic seminars, and international conferences (and it is now immature to examine the implications of the long-term impact on the international academic profession and research communities), COVID19 has had an immediate impact on everyday routines of teaching and

182  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. learning in almost all universities and colleges. About two-thirds of the 20,000 universities worldwide reported that online classes had substituted face-to-face teaching, while the altered practices of teaching and learning through digital means call for new pedagogies; access to the Internet, digital devices, and technical infrastructure; and digital literacies of instructors and students from diverse backgrounds (Marinoni et al., 2020). The impacts of the rapid transition to online delivery of teaching on the academic profession are profound (Watermeyer et al., 2020). A similar finding is found for community colleges and global counterparts, as this chapter will show. What is evident in a comparative construct is that institutions, instructors, and individual students with greater resources and capacities tend to devise better strategies to minimize the disruption of teaching and learning or even capture and capitalize on the entrepreneurial opportunities given by distance and digital learning. However, instructors and students from less wealthy higher education institutions and disadvantaged families are more vulnerable to the consequences caused by COVID-19, and the changing practices for the new normal of postsecondary teaching and learning de facto exacerbate inequalities (Anderson & Hira, 2020). This chapter focuses on an exploration of the effects and implications of COVID-19 on the case study of Hong Kong’s community colleges. Comparisons are made with the United States and other global counterparts as well. The liberal education that community colleges deliver traditionally depends on the concept of a dynamic learning community, featuring liberal teacher-student interactions and a pedagogic environment, learner-centered formative assessment, effective student services for strategic university articulation, and dynamic student activities and engagement (Tang & Dang, 2019). In the case of Hong Kong, a small community college campus serves as a hub of the geographic location where the aforementioned activities take place in real time. In late 2019, it was unprecedented that COVID-19 made Hong Kong’s community colleges close their campuses and moved teaching, learning, and assessment completely online. This chapter engages in the case study of Hong Kong’s community colleges in view of how it mitigated COVID-19 through organizational adaptation and sustained the delivery of liberal education, especially when social protests and the global pandemic may persist in upcoming times. This research is grounded in the use of qualitative interviews conducted with college lecturers and students who have different academic achievements and who come from different social classes. The chapter delves into empirical analysis about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the everyday practices of teaching and learning and the reimagination of the future of higher education in the global city. More importantly, the chapter will examine the implications for a possible paradigm shift of liberal education in light of synergizing online and face-to-face teaching.

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Community College and Its Global Counterparts in COVID-19 and Beyond Throughout the world, community colleges and their global counterparts (Raby et al., 2018) have had to swiftly make changes to curricula and alter teaching mobilities. In U.S. community colleges, the shift to virtual teaching was devastating for students without Internet access and clearly showed the fractured social class divisions among students (Raby et al.). In Canada, 60% of CEGEPs (Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel) in Montreal and 48% of polytechnics in Ontario had no response plan for COVID-19, and 78% of colleges stopped international research and mobility projects (Martel, 2020a). In the European Union, an anticipated loss of 61% of international students was projected to result in a loss of $2.85 billion in student expenditures (Mitchell, 2020). In Hong Kong, all community colleges, which serve mainly local students, converted their classes to digital and distance learning beginning in January 2020. In Australia, 90% of international students at Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions (World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics, 2020) choose to not return for the fall 2020 semester. In the United States, even domestic students were choosing to change or cancel their educational plans (Clayton, 2020). COVID-19 decimated U.S. community college student mobility programs. Thirty-seven percent of international students did not return to the United States after the winter break in 2019, and in the spring of 2020, 67% of international student directors shared concerns for future inbound students from China (CC-IIG, March 16) and from India (CC-IIG, Blog, May 4, 2020). U.S. national policies complicated future enrollment, including suspension of some Chinese students and researchers (Youhanna, 2020) and the July 2020 policy that forbid online instruction for international students and threatened deportation for those not taking on-ground classes. Although that policy was later rescinded, a newer policy now forbids international student from taking primarily online courses in a context where most campuses are only virtual. Out-bound mobility has been decimated. For example, all California community colleges canceled their study abroad programs for 2020–2021, and four colleges eliminated their study abroad offices (CalAbroad, 2020). Similar patterns were found in other countries. In Australia, there is a predicted revenue crisis for TAFE institutions (Capstone, 2020). In Canada, budget cuts for colleges that began in late spring 2020 are anticipated to expand into the fall (Martel, 2020b). The financial situation for Hong Kong’s community colleges was not significantly affected by COVID-19, as the student enrollment sustained. However, in the United States, in July 2020, 68% of community colleges projected both domestic and international student enrollment declines (CSCC, 2020; Martel, 2020b), and by late August 2020, 70% of U.S. community colleges were planning for significant cuts

184  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. in the budget (Clayton, 2020). These cuts will substantially alter educational programs, as not all classes will be open or available. Reimagined Practices The pandemic has created a moment in time that, like other disasters, offers a chance to rethink current practices and develop institutions and systems that can result in them being ultimately stronger and more responsive to their communities. By early 2020, U.S. community college international student leaders reimagined international student enrollment for a changing world, including online visibility, virtual marketing, and virtual outreach programs (NAFSA, CC-IIG, May 18). Some U.S. community colleges began to reposition themselves as leaders in the community by hosting COVID testing sites and counseling for job changes. These community colleges also counseled students who were unable due to cost or unwilling due to health issues to attend a university and needed an alternative (Goldrick-Rab, 2020) by showing the community college as an affordable choice that would allow students to live at home and help their families survive the economic impact (Philips & Horowitz, 2020). Problematic Economic Responses U.S. community colleges have experienced and learned from periods of past economic crises that could inform future policy and practice in a post-COVID world. During periods of economic decline, U.S. community colleges became havens for students needing training and retraining (Raby, 2012). There are complications in meeting this task today, as community colleges are not well equipped to handle a potentially large influx of students, and students who have been without jobs for months will be unable to pay tuition. Unemployment results in fewer taxes that support a healthy state budget and severe higher education cuts are expected (Goldrick-Rab, 2020). For example, the approved California state budget for community colleges deferred $330.1 million in payments through 2019–2020 to 2020–2021 and an additional $662.1 million through 2020–2021 to 2021–2022, with an anticipated loss of $791.1 million (CCLC, 2020). In addition, there is an expected additional loss of $801.9 million to the state that will result from the loss of international students (NAFSA/IIE, 2019). Other financial losses include a decline in on-campus services that provide revenue for the college and fewer students who will dine out and shop, which provides revenue for the community. Finally, concerns about homeless and food insecure students are real, as 70% of California’s 2.2 million community college students were facing basic-needs insecurity before the pandemic (Diverseeducation.com, 2020).

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The Case Study of Hong Kong’s Community Colleges and Their Emergency Online Teaching and Learning Comparatively unique among its global counterparts, the case study of Hong Kong’s community colleges is situated in the meritocratic and competitive local higher education system. One key function of the system is to streamline high school students into different further education study tracks according to their results on high-stake open examinations. Most students only consider a vocational track when they fail the open examination, as they “become aware” of their incapability of academic performance measured by the system. Hong Kong’s community colleges, however, play a function of rejuvenating disadvantaged students’ educational desires for academic studies – namely, by self-discovery of their own latent academic capabilities throughout the college experience. Meanwhile high-quality liberal arts programs offered by the community college were established to build students’ academic capabilities and generic skills. According to Tang and Dang (2019), community colleges in Hong Kong play the dynamics and processes of capabilities building of students, including those from disadvantaged families, through relatively democratic college admission, a liberal pedagogic environment, learnercentered formative assessment, and effective student services for strategic university articulation. Aiming to mediate the educational disadvantages of the specific group of students who lack the necessary resources and capabilities for entering higher education, community colleges offer a “second chance” for university admission. Before the creation of community colleges in 2000, Hong Kong’s students could only attempt another chance for university admission by retaking the high-stake open exam, which is by nature a high-stake summative assessment. Nonetheless, community colleges in Hong Kong provide the second opportunity for university entrance through formative assessment, which includes ongoing tutorial participation, presentation, essay writing, and/or a final examination. The academic profession of Hong Kong’s community college faculty comprises mainly young academics who graduated from local top graduate schools. These young practitioners mostly teach on a part-time basis and mainly teach practice-oriented courses. Because these young academics are developing their academic identities as college lecturers, they usually adopt an approachable and dynamic relationship with their community college students. The members of the teaching staff who possess the social capital of bridging and bonding with Hong Kong’s universities have the unique capability to empower disadvantaged students with relevant intellectual resources for the articulation to a university degree. The outcome is an engaging and open learning environment that cherishes learner autonomy and critical inquiry. Moreover, most community colleges provide effective student guidance services for strategic university admission, called transfer in the United States, which can convert students’ accumulated and newly

186  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. discovered academic capacities into individual credentials instrumental for application strategies of university articulation. Effective student services narrow the information gap between disadvantaged students and aspiring university programs, therefore enabling students to make realistic expectations and develop successful strategies. On top of the prior research that conducted macroscopic analysis of social class and community colleges (for example, Wong 2019a, 2019b), the latest emerging research focusing on the processes of college life has shown that community colleges attempt to rectify educational failures of disadvantaged students and become the “new winners” of the higher education competitions in Hong Kong by offering alternative pathways to higher education, which cannot be otherwise achieved without such policy innovation (for example, Tang et al., 2019). Like its global counterparts, Hong Kong’s community colleges adopted emergency remote teaching (ERT) for the online learning of college students in early 2020. Online teaching and learning have been a wellestablished field of practice in postsecondary education, as evidenced by a robust community of empirical research and a specific body of literature (for example, Kim & Bonk, 2006; Ko & Rossen, 2017; Palloff & Pratt, 2013). The key concerns of the professional practice of teaching and learning at the higher education level encompassing class size, quality and timeliness of feedback, synchrony, pacing, learners’ characteristics, and learning needs are well researched in the literature. Means et al. (2014) conceptualized various dimensions of understanding the complexity of instructional design and the decision-making processes involved. They are namely (1) instructor role online, (2) modality, (3) online communication, (4) pacing, (5) pedagogy, (6) role of online assessments, (7) source of feedback, (8) student-instructor ratio, and (9) student role online. However, deliberate design and well-designed online teaching and learning are significantly different from the timely conversion from face-to-face or blended instructional design to a total online setting and delivery in response to the abrupt crisis of COVID-19. This chapter borrows the emerging conceptualization of ERT, which guided the data collection, analysis, and research implications of this study. Although the responses, adaptations, and innovations that emerged during the current COVID-19 crisis will create a new normal, thus impacting the practices of teaching and learning at Hong Kong’s community colleges, this chapter understands ERT as a short-term and temporary change of instructional design and delivery to an alternate delivery mode attributable to unexpected circumstances brought along by an abrupt crisis. As Hodges et al. (2020) furthered, It involves the use of fully remote teaching solutions for instruction or education that would otherwise be delivered face-to-face or as blended or hybrid courses and that will return to that format once the

Sustaining Liberal Education by Online Learning in the Era  187 crisis or emergency has abated. The primary objective in these circumstances is not to re-create a robust educational ecosystem but rather to provide temporary access to instruction and instructional supports in a manner that is quick to set up and is reliably available during an emergency or crisis. (p. 5) The ERT framework by Hodges et al. (2020) informed the analysis of this research, focusing on the aspect of context evaluations and making future research and policy recommendations from input evaluations, process evaluations, and product evaluations. Special attention will be paid to making sense of the needs, problems, assets, opportunities, and, especially, unique contextual conditions and dynamics of Hong Kong’s community colleges in experiencing the processes of ERT.

Research Methods This study is based on two case studies of community colleges that were purposefully selected. College A provides both higher diploma and associate degree programs in the areas of social science, business, and science while College B is a specialist provider of higher diploma and degree courses in the areas of health science and science. This design of qualitative inquiry seeks to generate an in-depth analysis of a particular bounded phenomenon over time (Yin, 2016) and capture the social meaning of a particular context. The resulting epistemology-framing case study reveals that people and their values are primary in creating sensemaking and therefore should be the focus of the research. Subsequently, the case study is inherently concerned with social meaning, including context, values, conflict, and time (Maxwell, 2013). Data collection of this study employed a qualitative design using semistructured interviews. Interviews were conducted in July 2020. Participants were recruited by convenience sampling from the two local colleges. We interviewed seven teachers (T1 to T7; males = 3; females = 4) from various disciplines (e.g. Chinese, English, information technology, mathematics, social sciences) and seven students (S1 to S7; males = 4; females = 3) from nursing and social sciences. Each interview lasted for about 40–60 minutes and was audiotaped and transcribed. Thematic analytical approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was adopted to analyze the data in this study. The research processes for data analysis involved the systematic procedures of (1) becoming familiar with the data: authors rereading the transcripts several times in order to get a sense of the whole; (2) generating initial codes: after reading the transcripts, codes were extracted and finetuned; (3) searching for themes: codes were identified across the data set; (4) reviewing potential themes: authors reviewed and checked the codes and themes to see whether some of the codes did not fit there; and (5) defining and naming themes: six themes emerged from the interview data

188  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. – namely [i] “greater flexibility,” [ii] “more interactions in new forms,” [iii] “constraints and technical issues of online interactions,” [iv] “less effective teaching and learning,” [v] “digitizing formative assessments,” and [vi] “weakened teacher-student relationship.”

Results This study found that all Hong Kong’s community colleges converted to online learning throughout the spring/second semester of 2019/2020 in an attempt to sustain the quality and liberal education they have been delivering in normal times. Many of the instructor and student respondents in our study revealed the advantage of flexibility given by digital and distance learning, be it in a synchronous or asynchronous format. However, qualitative data of this research shows that both faculty and students had opinions about the limitations of online teaching and learning, at least in the initial adaptation when instructors were not fully equipped with the resources and professional skills, and students were not offered sophisticated guidance. There are, however, diverse views concerning whether online learning platforms can enhance interactions and their quality. Greater Flexibility Digital and distance learning offers convenience and flexibility, as one instructor shared, timetabling easier as the schedule would not be limited by availability of classroom: To students, I guess the flexibility is even higher. I had a student who “attended” my class on the bus in the evening. I could tell from the background sound and he admitted it. (T4) The convenience of conducting teaching and learning even from home can save time and energy from traveling and concerns with personal appearance. Another lecturer revealed: “I worry less about the preparation for my appearance as I do not need to fully make up my outlook” (T5). A few student respondents also revealed that as they could self-arrange time for viewing prerecorded lectures, this saved time traveling, and they can better focus on revisions and assignments. They also felt more energetic, as they could have more rest time. A student reported, For the schedule I find it quite flexible, I can wake up 15 minutes right before morning class. The only qualm is with 1p.m. classes, where a food coma slowly hits me in the middle of the class. I personally would avoid classes that take place right after lunch. (S5)

Sustaining Liberal Education by Online Learning in the Era  189 More Interactions in New Forms Online teaching and online platforms, depending on the specific features of the software, offer a social world that allows more interactions in new forms. A student expressed the following: The interactive nature of the class has been strengthened. There will be more classroom discussion activities such as group discussions and some mini-games related to the classroom to make the classroom atmosphere more active. Some online question mini-games will be used to make knowledge absorption faster. (S2) An instructor pinpointed the function of the online chat room, which is very effective: Online interaction worked best in the chat room when students were willing to contribute ideas, and I believe they were comfortable with typing in the chat room as that was very similar to their usual mode of communications like WhatsApp and other social media platforms. My students typed answers to my questions in the chat room, and I typed them out on the screen with markings and this was in fact easier than writing on the white board in a classroom as, sometimes, my students could not read my handwriting. (T1) One student respondent also echoed this point: According to my impression, most students prefer using the chat box. In regular face-to-face class sessions, some students feel embarrassed to speak up. But now they express themselves without face-to-face contact, they become more outspoken and have less concern about the others’ reactions. . . . Regarding academic engagement, I think it offers favorable conditions as we are given more opportunities to ask questions. (S7) Two other students also expressed similar opinions: I can type fast…. I don’t want to open my microphone and speak, as I may feel embarrassed. (S5) I think there are more interactions. Students are more active in speaking up. (S3) It is important to note that the effectiveness of the chat room depends on whether the instructors feel acquainted with checking the chat box from time to time while they focus on delivering the lecture contents.

190  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. Constraints and Technical Issues of Online Interactions Our interview data show that the increased interactions are, however, confined by the format of “questions and answers” in a chat room setting. Although the educational technology can allow students to interact with their instructors in a more interactive way – for example, through synchronous real-time audio or video conferencing – Hong Kong’s students do not feel comfortable with that given the physical space constraints of their living environments. A student admitted, Our instructors welcome us to open/unmute our microphone and ask questions. However, our classmates do not prefer doing so. It would be very embarrassing if the whole class overhears the conversations of our family members in the same flat. The microphone can pick up the sound in the background. The online teaching and learning platforms call for different interactions and social life. In comparison, all instructors participating in the study have revealed the downsides of digital learning in terms of quality of interactions, space for explaining and elaborating teaching ideas, difficulty finetuning the teaching pace, and technical issues. One instructor expressed, “The interactions are relatively less than we had in face-to-face classroom teaching,” while another teaching respondent shared, Most of the time my students do not respond to my questions but only type their responses in the chat room. There is a lot of time selftalking merely by me. In face-to-face teaching, students at least say something when I call their name. They would feel embarrassed by being unresponsive. But they do not feel the same in online classes. (T6) Regarding the quality of responses and interactions in the online class, one student observed and reported, “The comments are not very much informative. They contain one word for instance. If we are in a face-to-face class, our instructor passes the microphone to us and lets us talk and elaborate” (S6). Another student pinpointed that “I think the kind of learning software or platform we use determines the level of interaction” (S3). For example, one student respondent mentioned an instance when his instructor changed to Zoom, as the regular platform Adobe Connect does not allow students’ active participation in discussions. For digital and distance teaching and learning to become effective to sustain liberal education at community colleges, innovative exploration of educational technology and institutional resources is important for the new professional development of college instructors.

Sustaining Liberal Education by Online Learning in the Era  191 Less Effective Teaching and Learning All instructor respondents of this study reported that it is a lot harder to understand students’ learning progress and fine-tune the teaching pace, as they do not see whether students understand when their faces are not shown online. A lecturer illustrated, Teaching quality is a bit affected in my case. I cannot react to students’ responses online easily as I don’t really know whether they understand or not the content from their facial expression and body language. But I would say that online teaching can enhance learning in some other ways but personally, I could not manage to modify the course content and delivery in a very short period. (T6) Two other instructors echoed the point: My lectures involve explanations, examples, exercises; and when we conducted certain tasks in a classroom, I could easily see from students’ facial expressions whether they needed more explanations and/ or examples before doing the exercises. (T1) I feel that my students absorbed less knowledge through online teaching. Usually only just a few students responded to my questions. I was not sure if the other students already fell asleep, or they did not understand my teaching at all. In face-to-face teaching, their facial expressions can tell me when they do not understand. (T5) A student reflected, I think the pace is slower than teaching face-to-face and there are less explanations in the teaching…. It seems to me that my instructor was reading from the notes without much elaboration. If we are in the physical classroom, when we are confused our instructor would know at once. Hence, I think this is one of the limitations of online teaching. (S7) From the learners’ side, all seven students participating in this study revealed that they found it difficult to concentrate in online classes: There are too many temptations at home. (S4) I perceive that the quality of online class is different from that of face-to-face teaching. Then I become less motivated, always thinking that I can revisit the recorded class later…. I can focus better in the physical classroom. There are so many distractions at home. It is especially the case that I am living in a public estate. My flat is very small. My family members are so noisy that I find it hard to concentrate in attending my class. (S6)

192  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. I would feel the need to respect the lecturers in the campus, but when it comes to online class, I became less self-disciplined and less attentive. (S1) I found myself less active in learning attitude as the class mode was changed to online. (S2) I’d check my phone quite frequently compared to having classes on campus. (S7) I think taking online lessons at home is less efficient than face-toface learning in the classroom. For example I found myself sleepy for the 10:30 am class hence I took the class on my bed. I then fell asleep. Subsequently, I needed an additional 1.5 hours to view the lecture again. (S3) The student responses agree with the instructors’ views: “Students admitted that they were easily distracted.” “Students were even less motivated to engage in these activities without the peer pressure.” Unstable Internet connection means students unexpectedly missed some parts of the class, as one student reported: I found that the connection was not smooth when I attended a class of about 250 students. It was not the case before but only in that class. I was disconnected for almost 5 minutes and could not get back to the class. My instructor delivered many important contents during that time. I needed to consult my instructor again when I was reconnected. (S6) The most affected classes are practical workshops and field-based learning. Those activities were either canceled, postponed, or replaced by the online mode. However, a student gave this comment: My instructor mentioned that a video about the laboratory work would be supplemented later. It assumed that after viewing the video, we would learn the skills. But sometimes we need to actually practice for a number of times so as to acquire a certain skill. I think this is the major drawback of digital learning. (S7) Digitizing Formative Assessments There are diverse views about changing the formative assessments into digital form, and it is inconclusive to argue whether digitizing assessments can serve as a good substitute for the formative assessments that form an essential component of the liberal education Hong Kong’s community colleges offer. One lecturer of English experimented with changing the final exam to an open-book test and essay writing and had a positive experience:

Sustaining Liberal Education by Online Learning in the Era  193 We changed the exams to essay writing and an open-book test. Yes, they were fair. At first, I was worried that the open-book test would be too easy for students because they could easily find samples on the Internet, but in the end, the open-book test went well, and it was not as easy as I thought. Another colleague from the same college shared that the software for similarity checking was also very helpful. (T1) However, an instructor of a computer-related course revealed, “My computer lab sessions need to be conducted online and therefore I actually cannot evaluate student’s real-time performance” (T3). Weakened Teacher-Student Relationship Although the class time and communication with instructors had been sustained by the online platform, four out of seven students perceived that there was decreased interaction with instructors and lecturers: I think the relationship becomes distant. A lot of lecturers do not prefer giving us their personal contacts of social media but only their official email addresses. I myself do not like using emails at all. That’s why I have fewer contact with my lecturers. (S4) Compared with face-to-face teaching, I had fewer interactions with my instructors. It’s because it’s rather difficult to type a long paragraph in online classes. Usually we just asked about assignments. (S2) Usually the communication is like a question followed by an answer. It’s not chitchat at all. (S5) Academic exchange also becomes complicated. (S1) A college lecturer also highlighted that face-to-face interactions in campus life cannot be replaced by digital alternatives,Under the COVID-19, I felt frustrated as I was unable to meet my students face-to-face to give them guidance on both academic and career. My students also told me that they were longing for classroom interaction. I think both modes of teaching have their own place. But I do prefer the face-to-face one…. Lack of faceto-face teaching support would definitely affect students’ performance. Students reported that they were exposed to more distractions in online classes. I found that this year we had more students who failed the requirement for progression. (T6)

Discussion Many of the instructor and student respondents in our study reveal the advantage of flexibility given by digital and distance learning, be it in a synchronous or asynchronous format. However, qualitative data of this

194  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. research shows even more views about the limitations of online teaching and learning, at least in the initial adaptation when instructors were not fully equipped with the resources and professional skills, and students were not offered sophisticated guidance. There are, however, diverse views concerning whether online learning platforms can enhance interactions and their quality. During campus closures, instructors and teachers in colleges have struggled to sustain the liberal education focus while catering to the diverse learning needs of students in their classes. One purpose of this study is to examine the implications of a possible paradigm shift of liberal education in light of synergizing online and face-to-face teaching. The preliminary analysis of this study appears to show that community colleges in Hong Kong are vulnerable to the consequences caused by COVID-19, at least in the initial adaptation of digital and distance learning when instructors were not fully equipped with the resources and professional skills, and students were not offered sophisticated guidance. Students from disadvantaged families encountered problems with Internet access, availability of electronic equipment, limited physical space for individual online learning, privacy (for example revealing their poor home environment in a synchronous online class), and lack of digital literacy. A significant number of the students need to share a computer with their families, while some of them have no electronic device at home. Disadvantaged college students with psychological problems (for example, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) lacked learner autonomy and were unable to focus on online learning. While coping with the global crisis of COVID-19, Hong Kong’s community colleges have been devising and updating plans for campus reopenings and hybrid modes of online/face-to-face and synchronous and asynchronous learning and teaching. Some instructors worried about a “tsunami-scale” learning difference caused by the digital divide between disadvantaged students and their peers when normal classes gradually resume. Strong evidence reveals that disadvantaged students struggle most in electronic learning, inducing more inequalities in educational outcomes than learning in classroom environments (Baum & McPherson, 2019). Teachers who are used to working with different groups of students in the physical classroom may not know how to work with and manage different groups in an online learning environment. This is especially the case if the digital literacy of the students is lacking or varies significantly. If the pandemic situation persists for more semesters, instructors will need much more professional development to be equipped with pedagogic, technological, and contextual knowledge for delivering quality liberal education via online modes. Apart from academic and technical support, colleges should monitor staff and student well-being regularly. The workload issues arise more strongly when instructors are expected to teach their classes with hybrid modes of online/face-to-face. On the other hand, limited access to campus and

Sustaining Liberal Education by Online Learning in the Era  195 social distancing have made it harder for students to access counseling and other available support services.

Conclusion Community colleges have been spinning the narrative that their story is one of resilience and continuity. This chapter examined the case study of Hong Kong’s community colleges in view of how it mitigated COVID19 through ERT for online learning and organizational adaptation. It especially investigated the unique contextual conditions and dynamics of Hong Kong’s community colleges in experiencing the processes of ERT and sustained the delivery of liberal education. We are living in an era of global crises. The Institute for International Education shared that in the last 20 years, there were four global health crises and that the field of international education rebounded after slight periods of decrease, and after COVID-19, they will continue that pattern (Goodman, 2020). Raby (2012) also projected the same regarding past economic crises and was correct for those periods in time. Yet those were different contexts, and COVID-19 foreshadows even more ominous underpinnings. While many suggest that higher education reinvents itself, those reinventions need to occur within an environment in which the viability of the institution itself is questioned since layoffs and even institutional closures are now commonplace. Nonetheless, it is likely that COVID-19 will transform education at community colleges and their global counterparts, as it will cause a permanent rethinking that recognizes practices which increased global insularity and xenophobia and contributed to interpersonal and collective anxieties. If they are not addressed, they will intensify existing economic and social divisions. Community colleges and their global counterparts are uniquely poised to respond to the unfolding crisis and support recovery efforts, as their ability to provide affordable education to all students will help to reduce poverty, restore the economy through the retraining of the workforce, and address issues of access, social justice, and equity. The innovation community colleges have been navigating and creating in sustaining liberal education will continue the narrative of their resilience and continuity in the era of global crises.

Bios Hei-hang Hayes Tang, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Policy and Leadership and Program Leader of the M.A. in Leading Innovative Learning Organizations at the Education University of Hong Kong. He currently serves as Associate Editors of the Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education and Humanities and Social Sciences Communications and is an Editorial Board Member of Chinese Education & Society. As a sociologist, Dr. Tang is interested in

196  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. the fields of higher education, education policy, academic profession, and youth studies. His research focuses on the sociological role of higher education in entrepreneurial society and the global city. He is committed to creating new knowledge in the application of better education governance and policy innovation in East Asia. Currently, he conducts an international research project entitled “Reconsidering Academic Entrepreneurialism in East Asia: Diverse Voices and Critical Insights from the Academic Profession of Flagship Universities.” Beatrice Y. Y. Dang, Ed.D., is a Senior Lecturer at the HKU SPACE Po Leung Kuk Stanley Ho Community College. Her research interests are in the areas of education policy, sociology of education, and further education. In particular, she is interested in the learning experiences of community college students. Her work now focuses on the influence of social class on the educational aspirations of community college graduates. Rosalind Latiner Raby, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer at California State University, Northridge, in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department of the College of Education and the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education. She also serves as the Director of California Colleges for International Education, a nonprofit consortium whose membership includes 86 California community colleges. Dr. Raby received her Ph.D. in the field of comparative and international education from UCLA, and since 1984, she has worked with community college faculty and administrators to help them internationalize their campuses. Joanna W. Y. Yeung, Ed.D., is a Senior Lecturer at Tung Wah College with research interests in nursing education, especially in simulation methodology. She is also interested in young adolescents’ health perception and practice. She is currently working on a simulation experience project before clinical placement and nutrition label knowledge of the general public.

References Altbach, P. G., & De Wit, H. (2020). Responding to COVID-19 with IT: A transformative moment? International Higher Education, 103, 3–5. Anderson, E., & Hira, A. (2020). Loss of brick-and-mortar schooling: How elementary educators respond. Information and Learning Sciences, 121 (5/6), 411–418. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-04-2020-0085 Baum, S., & McPherson, M. (2019). Improving teaching: Strengthening the college learning experience. Daedalus, 148(4), 5–13. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.

Sustaining Liberal Education by Online Learning in the Era  197 CalAbroad. (2020, May 1). Quick poll. Virtual town hall meeting. www.CalAbroad. org/townhall2020/ Capstone. (2020, June 8). Capstone update from Viet Nam. Recruit in Viet Nam. https://recruitinvietnam.com/updates/blog.html Clayton, D. (2020, July 19). Five trends postsecondary education leaders need to watch this fall. Strada Education Network. Inside Higher Education. https://insidehighered.com/sponsored/five-trends-postsecondary-education-leaders-needwatch-fall?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=b9888d69bbDNU_2020_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_lfcbc04421b9888d69bb-236562954&mc_cid=b9888d69bb&mc_eid=1dfab72d09 Community College Institutional Interest Group (CC-IIG). (2020, March 16). Collegial conversations. COVID impacts. NAFSA. https://network.nafsa. org/communities/community-home?CommunityKey=c52fcc16-8238-47bfa6dc-a443482d67cd. May 4, 2020. Collegial conversations. NAFSA. https:// network.nafsa.org/communities/community-home?CommunityKey=c52fcc168238-47bf-a6dc-a443482d67cd. May 18, 2020. Collegial conversations. NAFSA. https://network.nafsa.org/communities/community-home?CommunityKey= c52fcc16-8238-47bf-a6dc-a443482d67cd Diverseeducation.com (2020, June 15). During the pandemic, 3 in 5 students face food and housing insecurity. DiverseEducation. https://diverseeducation.com/ article/181024/# Goldrick-Rab, S. (2020, May 22). Community colleges aren’t prepared for this crisis. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/ community-colleges-could-help-students-through-pandemic/611884/ Goodman, A. (2020). Letter to the field. IIE email communication. agoodman@ iie.org Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (2020). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review, 27, 1–12. Kim, K. J., & Bonk, C. J. (2006). The future of online teaching and learning in higher education. Educause Quarterly, 29(4), 22–30. Ko, S., & Rossen, S. (2017). Teaching online: A practical guide. Taylor & Francis. Marinoni, G., van’t Land, H., & Jensen, T. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 on higher education around the world. International Association of Universities. International Association of Universities. https://www.iau-aiu.net/IMG/pdf/ iau_covid19_and_he_survey_report_final_may_2020.pdf Martel, M. (2020a). Comparative impacts of COVID-19 on global campuses. Webinar. IIE/EHEA: European Higher Education Area/Canadian Colleges & Institutes. https://www.iie.org/en/Connect/COVID-19/IIE-Network-COVID-19Engagement-Series Martel, M. (2020b). IIE COVID-19 snapshot survey series. Report 3. New realities for global student mobility summer and fall 2020. https://www. iie.org/Research-and-Insights/Publications/COVID-19-Effects-on-USHigher-Education-Campuses-Report-3 Maxwell, J. A. (2013). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. SAGE Publications. Means, B., Bakia, M., & Murphy, R. (2014). Learning online: What research tells us about whether, when and how. Routledge. Mitchell, N. (2020, June, 16). What have we learned and how will HE change post COVID-19? NAFSA Webinar.

198  Hei-hang Hayes Tang et al. NAFSA/IIE. (2019). International student economic benefit: 2011–2019. http://www.nafsa.org/_/File/_/eis2019/California.pdf Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2013). Lessons from the virtual classroom: The realities of online teaching. John Wiley & Sons. Philips, B. C., & Horowitz, J. E. (2020). Creating a data-informed culture in community colleges: A new model for educators. Harvard Education Press. Raby, R. L. (2012). Re-Imagining international education at community colleges. Audem: International Journal of Higher Education and Democracy, 3, 81–99. Raby, R.L. & Valeau, E.J. (2018). Handbook on comparative issues of community colleges and global counterparts. Springer. Tang, H.H.H., & Dang, B.Y.Y. (2019). Democratizing higher education through community college: Some qualitative evidences from an East Asian entrepreneurial city. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting “Leveraging Education Research in a ‘Post-Truth’ Era: Multimodal Narratives to Democratize Evidence,” Toronto, Canada. University World News. (2021). Coronavirus Crisis and HE. University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/page.php?page=Coronavirus_Hub Watermeyer, R., Crick, T., Knight, C., & Goodall, J. (2020). COVID-19 and digital disruption in UK universities: Afflictions and affordances of emergency online migration. Higher Education, 81, 623–641. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10734-020-00561-y Wong, Y. L. (2019a). An empirical illustration of social legitimation through hegemony: Narratives of students from a community college on seeking a transferal in Hong Kong. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 44(10– 12), 771–786. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2019.1680462 Wong, Y. L. (2019b). Angels falling from grace? The rectification experiences of middle-class community-college students in Hong Kong. Studies in Higher Education, 44(8), 1303–1315. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.14 28949 World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics. (2020). August newsletter. www. wfcp.org/newsletter/Summer/2020 Yin, R. K. (2016). Case study research: Design and methods (6th ed.). SAGE Publication. Youhanna, D. (2020, June 27). Ways to assist international students during pandemic. World University News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post. php?story=20200625153047746

15 Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19 Critical Perspectives from an Indian University Mousumi Mukherjee, Tatiana Belousova, and Deepak Maun Introduction This chapter provides a critical perspective on distance learning from the Indian higher education context based on student experiences with distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is based on evidence from an online survey conducted by the authors of this chapter, who are also teachers within the Indian higher education system with varying levels of teaching experience and training (both on campus and online). The arguments based on the findings from this study are limited to an extent since it captures the experiences of only those students who had access to the internet and who participated in classes delivered online during the spring 2020 semester (for details on sampling, please see “Research Method” section). In the introductory section, we provide a brief context of the mainstream Indian higher education system before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then we engage with the existing literature on distance learning, especially with a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. Thereafter, we explain our research methodology to present and analyze the data from our research.

The Indian Higher Education Sector India has the third-largest higher education sector in the world, next only to the United States and China. There are 993 universities (38% private), 39,931 colleges (78% private), and 10,725 stand-alone institutions in India (AISHE 2018–2019). The gross enrollment ratio in higher education in India stands at 26.3% (37.4 million students; 48.6% female). Open and distance learning (ODL) opportunities have been available within India since the mid-1980s. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), an ODL only university, has the largest enrollments for a single institution (3.5 million students). Yet, of the total enrollments, only 10.62% are ODL students (44% females; see Figure 15.1 for details; AISHE 2018–2019).

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Figure 15.1 Comparative Gross Enrollment Ratios for ODL and Regular (On-Campus) Courses in India. (Source: AISHE 2018–2019 report)

Higher Education in India during the COVID-19 Pandemic As a survival mantra in this pandemic time, social distancing is being vigorously advocated and practiced. With university campuses shut since the first national lockdown announcement on March 24, 2020, the delivery of higher education has moved online in many private and public institutions within India. Students have been forced to stay away from the campus ecosystem, keeping them at a distance from their teachers and peers. These human interactions contributed to their social identities as “students.” Equal access to physical campuses afforded them a chance for a better future by providing them access to knowledge, resources, and opportunities. The pandemic has upset this. The universities have a long history of struggles against “social inequities,” such as struggles against caste-, class-, race-, and gender-based exclusion and marginalization (Malish, 2020). While everyone is affected by the pandemic in one way or another, people’s vulnerability to the pandemic has been uneven based on their socioeconomic status. This is true even for those university students who do not have the wherewithal to continuously stay connected to the university through technology. During the pandemic, such students form the “socially disconnected” population (Malish, 2020). Mathews (2020, p. 22) has reflected on this, citing a recent circular to faculty issued by the vice-chancellor of Kolkata’s Jadavpur University. In his message, he requested faculty members to be cautious about conducting online classes or sharing digital content. He urged his faculty members to consider the socioeconomic backgrounds of the students in the teaching-learning process since many students cannot afford a computer at home. This underscores the importance of ensuring equity in the process

Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19  201 of promoting online learning because the Internet density in India is still quite low. The National Sample Survey 2017–2018 shows that only 42% of the urban population and 15% of rural households have internet access (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, 2019, p. 3). This data does not highlight the quality of internet access. Not surprisingly, students in rural/remote regions face more frequent electricity outages compared to their city counterparts and slower internet access speeds. Leave aside high speed, students from one state (Jammu and Kashmir) had not had access to the internet since August 5, 2019, due to restrictions by the Government of India that changed the political status of the state and converted it into a centrally governed union territory (Ashiq, 2020; GK News Network, 2020). In the middle of the pandemic, a committee was set up by the University Grants Commission1 led by the vice-chancellors of Central University of Haryana and IGNOU. Taking into consideration the ground reality within the larger Indian context with regards to the digital divide and the spread of the virus, it was decided that instead of commencing in July, the new academic year would commence in a staggered manner from September 2020. Online classes and exams would be conducted only when it was possible. Entrance examinations for the incoming batches, as well as the end of semester examinations for already enrolled students, had been postponed multiple times due to the increasing COVID-19 caseload across India. Much has been already written about the need for reforming the “sick” Indian higher education sector even prior to the pandemic (Agarwal, 2009; Agarwal, 2012; Altbach & Jayaram, 2009; Jayaram, 2003; Kumar, 2018), but the digital divide was rarely a major concern. Under current circumstances, we need to ask if the digital divide is now a key concern facing Indian higher education during the pandemic? Mukherjee (2020, p. 36) asks whether “access to online education [will] help manage the learning gaps of even so-called privileged students in India?” Analysis of data from our research will help us to understand some of the problems from the critical perspectives of students in the middle of the pandemic. However, prior to presenting the analysis, we provide a brief review of literature on ODL and the literature on student experiences of distance learning in the middle of the pandemic.

ODL: Pre- and Post-pandemic Open Distance Learning (ODL), especially its recent version of online education, has been recognized for its potential for democratizing access to “knowledge for all,” not just for the select few but for anyone who is motivated enough to seek learning (Zwaan, 2017, p. 143). Online education builds on the “distance learning model” by pivoting increased availability of and access to the internet and mobile connectivity around the world. This is crucial particularly for the marginalized sections of society

202  Mousumi Mukherjee et al. that have been at a disadvantage vis-à-vis access to education delivered in physical classrooms. Geographical or time factors that have previously deterred students from campus-based universities that require physical presence at lectures are no longer a constraint in this model. Students can study from anywhere with a broadband connection, at any time that suits them (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020, p. 46). In India, the shift toward online courses, both by universities and nonuniversity entities (edtech start-ups) was already a well-established trend for some years now. Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and several private universities have been offering fully online courses or online/hybrid degree programs. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated them manifold, leaving universities and students with no option but to shift to online classes to continue their education. This “forced” shift has created an opportunity for a large volume of research by providing novel data to academics around the world. Articles are being published on learning in the online mode. The results are still not final, for this is an emergent phenomenon (there are already more than 700 articles on Google Scholar with the words “online + learning/education + COVID” in the titles). Within the pre-pandemic context, Hirner and Kochtanek (2012, p. 122) stated that the continued growth in online programs in higher education comes with concerns regarding support services, learning resources, and effectiveness of instruction. Widening access to higher education requires a change in attitudes and mindsets that emphasizes flexible growth instead of fixed traditions. All paradigms, from curriculum design, learning pathways and styles, services, and delivery to assessments must be revisited. The means of recognition and validation also require reconsideration as the lines between formal and informal learning become more and more blurred (Ossiannilsson et al., 2016, p. 170). Although there is a growing consensus towards the point of view that the basic methodology of quality assurance would be the same for both traditional and distance education, there is disagreement on the extent of modifications needed. Distance education tests conventional assumptions, raising fresh questions as to the essential nature and content of an educational experience and the resources required (Stella & Gnanam, 2004, p. 151). There is no doubt that the unprecedented increase in the provision of online education caused by the pandemic requires an equally strong and timely response toward its quality assurance. Scholars who have been studying online education during the pandemic have warned about taking the evidence from “emergency remote teaching” experiences and generalizing it to make sense of online education delivered by skillful educators who design digital pedagogies and content, building on extensive research in the field. They want researchers to distinguish that from

Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19  203 flexible digital education deployed in haste, driven by an immediate need to adapt to rapid changes in delivery, namely as suddenly other than face-to-face, all amidst the threat and uncertainty of a widely circulating, poorly understood pathogen . (Veletsianos & Houlden, 2020, p. 849) This is a crucial consideration for anyone researching online education during the pandemic.

Challenges of Online Learning during the Pandemic Prior to the pandemic, universities, faculty members, and students had primarily relied on the campus-based, face-to-face mode of teaching and learning. ODL, including online courses and degrees, had not been considered effective substitutes to such physical experiences. The students, especially the undergraduates, barely had familiarity with full online delivery. They had opted for a physical experience but were forced to undergo online education, albeit not always well-designed by faculty without any training in online pedagogies (Altbach & De Wit, 2020b, p. 3). Highlighting the challenges faced by such students during the transition to remote online learning within the context of the pandemic, a University of California report argues that the biggest obstacles were not technical in nature. These were adaptive challenges involving “students” lack of motivation, lack of interpersonal connections with classmates, learning difficulties in online formats, and lack of appropriate study spaces amid distracting home environment (Soria et al., 2020, p.3). Peters et al. (2020, p. 2) observed that the COVID-19 health emergency is having a profound impact on the theory and practice of higher education worldwide. Bryson and Andres (2020, p.1) see a shift toward more diversified but intensive forms of online content delivery. Others see more negative implications, with online modes working to amplify the existing gaps and inequities among learners, HEIs, and nations, with the poorest ones suffering the most (Altbach & De Wit, 2020a). Amemado (2020, p. 12) argues that rather than being optimists or skeptics, the focus, especially in the short term, should be on finding ways to maximize the quality of online education, improve student learning experiences, and improve the reliability of the medium. This cannot be accomplished by faculty alone but requires the support of students, information technology experts, learning designers, online education experts, and student support staff (Leask & Green, 2020). Thus, sharing learnings from experiments and experiences arising within very diverse geographic and institutional contexts becomes crucial for such a project.

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Learning in the Online Mode As opposed to the teacher being the main source of communication and the center of the teaching-learning experience in face-to-face mode, ODL mode is centered on media to enable effective communication. Yet the teacher remains an important facilitator for learning (Nage-Sibande & Morolong, 2018, p. 495). “Perceived communication” refers to students’ perceptions of a teacher’s communication skills (Ganesh et al., 2015, p. 67) and impacts student learning. Faculty-student interactions that enhance students’ knowledge acquisition increases their perceived competence of the instructor in accomplishing the course tasks. This is crucial not just in face-to-face, but also in online modes. Although difficult, it is not impossible to achieve similar levels of perceived competence in both class formats. Bryson and Andres (2020, p. 1) have also argued that peer-to-peer and student-instructor communication plays a crucial role in facilitating and supporting the online learning process. Support specifically includes three dimensions: (1) instructional, (2) technical, and (3) peer. Instructional support involves teachers encouraging and facilitating students to continuously ask questions and take an active part in discussions. Technical support focuses on using tools and technologies that are responsive to student needs. Peer support involves creating spaces for students to engage in constructive debate and developing a supportive culture to encourage students to build virtual social communities focused on interactions around classroom-based teaching. Dani et al.’s (2018, p. 336) study revealed that when the online learner becomes familiar with the online instructor, they may feel more relaxed while taking the instructor’s online class. However, there are challenges in achieving such familiarity. Harrison et al. (2018, p. 480) point to difficulties faced by teachers in contextualizing students’ online learning environments, more so when the class is diverse and students represent different nations. Thus, despite the established importance of personalized and adaptive learning experiences from a pedagogical perspective, these may be difficult to achieve in practice, more so during situations like the current pandemic.

Assumptions about Students There are perceived and real differences in the efficacy of ODL compared to physical face-to-face learning opportunities in brick-and-mortar classrooms. Yet when one chooses to pursue ODL classes, it may be argued that such students pursue their education under higher constraints of time and money compared to those attending physical classes. In ODL, the learners are assumed to be more autonomous and in control of their learning process and environment. They are more motivated, display better selfcontrol, and better self-monitor their activities (Shearer et al., 2020, p. 36).

Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19  205 These assumptions fall flat in online classes forced during the COVID19 pandemic as has been noted by Altbach and De Wit (2020, p. 3). Thus, the course instructors may require additional mechanisms to address these issues for diverse groups of students. Further, given the possibility of learners not having the necessary independence/autonomy, instructors need to provide them with cognitive, emotional, and social support and help them develop autonomy by offering pedagogical and psychological dialogue and interactions.

Online Learning versus Distance Education Even prior to the pandemic, there was a definite trend towards increasing enrollment in online courses. By 2018, more than 25% of students were enrolled in at least one online course. Ninety percent of academic leaders expected this number to increase to 100% over the next five years – i.e., every university student taking at least one online course (Stauffer, 2018). Despite such progress, there are misconceptions about online degrees and their market value compared to traditional degrees. Hence, blended learning that combines the strengths of both physical and virtual components is more acceptable compared to fully online programs (Palvia et al., 2018, p. 233). Nonetheless, Kemp (2020, p. 5) asks if the present increase of interest in online learning will be short-lived and result in attitudinal changes in universities and among potential students? He argues that it is difficult to replicate the campus experience online. However, Swan (2021) makes a very clear and important distinction between online learning and distance education of the past. He highlights that traditional modes of both on-campus and distance education were teacher-centered, focused on independent study, and grounded in behaviorist and cognitive psychology. In contrast, online learning is student-centered, focuses on collaboration, and grounded in social constructivist learning theory. Furthermore, he discussed at length how online environments can be designed for learner centricity by shaping the knowledge, assessment, and community aspects of the experience. In his pursuance, he examined the community of inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison et al., 2000, p. 87) of online learning and suggested some ideas for collaborative constructivist approaches to online teaching and learning, as well as an important framework for designing research. In the following section, we will discuss our research method and modes of analysis drawing on this CoI model.

Research Method As stated in the introductory section of this chapter, we conducted an online survey of a total of 106 students from three classes who took our fully online classes during spring 2020. This convenient sample of

206  Mousumi Mukherjee et al. 106  students included undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students from different departments who studied in three online classes taught by the three faculty authors of this chapter. They are representative of the student population of this premier Indian university, which is comparatively a more well-resourced higher educational institution than the average university. Out of the three classes, one was designed to be delivered fully online prior to the pandemic by an instructor with long experience and training in both on-campus and online teaching. The other two classes were converted into a fully online mode of delivery as an emergency response since the pandemic enforced a campus lockdown. Fifty-four of the 106 students surveyed were undergraduate students, 42 were doctoral students, and 10 were masters students. When the semester classes and grading were over, the students were sent this short, reflective, anonymous survey using Google Forms. The following five short openended questions were asked in the survey: . How was your overall experience of distance learning this semester? 1 2. What did you like and what you did not like about this experience? 3. Did you have good access to a computer and internet facility to participate in the online classes from home? If not, then how did you manage to participate in distance learning? 4. Briefly describe the online class experience compared to the physical classroom experience. How similar or different was this experience? 5. Given that the COVID-19 threat is a long-haul issue and we cannot resume classes in the physical classroom soon, how can we improve the distance/online learning experience for you? It may be important to note that the questions did not ask specifically about the experiences of students in the three courses taught by the authors of the chapter. These concerned online learning experiences in general and hence, the responses drew from their experiences of the five to seven courses they would have attended during the Spring 2020 semester (i.e., during April–June 2020). Another aspect worth a mention is that the pandemic happened mid-semester. By that time, the students had already attended classes for six weeks with the same faculty that taught them online. So they could easily draw on the teaching styles of faculty members in online and physical classes, as well as their own experiences of the two scenarios.

Data Analysis Textual data from the survey was first coded into positive and negative experiences. Thereafter, data was coded with regards to positive/negative experiences about online learning, drawing on the CoI process-oriented model of the learning experience, where social presence, cognitive

Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19  207

Figure 15.2  The CoI Framework. (Sources: © Garrison, 2017)

presence, and teaching presence (Garrison, 2017; see Figure 15.2) play a key role. Within this model, social presence refers to the degree to which learners feel socially and emotionally connected to the teacher and their peers in an online environment. This is very important because a number of research studies have found that the perception of interpersonal connections with virtual others is an important factor in the success of online learning (Picciano, 2002; Richardson, Maeda et al., 2017; Richardson & Swan, 2003; Swan, 2002; Swan & Shih, 2005; Tu, 2000, as cited by Swan 2021, p. 80). Cognitive presence refers to the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through course activities, sustained reflection, and discourse (Garrison et al., 2000, as cited by Swan, 2021, p. 82). Teaching presence refers to the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes by the course facilitator/instructor for the realization of personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes by the students (Anderson et al., 2001, as cited by Swan 2021, p. 81). The “social distancing” imposed by the pandemic increased the stress felt by many teachers, as well as students, facing a sense of loss of

208  Mousumi Mukherjee et al. community and needing to quickly adapt to the online learning environment, which makes the CoI framework suitable for analyzing the collected qualitative data.

Findings Students’ responses to the survey questions in terms of positive and negative experiences were quite mixed. The reflective statements from the students about their online distance learning experience clearly indicate that all the positive experiences are connected to social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. The negative experiences, on the other hand, are connected to the absence of these three important elements. Here are some of the students’ statements that highlight the importance of having a sense of community through social, cognitive, and teaching presence, even within the online learning environment: “Experience was good for all the courses that were more interactive than the ones where it was kind of a monologue.” “Fortunately, the administration and faculty members were co-operative and putting in extra effort to accommodate students’ needs.” “It allowed me to work on my preferred schedule and spared me the extra effort of dressing up and covering the distance to classrooms.” “Flexibility and studying while staying with family certainly eased stress boosting productivity to an extent.” “I most appreciate the fact that lectures were getting recorded for the convenience of the students, so that we could play them if and when we missed out on live sessions.” “I loved the fact that I could be part of lot more courses now as I did not have to travel all the way for a class or two each day.” “Online experience was good, and I preferred it over the face to face one on account of convenience.” “Oddly, a lot of my introvert colleagues and classmates were able to confidently participate through chat box options and voice options, who otherwise feel shy in stating their views in front of a physical audience.” “The teachers really tried hard to make it interactive but still there was some lack of an interactive experience as compared to the online classes. The physical presence gives a different touch to the classes.” It is clear from these statements that the students missed the interactivity of the face-to-face classes. Classes that were more interactive even in the online mode were successful in creating a sense of community among the students through the social presence and teaching presence. It was an overall positive learning experience for the students. Moreover, the flexibility of

Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19  209 the online mode facilitated the social presence and cognitive presence for several of the students, thus enhancing their learning experience. The larger Indian context of the digital divide and the pandemic-related lockdown inhibited the formation of a sense of community for some students. For these students, the online learning experience appeared negative. Despite being enrolled in a relatively affluent private Indian university and having computer access at home, some students were facing issues related to Internet connectivity and speed fluctuations because of the infrastructure constraints of the city/village they live in. Moreover, it is evident from some of the comments that the students’ learning experiences were negative also in classes where the teacher delivered a monologue lecture over the computer. Apparently, such a model of teaching, practiced either in a face-to-face classroom or during online classes, fails to create a sense of community for the students. The teaching model fails in creating social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. Here are some quotes from the students expressing negative experiences: The demographic composition of every student’s household can vary. The households with old people require geriatric care, for instance. Secondly, as grown-up adults, it is normally not expected from us to sit back quietly for online classes and demand services at home from others. These things must have had effect on student’s performance, as it did have in my case. Access to computer and mobile was there but, Internet service was a problem. Poor network speed and disturbance in connectivity was a problem. One needs high speed Internet connectivity for online classes. That involves an extra cost. Lecture schedule was too choked. There was no time for studies and reflection, only listening to lecturers. It is either a monologue or dialogue between two parties and the scope for argument and discussion is limited. I missed being in college (being a part time student these classes are the only reason to come and visit college). Learning from peers and teachers was not there. It was like a robot is speaking to us in monotonous tone. It is clear from the quotes that for these students, the online classroom experience was overall negative due to the lack of social, cognitive, and teaching presence for the students. As it has been highlighted in the CoI framework, the educational experience becomes meaningful and effective at the intersection of social, cognitive, and teaching presence. Hence, our study demonstrates that within the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic and diverse circumstances at home, some students, even from relatively privileged backgrounds, have experienced massive disruption to their learning processes during the spring 2020 semester.

210  Mousumi Mukherjee et al.

Concluding Remarks With the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic, ODL has taken a sharp turn worldwide. From the fringes, the online cousin of ODL has reached the mainstream higher educational institutions, with most universities either operating online or not operating at all. In India, the sudden shift has shaken up institutional lethargy. Most universities, especially the private universities and stand-alone research and technical training institutions, have quickly embraced the online mode of teaching and learning. The large public universities, with their diverse, geographically distributed and differentially endowed campuses, have been less successful in making the transition. This happened despite the faculty in such public institutions receiving advice from senior administrations to reach out to the student communities in whatever way possible – through phones, WhatsApp messages, recorded lectures/scanned notes shared through emails (Chowdhury, 2020). The institutional focus, at least during the spring 2020 semester, was on ensuring continuity by finishing course curricula and evaluations to allow students to graduate or move to the next semester. Faculty members conversant only with the face-to-face mode of teaching often struggled to customize the course content and pedagogy for the online mode. At the same time, students found themselves struggling at home, away from their teachers, peers, and campus facilities. Even in the case of a premier private university (like our university) where many students come from well-off families with little challenges in accessing digital devices, the internet infrastructure in the rural areas or small towns presented a significant challenge. For students from relatively less well-off families to meaningfully engage in distance learning was even more challenging. The physical distance from peers, faculty, and campus resulted in diminished social, cognitive, and teaching presence (Garrison, 2017), leading to less than desired learning experiences. Yet positive experiences were also shaped during such physically distanced engagements. The barriers arising from physical processes of “dressing up” for class or “covering the [physical] distance” to reach classrooms were dissolved. This led to students attending more classes, though this was also contingent upon student motivation. The students had good experiences when the teachers were more interactive than pursuing a monologue. However, the student reflections suggest that “monologues or dialogues” remained more common in online classes than genuinely engaging “discussions” that were happening in the same courses prior to the pandemic. Therefore, it can be argued here that the teachers” “perceived communication” (Ganesh et al., 2015, p. 67) and “expertise” for designing such experiences created a difference. But most of the teachers working within the Indian higher education sector do not receive any preservice training to teach. In-service professional development and teachers’

Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19  211 training programs for pedagogical training are also ineffective or completely absent. There are only subject-specific refresher courses available through the University Grants Commission. Thus, teachers are usually left to their own means to improve their pedagogical skills, even prior to the pandemic. Such teachers cannot be expected to have any prior training in online pedagogies. Finally, our study suggests that university campuses play a crucial role in equalizing opportunities by removing infrastructural constraints to facilitate student learning experiences. Some students reported that they struggled with power backup and steady internet facilities in their hometowns. It can be assumed that these are students coming from less well-off families or from rural/suburban backgrounds, as nearly 50% of the students at this particular university campus received partial to full scholarships. In a country with a large digital divide (geographic divide: rural vs. urban, large vs. small city, and even intracity for localities with differing socioeconomic affluence), university campuses play the role of the equalizer. They allow students from diverse regions and socioeconomic backgrounds to come together and make the campus facilities accessible to all. The campus, by allowing everyone access to high-quality infrastructure and resources, reduces the personal challenges certain students may face owing to their socioeconomic backgrounds. The hope of online learning making education accessible to the masses while ensuring that it meets the goals of effective learning outcomes needs to overcome multiple physical (infrastructural) and pedagogical challenges within a context like India. The COVID-19 pandemic has moved things forward to a great extent, but much distance still needs to be covered for India.

Bio Mousumi Mukherjee, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the International Institute for Higher Education Research and Capacity Building (IIHEd) at O.P. Jindal Global, India. She is Member Secretary of the Research Ethics and Review Board and founding Executive Director of the Centre for Comparative and Global Education at O.P. Jindal Global University. She is a Fulbright alumna. Currently, she is a Fellow and country director (India) of the Society for Transnational Academic Researchers (STAR) scholars’ network. She is a Research Standing Committee Member of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES). She is also a Steering Committee Member of the Association of Commonwealth University’s (ACU) Supporting Research Community. She has served for over 4 years as Associate Editor of Taylor & Francis journal- Diaspora, Indigenous and Minority Education. She has served as guest editor and reviewer of a number of internationally peer-reviewed journals. She has published over 20 internationally peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters by reputed publishers, including Routledge. ORCID: https:// orcid.org/0000-0001-9251-9165

212  Mousumi Mukherjee et al. Dr. Tatiana Belousova is currently an Assistant Professor & Assistant Director at the International Institute for Higher Education Research & Capacity Building (IIHEd), O.P. Jindal Global University, India. In the year 2019 she received her Ph.D. degree at the University of Kerala, Department of Political Science. Prior to this, Tatiana completed her postgraduate studies at the St. Petersburg State University (Russia), Department of World Economy. One of her research interests is internationalization of higher education in India, particularly, inbound student mobility. Tatiana’s recent article is “Internationalization of Higher Education in Kerala: A Performance Audit”, published by Higher Education for the Future. Dr. Belousova is also a contributor to the University World News. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9310-7293 Dr. Deepak Maun is an Assistant Professor at the International Institute for Higher Education Research & Capacity Building (IIHEd) at O. P. Jindal Global University, India. He received his Ph.D. in Innovation and Management in Education (IME) from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. His thesis focused on collaborative learning of government primary school teachers in online spaces. Prior to his Ph.D., he was working with a social sector organization focused on teaching XI–XII grade students from poor families. His current research interests also include governance and leadership in higher education, critical thinking, and unschooling/homeschooling. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9489-9920

Note 1 The regulator that governs most Indian higher education institutions.

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Students’ Experiences with Distance Learning under COVID-19  213 Amemado, D. (2020). COVID-19: An unexpected and unusual driver to online education. International Higher Education (Special Issue No. 102), 12–14. Ashiq, P. (2020, December 12). Jamia online exam: J&K students left in the lurch. The Hindu. Retrieved December 15, 2020, from https://www.thehindu.com/ news/national/other-states/jk-students-left-in-the-lurch/article33310909.ece. Bryson, J. R., & Andres, L. (2020, August 17). Covid-19 and rapid adoption and improvisation of online teaching: Curating resources for extensive versus intensive online learning experiences. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 44, 1–15. Chowdhury, S. (2020). Digital-divide caution from Jadavpur VC. The Telegraph Online. https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/calcutta/ digital-divide-caution-from-jadavpur-vc/cid/1761513 Dani, S., Singhai, M., & Hyde, A.M. (2018, October). Factors affecting student’s perception of online learning: An empirical analysis. The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 54(2), 336–346. Ganesh, G., Paswan, A., & Sun, Q. (2015). Are face-to-face classes more effective than online classes? An empirical examination. Marketing Education Review, 25(2, Summer), 67–81. Garrison, D. R. (2017). E-learning in the 21st century: A community of inquiry framework for research and practice (3rd ed.). Routledge/Taylor and Francis. Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a textbased environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2, 87–105. GK News Network. (2020, December 12). 4G internet ban extended in J&K. Greater Kashmir. Retrieved December 15, 2020, from https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/front-page-2/4g-internet-ban-extended-in-jk/. Harrison, R.A., Harrison, A., Robinson, C., & Rawlings, B. (2018). The experience of international postgraduate students on a distance-learning programme. Distance Education, 39(4), 480–494. Hirner, L., & Kochtanek, T. (2012). Quality indicators of online programmes. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 36(2), 122–130. Jayaram N. (2003) The fall of the guru: The decline of the academic profession in India. In P. G. Altbach (Ed.), The decline of the guru (pp. 199–19s). Palgrave Macmillan, https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982568_8 Kemp, N. (2020). Distance learning and global demand. International Higher Education, 103 (Summer), 5–7, https://www.internationalhighereducation. net/api-v1/article/!/action/getPdfOfArticle/articleID/2988/productID/29/filename/article-id-2988.pdf Kumar, C. R. (Ed.). (2018). The future of Indian universities: Comparative and international perspectives. Oxford University Press. Leask, B., & Green, W. (2020, May 2). Is the pandemic a watershed for internationalization? University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/ post.php?story=20200501141641136 Malish, C. M. (2020). Social distance on campus, but social disconnect online. University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post. php?story=2020072510090843 Mathews, E. (2020). India’s higher education and COVID-19: Responses and challenges. International Higher Education, (Special Issue No. 102), 22–24. Mukherjee, M. (2020). Can a better higher education system emerge out of the coronavirus crisis? In Higher Education in Southeast Asia and Beyond

214  Mousumi Mukherjee et al. (HESB), Special Issue 8 (pp. 35–37). The Head Foundation. Available online: https://headfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/HESB-8COVID19_2020.pdf Nage-Sibande, B., & Morolong, B. L. (2018). A trend analysis of opportunities and challenges of open and distance learning provision in dual-mode institutions. Distance Leaning, 39(4), 495–510. Ossiannilson, E., Altinay, Z., & Altinay, F. (2016). Transformation of teaching and learning in higher education towards open learning arenas. In P. Blessinger & T. J. Bliss (Eds.), Open education: International perspectives in higher education. Open Book Publishers. Palvia, S., Aeron, P., Gupta, P., Mahapatra, D., Parida, R., Rosner, R., & Sindhi, S. (2018). Online education: Worldwide status, challenges, trends, and implications. Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 21(4), 233–241. Peters, M.A., Wang, H., Ogunniran, M. O., Huang, Y., Green, B., Chunga, J. O., … & Hayes, S. (2020, May 8). China’s internationalized higher education during covid-19: Collective student autoethnography. Postdigital Science and Education, 2, 968–988. Shearer, R. L. Aldemir, T., Hitchcock, J., Resig, J., Driver, J., & Kohler, M. (2020). What students want: A vision of a future online learning experience grounded in distance education theory. The American Journal of Distance Education, 34(1), 36–52. Soria, K.M., Chirikov, I., & Jones-White, D. (2020, July). SERU COVID-19 survey. ‘The obstacles to remote learning for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.’ Retrieved October 16, 2020, from https://cshe.berkeley.edu/ seru-covid-survey-reports Stauffer, R. (2018, January 19). The real experience of an online-only university student. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/ student/blogs/real-experience-online-only-university-student Stella, A., & Gnanam, A. (2004). Quality assurance in distance education: The challenges to be addressed. Higher Education, 47(2), 143–160. Swan, K. (2021). Teaching and learning in post-industrial distance education. In Martha F. Cleveland-Innes & D. Randy Garrison (Eds.), An introduction to distance education: Understanding teaching and learning in a new era (2nd ed).Routledge. The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2020). Report ‘new schools of thought: Innovative models for delivering higher education.’ 46. van der Zwaan, B. (2017). The global university and the knowledge ecosystem of the future. In B. van der Zwaan (Ed.), Higher Education in 2040: A global approach (p. 195–204). Amsterdam University Press. Veletsianos, G., & Houlden, S. (2020). Radical flexibility and relationality as responses to education in times of crisis. Postdigital Science & Education, 849– 862. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00196-3.

16 Teacher Education in Times of Disruption Lessons Learned from Teaching and Learning in Australian Universities during the COVID-19 Pandemic Eden C. Stephens and Jen Scott Curwood Introduction On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization mandated that the global spread of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19; SARSCoV-2) “can be characterised as a pandemic” (WHO, 2020, para 7). Efforts were made to take heed, and a week later, the Australian government officially declared a state of national pandemic (Federal Register of Legislation, 2020, p. 1). Atop the imminent health threat posed by COVID-19, initial rhetoric indicated the pandemic’s potential “to disrupt our community socially and economically” and subsequently called for efforts to “minimise social disruption” (Department of Health, 2019, p. 9, 18). Superseding the public health threat was the fact that the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic were all-encompassing of social, economic, and political spheres, consequently impeding on all aspects of everyday life. The Prime Minister of Australia accompanied the declaration of a biosecurity emergency with a series of measures to mitigate the inherent spread of COVID-19 on March 18, 2020 (Prime Minister of Australia, 2020). The implications of this profoundly affected educational institutions: “University and higher education ‘should continue at this time’ with risk mitigation measures, including working from home arrangements where effective” (para. 1). Evidence of positive cases emerging on campus and influence from public opinion resulted in universities within the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) almost unanimously and instantaneously shifting to online learning. It was this unprecedented and disruptive change that formed the basis of this study, which sought to gain insight into the preparedness, effectiveness, and potential consequences that may have resulted for university educators and students alike. The intent of this study was to examine how a representative sample of higher education institutions (HEIs) within NSW conducted their English teacher education courses during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

216  Eden C. Stephens and Jen Scott Curwood Situated in sociocultural perspectives and drawing on qualitative research methodologies, this study asked the following research questions: • What are the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for teacher education at Australian universities? • How have English teacher educators’ teaching, learning, well-being, and professional livelihoods been impacted due to the pandemic? • How are English preservice teachers affected by the changes to teacher education as a result of the pandemic? While our world is still in the midst of the pandemic at the time of writing, this chapter also considers the potential ramifications for current and future conceptions of teacher education, both in Australia and globally.

Literature Review The Australian Government’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency accredits 43 universities within Australia, all of which pride themselves on striving toward and maintaining an exemplary standard of education (Norton & Cakitaki, 2016). The Group of Eight universities represents the flagship Australian universities that prioritize sustainable national higher education, support innovative research, and cultivate international research partnerships. The Grattan Institute acknowledges that universities create extensive revenue, “making higher education a significant industry” within Australia, adding that “humanities and commerce remain the most popular fields of study,” which includes teacher education (Norton & Cakitaki, 2016, p. 3). The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership highlights 358 accredited teaching courses, with 116 available in NSW (AITSL, 2017). Teacher education courses allow preservice teachers, who are tertiary students currently undertaking formal training and accreditation processes, to pursue careers as qualified early childhood, primary, and secondary teachers. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted normality on a global scale and incited mass change to the governance of HEIs. This literature review considers historical and contemporary changes for Australia’s HEIs, the role of technology in higher education, and, finally, how teacher education has been traditionally conceptualized and enacted as well as presently impacted by the pandemic. Educational Change: Systemic and Localized The ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic for HEIs predominantly manifested as a shift from face-to-face or blended to fully online modes of delivery (Bao, 2020; Crawford et al., 2020; Rapanta et al., 2020). The genesis and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented,

Teacher Education in Times of Disruption  217 yet education systems and institutions have long been the subject of reform, with a tendency for systemic amelioration (Reigeluth & Garfinkle, 1994). Being innately linked to respective contexts and influenced by a plethora of societal values, political agendas, and renewed educational ideals, HEIs are tasked with effectuating dynamic, and often contending, input from multiple stakeholders. One example of radical reform to higher education within Australia occurred in 1983, as “the change in government in Australia and with the worldwide economic recession deeply entrenched, priorities for universities changed drastically,” with fiscal motivations “preparing students for the labour market” (Curri, 2002, p. 134). This historical moment shows the influence of political, social, and economic priorities in exacting dynamic and multitudinous agendas for HEIs. Educational reform is not solely a constituent of extenuating circumstances; rather, the concept of change is a common and regulated attribute of educational structures. Content and pedagogy, alongside ideals and objectives, are frequently altered to optimize educational outcomes, predominantly via the systemic overhaul of curriculum and policy (Dawkins et al., 2019). Although policy dictates what is to be taught and under what conditions, HEIs, their faculties, and respective educators are often afforded autonomy in implementing the stipulated goals. Korthagen (2001) acknowledges the need to redress an evident gap between the theory and practice of teacher education, reiterating the significance of adapting practices at a localized level in order to comply with systemic changes. With educational practices evolving to reflect the changing values of society, technological devices and strategies similarly transform. The following sections consider how technological innovations and pedagogical changes impact teacher education. Technology and Innovative Practices The ability of HEIs to provide quality teacher education, both in Australia and abroad, has been hindered by the paucity of knowledge and lack of time to account for the impositions of the pandemic. Compared to prior systematic change in HEIs, the industry was not afforded time to prepare, trial, or revise the reactionary measures to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite not having the benefit of foresight or adequate time to account for the enacted changes, many HEIs in Australia had systems and structures already in place to facilitate the rapid shift to online learning, with many already technologically equipped for the growing trend of online or distance education (Rumble, 2019). Emerging international studies stipulate that while experiences varied, teacher education programs were equipped with the skills and means to redesign their content and pedagogy for emergency online teaching and learning measures (Assunção Flores & Gago, 2020; Donitsa-Schmidt & Ramot, 2020; La Velle et al.,

218  Eden C. Stephens and Jen Scott Curwood 2020). Deviating from prior examples is the capacity at which these systems were operating, the timeliness of these changes, and the professional learning and support for university educators to teach online. The prominence of existing technology within the educational industry has suggested that online student learning is comparable to experiences within traditional classrooms (Hurlbut, 2018). In many respects, the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have forced HEIs and university educators to situate technology as a key priority for teacher education (Ferdig et al., 2020). When considering the nuances of applied teacher education, technology is not only a viable means of content delivery and assessment within HEIs but also a significant pedagogical tool and a general capability skill across all subject teaching areas (ACARA, 2013). Teacher education must equip preservice teachers with an understanding of innovative practices and a knowledge of how to align their pedagogies with ever-evolving technological advancements. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that teacher education needs to be adaptable to changing circumstances and technologies.

Achieving Quality Teacher Education Teacher education shapes the development of preservice teachers’ beliefs, values, and practices throughout the duration of their careers (Curwood & O’Grady, 2015; DeAngelis et al., 2013). It is paramount to ensure that interim solutions in the wake of the pandemic do not compromise or hinder the quality of teacher education. Carroll (2005) has advocated for the development of interpersonal skills through interactive learning in order to instill necessary skills and practices for preservice teachers to become capable career teachers. Interactive learning priorities are significant when considering the hindrances of the COVID-19 pandemic, as these ideals must be effectively replicated online in order to maintain quality teacher education during times of disruption. Teaching vocations are renowned for altruism, with teacher education emphasizing the need to employ flexibility in adapting to unforeseen circumstances, often instantaneously or within extremely limited time frames (Collie & Martin, 2016). In many respects, the events of this pandemic have afforded preservice teachers with an understanding of the need to be equipped for unpredictable and often challenging demands (Ferdig et al., 2020). Similarly, the field of education must be malleable and resilient in order to evolve and survive, especially during times of global crisis. Despite presently enduring the unprecedented implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, our study sought to understand how the abrupt transition to online learning has offered both challenges and opportunities for secondary English teacher education in Australia.

Teacher Education in Times of Disruption  219

Methodology Research Context and Design This case study examined three HEIs within Australia from March to July 2020 and considered how COVID-19 impacted the design and delivery of English teacher education courses. We focused on the state of NSW, as Australian legislation stipulates that “primary responsibility for managing the impact of a severe outbreak of influenza, or a pandemic, lies with the state and territory governments and that each jurisdiction will have its own plans and protocols” (DoH, 2019, p. 16). A case study methodology afforded special regard to the individual experiences of each teacher educator and their respective institutions while using multiple data sources to provide insight across a broader context. We examined authentic experiences and lived consequences as they unfolded during the pandemic in an effort to represent the gravity of the situation and its unique repercussions on professional livelihoods and personal well-being. Merriam (1988) described a case as any social unit in which researchers have provided clear boundaries for and assessed through a specific lens; in this instance, we situated each teacher educator as a case study. A multicase study approach afforded analogous insight into the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic across the three subject HEIs. Participants This study pertained to English teacher education, which provides education in English methodology practices to tertiary students who wish to become English teachers within secondary schools. Secondary schools provide the highest mandatory level of education within Australia and are the precursors to achieving optional postsecondary education within HEIs. All 13 HEIs in NSW were invited to participate in this study; three actively participated, four expressed an interest yet subsequent incapacity to participate, one rejected the offer, and the remaining five did not respond. Recruitment invitations were sent via email addresses available publicly online, with participation being on a voluntary, opt-in basis. As a result of this, the final sample included three English teacher educators at three respective HEIs from greater metropolitan Sydney. In acknowledging the limited sample size, reflection on the tumultuous conditions and limited contingencies afforded in staffing, time, and resources, while experiencing pandemic conditions, must be accounted for. Similarly, the influence of industry-wide fiscal concerns and employment precarity, which are explored in this study, may potentially have impeded the willingness for participation. Despite this, the study captures broader experiences and opinions, as expressed through the sample of representative participants, all of which identified as either a permanent or casual employee who worked as a teacher educator in the field of English teacher education in 2020.

220  Eden C. Stephens and Jen Scott Curwood To preserve confidentiality, pseudonyms have been used for all HEIs, which will be referred to as Banksia University, Eucalyptus University, and Waratah University, and for all teacher participants. Clare was a full-time teacher educator at Banksia University, a prominent HEI within the Sydney metropolitan region. Being well established in her position and upholding the role of course coordinator, Clare was a valued member of her faculty and has significant influence over the design and delivery of both the course initially and in enacting reactionary measures to the COVID19 pandemic. Daniel was a casual employee, with limited full-time equivalent (FTE) rates and precarious employment conditions. Employed at Eucalyptus University, a respected HEI located within the greater Sydney region, Daniel fulfilled roles spanning from casual lecturer, to tutor, with only minimal input into the governing and conduct of the course and its elected content. This position is Daniel’s secondary place of employment, with Daniel primarily being a head of the English Department at an independent school. Lastly, Robert provided a unique perspective on the employment tendencies of HEIs, as he was in the process of moving from a casual position at Waratah University to another HEI. At the time of the study, Robert worked as a casual tutor who was afforded a great deal of insight into the implementation of reactionary measures, boasting a close and effective working relationship with the course coordinator. Data Collection and Analysis Data collection consisted of multiple sources, including two hours of semistructured interviews with each participant, along with representative posts from their respective online platforms that conveyed the nature of both online learning and communication, as well as publicly accessible protocols and documentation pertaining to the conduct of each HEI. The same interview schedule was used for each participant, and a semistructured interview format allowed for the questions to be tailored to the unique circumstances of each participant and their respective HEI. Given the nature of the interview data, the transcripts were initially reflected upon by analytic memos through Saldaña’s (2013) framework for qualitative analysis. This allowed both researchers to cumulate a thematic understanding of the data and establish an effective process for coding, and multiple rounds of coding informed an understanding of emerging themes. First-round coding pertained to an understanding of the shift to online learning; second-round coding addressed teacher educator emotionality and perceptions of this shift; third-round coding delved into the implications of this shift for teacher educator and student well-being, university experience and protocol, and long-term ramifications. Themes were then read against the participants’ online posts, via triangulation, in order to ensure the internal validity of the study (Meijer et al., 2002). In this manner, interview data, predominantly relating to

Teacher Education in Times of Disruption  221 the experiences and opinions of participants, was triangulated with the online posts, which provided insight into the nature of HEI protocols and interactions with student cohorts. In examining the effects of personal and professional reverberations within the case study context, discourse analysis (Weiss & Wodak, 2007) provided further insight into the pandemic’s impact on English teacher education.

Findings and Discussion In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian HEIs had to make significant alterations to the design, delivery, and content of teacher education while striving to maintain and model effective online pedagogy and provide pastoral support for preservice teachers. Although this was notably impacted by the high casualization of university educators, revenue deficits, and austerity measures, teacher educators remained committed to being responsive, reflective, and innovative during a time of significant disruption. In striving to achieve quality teacher education during a pandemic, the findings highlight three prominent themes that emerged from the study: (1) changes to the design and delivery of education, (2) alteration to content and values, and, finally, (3) an understanding of how the pandemic affected university experiences and employment tendencies more broadly. Design and Delivery during the Pandemic: “An Emergency Shift” A profound consequence of the pandemic for Australian HEIs was the immediate shift to online modes of delivery (Scull et al., 2020). The rushed implementation of online teaching and learning meant that many decisions were largely improvised, enacted incrementally, or frequently altered, with minimal consistency, which posed significant logistical and pedagogical concerns that disrupted learning for all participants, to varying extents. The notion of an “emergency shift” describes the limited time frame within which online learning was implemented and the lack of knowledge regarding the ongoing scope of this change (Ferdig et al., 2020). The notion of an emergency shift was not uniformly employed across the Australian HEI sector. Participants shared that Banksia University temporarily suspended teaching in order to provide a week for university educators to implement necessary changes. Eucalyptus University enacted changes overnight and afforded each course the agency to implement adjustments at their discretion. Waratah University educators were officially provided 48 hours forewarning but were informally warned of the impending changes a fortnight prior. The Australian secondary English teacher educators in this study unanimously agreed that the emergency shift was a complex task that would have benefited from a greater allocation of time, resources, and clear communication. Daniel suggested that communication would have benefited from a

222  Eden C. Stephens and Jen Scott Curwood ubiquitous and consistent approach, as “all of a sudden overnight it changed.” Clare was disconcerted in ascertaining a knowledge that other HEIs “had been planning for a number of weeks. The word was we were going to go online but there was nothing official and I expected a more incremental and measured lead into the online teaching.” Despite forewarning and initiating protocols to progressively move online, Robert “got an email stressing that we needed to move online immediately or as soon as possible.” Australian HEIs are hierarchical institutions, governed by top-down structures that shape the design and delivery of teacher education. Hence, the potential for a collective decision to be reached and communicated effectively, across the entirety of an HEI, is reasonable, if impractical, during a pandemic. Teacher educators in this study voiced concerns about receiving a multitude of misconstrued or contradictory information that convoluted vital instruction. Clare stated, “I felt overwhelmed…there was so many emails coming through.” Given his limited engagement with the HEI, Daniel similarly expressed the need to establish a succinct reference point for both staff and students rather than perusing numerous contending emails. Robert shared concern that “there were often media releases or publications in the newspaper, giving us information that we were moving online, before we had even been informed about it” and that “concessional or casual staff were being left out of emails.” Exacerbating concern was the degree of speculation, as Daniel was alarmed that students were provided with convoluted, and sometimes conflicting, information at the same time as the teacher educators. This concern was unanimous, as Robert concluded that discerning “whether it was mandated or encouraged” was the most challenging aspect. The participating HEIs each had a university-endorsed online platform, or learning management system (LMS), such as Canvas, that was utilized prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. A multitude of studies suggest the benefits of incorporating an LMS as an additional or supportive resource, yet few have considered LMS platforms to be a primary pedagogical device (Georgouli et al., 2008). With the shift to online models of learning, these platforms adopted new functions, now facilitating communication, as well as teaching and learning practices. Now a vital pedagogical tool, Robert’s online post to his class’s LMS prompted students to immediately “download both Zoom and Canvas student” in order to resume class online. The newfound centrality of technology meant that established and emerging practices had to evolve, with Clare, Daniel, and Robert each either opting or being instructed to utilize a combination of both synchronous and asynchronous strategies, a pedagogical choice that is advocated by Hrastinski (2008), even prior to the pandemic In adopting pedagogical practices that could be completed either cooperatively or independently, teacher educators accounted for the inevitability of technological issues while also replicating a traditional classroom setting. In this manner, Clare tried to conduct her class “as much as possible, in a

Teacher Education in Times of Disruption  223 similar way to the first three weeks when [they] had [their] classes onsite” to provide “some sort of continuity and security in that routine.” The teacher educators each indicated that asynchronous activities ensured that students were actively participating, while synchronous structures afforded teacher educators the opportunity to monitor students’ progress and guide them as usual. While Daniel emphatically supports technology, he reiterated that it wasn’t the epicenter of teaching values and pedagogy: “It is a tool. It’s like a textbook, it’s like a whiteboard…. It’s a powerful tool but it’s not education and it’s not teaching.” Although the mode and delivery of teacher education had to rapidly shift in 2020, teacher educators felt that their ideals and principles remained the same. Teacher educators drew on their content knowledge and values to overcome, to adapt, and to innovate in order to maintain quality teacher education during the pandemic. From Content to Values: Life Lessons, Connections, and Relationships Provided the significant ramifications of the pandemic and consequent limitations to class times and structures, the scope of content that could be achieved within the online learning parameters was often hindered. Daniel conveyed that content was condensed at Eucalyptus University to save time and resources during the pandemic, as “prior to COVID, we would deliver subject specific lectures…. Once COVID hit, the unit coordinators put together lecture material, that was…generic so that [everyone] got the same lecture about programming,” meaning that Daniel now had to reiterate the specificities of English methodologies, a time-consuming task. Similarly, the generalization of content that is usually ingrained in the subject prevents the ability of differentiation or authentic engagement to be achieved. Daniel continued that having demarcation between a lecture and tutorial space allowed him to systematically teach the theory before practically implementing it, with clear parameters and explicit links to English methodology. The rapid shift to synchronous and asynchronous online learning demanded changes to established best practices. Robert similarly suggested that content had to be tailored as “trying to move three-hour tutorials face-to-face, wouldn’t necessarily effectively replicate into a three-hour online Zoom tutorial…it’s not the same [and] we needed to accommodate for that.” Similarly, Daniel felt the role of the teacher had diminished in an online space, with typical instruction now being textually prescribed, as conveyed in an online post stipulating the asynchronous task was mandatory and accounted for “attendance and participation requirements” in the unit. English methodology is often grounded in embodied learning, drama pedagogies, and movement, which allow students and teachers alike to explore perspectives, engage with diverse texts, and make meaning. Acknowledging that teacher educators innately model teachers’ values and practices, Daniel expressed concern as students are “not going to see

224  Eden C. Stephens and Jen Scott Curwood in-action what we’re trying to teach them.” A profound consequence has been the inability to achieve practicum experiences or even the ability to become familiar with the real-life classroom contexts, a significant hindrance to practical content, which should ideally be equally weighted with the theory. Most Australian HEIs had to postpone school-based practicums, which disrupted the typical course structure and sequence. The reduction of content minimized opportunities for students to implicitly engage, and Daniel suggested that the “level of questioning and personal sharing of experiences” might be hindered by the superficial tailoring of the content at the detriment to the preservice teachers’ education. The nuances of teacher education cannot be emulated to the same extent within an online space. Clare stated, “Teaching is relational, it’s about interpersonal relationships and developing them and physically being in the class.” Daniel agreed, as “it is the life lessons and the connections and the relationships…they’re things that you have to model and foster within your students.” The teacher educators expressed frustration in delineating what constitutes best practice online and the fact that they had to reassess their values to “establish rules and conventions” in a digital setup. Clare stated that while she wanted to model effective pedagogy, respect her students’ agency, and encourage their authentic engagement, “there were aspects of the online experience which were for me disconcerting, in so far as students would log in but a lot of them didn’t turn the cameras on.” When faced with students that appeared to be disengaged, Clare reluctantly found herself utilizing what she deemed “scare tactics,” calling on students randomly or testing students with unprovoked challenges to email her as a means of verifying their attention. She felt this distrust and surveillance were seldom needed when she could previously form interpersonal rapport with her students, an effective classroom management strategy (Rogers, 2015). Robert agreed, as “you don’t necessarily know if students are there, so that is a problem with the engagement side of things.” The decline of student-teacher rapport also hindered the ability of teacher educators to support student well-being and mental health, which were primary concerns due to the severe financial and emotional implications of the pandemic for many Australian students. Consequently, these ramifications affected university operation and structure, thus impeding the provision of quality English teacher education. University Experiences: “Campus Life Has Changed” Throughout 2020, Australian universities implemented a variety of measures to overcome the implications of COVID-19. Despite its resilience, the higher education industry has suffered significantly because of the pandemic (Doidge & Doyle, 2020; Thatcher et al., 2020). Impacts on global mobilization caused a significant detriment to Australian HEI revenue, with the closure of international borders and imposed travel bans causing

Teacher Education in Times of Disruption  225 significant ramifications for the intake of full-fee-paying international students. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017 international student enrollments in Australian HEIs accounted for nearly 30% of the total intake and contributed a substantial “$32.4 billion to the Australian economy” (DoPS, 2019, p. 1), which had increased in subsequent years. Doidge and Doyle (2020) outline the precarity of Australian HEIs with recent “government funding cuts, the deleterious consequences of market-based reforms and the loss of academic autonomy under an increasingly audit and metric-driven culture” and acknowledges that these are exacerbated by further consequences of the pandemic, including “devastating revenue shortfalls, mass staff layoffs…exclusion of universities from national emergency assistance packages and…university funding reforms” (p. 1). Daniel acknowledged that HEIs are “a business,” with fiscal priorities often at the forefront of decisions. Daniel’s circumstances provide valuable insight into the effects of high casualization within HEIs and the ensuing employment precarity. He stated, “I didn’t participate [in forums relating to the pandemic] because I sometimes feel like I don’t have enough of a role [at Eucalyptus University].” As casual employees, Daniel and Robert held multiple positions and had contending priorities, which posed complications when considering the pandemic’s additional demands on time and resources, factors that were not accounted for within their limited FTE allocations. As Daniel noted, “I’m a lowly casual that comes in for three hours a week.” While Daniel and Robert were both fortunate in retaining or advancing their positions throughout this uncertainty, Welch (2020) outlines the implications of high casualization as causing a detrimental fissure in managerial models, beyond the ramifications of COVID-19. Similarly, modeling of the impacts of COVID-19 has indicated significant effects on job security within the HEI sector, as in many instances, the consequences equated to voluntary redundancies or dismissals, while economic recovery entails a projected downfall in the availability of FTE positions, ultimately resulting in immense uncertainty for the mass of academic staff members who are, or were, occupying casual positions (Thatcher et al., 2020). Robert highlighted, “We can’t all be working at our top capacity given the circumstances,” as the ramifications on well-being and welfare are considerable and indiscriminate, having collateral impacts not only for the casual teacher educators but also for their preservice students who rely on casual staff as an instrumental part of teacher education within Australian HEIs. The pandemic has resulted in revenue deficits and imposed austerity measures that impeded the university experiences of preservice students. The teacher educators recognized that the closure of university campuses posed significant concerns for inaccessibility and inequity, with the shift to online education potentially alienating the preservice students who rely on access to university resources and support services. Clare reiterated that the skills that HEI students acquire throughout their education go beyond

226  Eden C. Stephens and Jen Scott Curwood those that are taught in the classroom setting and that the university experience is essential in developing life skills more broadly. Acknowledging extracurricular activities and networking, for example, the aspects of university education that are invariably undervalued in the scope of literature, Clare stated, “Campus life has changed…. [There was a] really vibrant campus life with bands playing, there were political speeches, there were rallies, there was always something happening,” suggesting that the centrality of the campus setting has changed significantly in recent history. While the teacher educators perceived a capacity to operate within the newfound online measures as necessary, they unanimously presumed that online instruction is likely the future of education within Australian HEIs, and they expressed concerns for the implications for students’ welfare, access, and equity should campus facilities be eradicated.

Conclusion Australia has long prepared for the eventuality of a pandemic and the subsequent impacts that inevitably entail economic, social, and political disruption, yet the nature and extent of COVID-19 have profoundly impacted teaching and learning within Australian HEIs. In striving to conquer these challenges, Clare, Daniel, and Robert were each optimistic that while the pandemic has shifted the priorities of teacher education in the interim, these changes have not negatively impacted quality teacher education, both now and into the future. Both explicit and implicit ramifications of the pandemic have underpinned a newfound appreciation for the values and structure of teacher education, the use of technology as an educational tool, the exponential growth in online and distance education models, and a growing commitment to student well-being and equity. The teacher educators acknowledged that while the personal and professional lives of students and staff alike were profoundly affected by the pandemic, alongside the nature of teacher education courses in Australian HEIs, the enacted changes to design and delivery were largely functional and accessible – yet hopefully temporary.

Bios Eden C. Stephens is an English and History Teacher in Sydney, Australia. Eden completed a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education (Secondary, Honours) at the University of Sydney, and she is interested in researching technology and contemporary issues in teaching. Jen Scott Curwood, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney in Australia. Her research explores the intersections of literacy, creativity, and technology.

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17 The Expansion of E-learning in the UAE Implications and Opportunities in the Post-COVID-19 Era Shytance Wren Introduction It has been 44 years since the initiation of higher education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Over time, higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UAE have developed educational systems that produce predictability, stability, and tradition. However, the current landscape of higher education is uncertain and volatile. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced HEIs in the UAE and globally to hastily rework their systems and become more innovative in their online teaching and learning approach, also known as e-learning. However, investing in e-learning innovation without a clear understanding of the accompanying challenges of the COVID19 pandemic is problematic and can lead to unforeseen complications. Before embarking on the development of e-learning, the contextual and situational factors that may prohibit its adoption in the post-COVID-19 recovery era must be examined. Rogers’s (2003) diffusion of innovation theory provides a useful framework to explain how an innovation gains momentum and is adopted over time through a specific social system. The diffusion of innovation theory asserts that five determinants of innovation dictate the adoption rate and decisions to adopt a new idea or system: (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) trialability, (4) complexity, and (5) observability. These five determinants will give valuable insights into the factors that may influence the UAE’s e-learning adoption decisions and how certain factors affect the UAE’s adoption intention. This chapter will use the diffusion of innovation theory as a conceptual basis to determine the feasibility of implementing e-learning within the UAE’s public higher education system in the post-COVID-19 era.

Background The UAE has developed into a modern, affluent state, characterized by high investment in infrastructure, institutions, and technology. It has consequently built a diversified system of higher education. Multiple private and international branch campuses in the region supplement the public sector.

230  Shytance Wren There are three public, federally funded institutions in the UAE: UAE University, the first university established in 1977; the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) founded in 1988; and Zayed University established in 1998. UAE nationals are granted free tuition at all levels at public institutions, limiting educational attainment barriers. The free tuition policy helps increase enrollment, putting pressure on public HEIs to expand capacity. Moreover, the numerous HEI options available to students in the private sector urge public HEIs to continuously improve their programs’ quality. Quality of education is one of the UAE government’s primary concerns. Having a high standard of education ensures that UAE nationals are successful and competitive in the labor market to advance the country’s social, economic, and cultural development. The UAE Vision 2021 strategic plan was created by the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for the general planning of education in the UAE. The purpose of the strategic plan is to develop a first-rate higher education system with science, technology, and innovation at the core of its values. As a result of the UAE’s government agenda of making the country a global hub for innovation, the UAE has had a frictionless transition to remote learning. Their advanced infrastructure assisted schools of all levels in supporting student learning for 1.2 million students (Ministry of Cabinet Affairs & the Future, 2020). This capacity reflects the high technology outputs and infrastructure development in the UAE. Before the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, the UAE government discussed incorporating e-learning into the bulk of the higher education curriculum to increase accessibility and employability of its UAE national graduates (Ministry of Cabinet Affairs & the Future, 2020). However, the application and deployment potential of e-learning technologies in higher education are yet to be fully utilized (Alfy et al., 2016; Elango et al., 2008). The COVID-19 pandemic has given HEIs opportunities to address challenges and evaluate innovative solutions to build a “Firstrate education system” aligned with the UAE Vision 2021 (Vision 2021, 2020). E-learning is one of the innovative solutions. E-learning is considered an innovation because it changes how public HEIs in the UAE structure, manage, and execute teaching and learning. It offers an alternative and innovative learning environment compared with current traditional teaching and learning practices. As the pandemic continues to be an external driver for innovative change, the adoption of e-learning innovation will play a crucial role in producing post-crisis growth. Before federally funded HEIs in the region decide to invest in e-learning post-COVID-19, identifying the factors that promote e-learning’s feasibility is imperative.

Framework Coping with the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic requires moving beyond disciplinary silos by utilizing transdisciplinary approaches to highlight the norms, values, and economic factors that

The Expansion of E-learning in the UAE  231 shape the advancement of the e-learning post-COVID-19 era. Therefore, Rogers’s (2003) diffusion of innovation theory that transcends multiple disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, communications, and business marketing, is used as a theoretical framework in this chapter. The theory aims to predict how, why, and at what rate a new idea or technology is likely to be adopted among the members of a social system. The diffusion theory consists of five determinants that affect the rate of adoption of an innovation. The five determinants are (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) trialability, (4) complexity, and (5) observability. Innovations that are perceived as providing relative advantages and being more compatible, less complex, observable, and trialable are known to diffuse more rapidly than other innovations. These five determinants will be used to determine the probability of e-learning adoption in the UAE. Relative Advantage The relative advantage of the diffusion of innovation theory is the extent to which the innovation is more productive, efficient, cost-effective, or suitable in improving existing practices (Rogers, 2003). Rogers (2003) stated that relative advantage is the strongest predictor of the rate of adoption. Subdimensions of the relative advantage attribute include economic profitability, low initial cost, decreased discomfort, social prestige, and immediacy of results (Rogers, 2003). A new modern approach defined by technological capabilities and smart learning solutions, which the UAE has been developing over the years through various initiatives and strategic plans, is now being considered more intently as a result of the COVID19 pandemic. E-learning adoption may give the UAE the advantage of social prestige by becoming a distance education/smart learning hub in that region and the world. Online education in the region is expected to expand almost a tenth annually in the next three years (Ndichu, 2018). This time frame may decrease due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the UAE to adopt and improve e-learning methodologies at an unprecedented pace. The UAE’s adoption of e-learning will help the UAE become a smart learning hub which directly relates to its national agenda. In 2017, the Ministry of Education established the National Strategy for Higher Education 2030 to support the UAE in becoming a unique global model for education (United Arab Emirates Government, 2020c). One of the National Strategy initiatives launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, is the Smart Learning Initiative, which advocates for innovative technologies to make learning more futuristic and interactive. The UAE aims for all schools and universities to be equipped with “smart” systems and devices and to veer from the existing traditional learning practices (UAE Vision 2021, 2020). The innovative initiatives from the National Strategy of Higher Education 2030 plan to stop traditional

232  Shytance Wren learning patterns by developing a new generation of technologically skilled and creative thinkers. These initiatives will help dissolve the traditional education model and invent innovative solutions to employ new educational methods and tools (United Arab Emirates Government, 2020c). This improvement of current traditional learning practices is a relative advantage of e-learning. Rote memorization is an instructional method in some UAE secondary schools (Ati & Guessoum, 2014; Weber, 2010). Once students progress to postsecondary education, they may be more accustomed to traditional methods and the authoritarian and passive learner models. These instruction modes emphasize traditional teacher-dominated, examoriented, and passive approaches limiting students’ development of higherorder thinking abilities. With e-learning, students are more likely to be steered away from rote learning and put in charge of their learning. The UAE labor markets are known to go beyond country borders, searching for individuals with specific technology-based skills. With the potential decrease of globalization, technological changes, and expatriation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, local human capital development is becoming more critical for a nation’s economic progress. The UAE’s economy relies on expatriates due to few locals working in the private sector and 80% of local employees lacking sufficient training for the workforce. (Awad, 2017). With potentially new expatriation laws, the UAE will need to start searching within its local population to fill positions. According to Raji (2019), there is a need for the UAE government to focus on vocational education and higher learning using computer-assisted education programs in place of the current traditional education system. Through the integration of technology, e-learning has the relative advantage of progressing the economy through the upskilling of the UAE’s local citizens. The Ministry of Education has recently announced the launch of a virtual system of various summer activities to allow students to refine their skills and knowledge (Ministry of Education, 2020). His Excellency Hussain Al Hammadi, Minister of Education, stated that some plans and programs for smart learning were scheduled for the coming years, but COVID-19 accelerated their implementation (Ministry of Cabinet Affairs & the Future, 2020). Compatibility Compatibility is the degree to which the innovation is perceived to be consistent with sociocultural values, norms, or practices (Rogers, 2003). E-learning is successfully applied to higher education when there is user acceptance of the new technology. Therefore, it is imperative to examine users’ sociocultural norms that influence the adoption of e-learning. The UAE’s push for innovation changes its society’s norms, which helps with accepting e-learning as a future adoption. The multiple visions, initiatives, and agendas to transform UAE’s knowledge economy through technology implementation are causing new ways of thinking and behaving.

The Expansion of E-learning in the UAE  233 The dispersal of innovation does not operate distantly but within the confines of a social system. Social systems are characterized as having either individualistic or collectivistic cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2001). These cultural dimensions influence e-learning systems’ successful adoption (Aparicio et al., 2016; Hofstede, 2001). Individualistic individuals prefer autonomy and self-initiative, while collectivistic individuals favor interdependence. The UAE has a collectivist culture characterized by interdependence, group identity, and hierarchical control, making it more plausible for Emirati students to be collectivistic learners. Generally, local students in the UAE have attended government-funded schools that reflect a traditional teaching and learning approach to teacher-centric rote learning and memorization (Al-Hunaiyyan & Sharhan, 2008; Mynard, 2003). This early dependence on traditional teaching methods based on memorization and lack of active student participation is carried into students’ postsecondary learning (Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation & United Nations Development Program/Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2014). E-learning is expected to be a new experience for most Emirati students, mostly since e-learning is built on the premise of student-centered learning. Because of the power dynamic in collective societies, students may need to adjust to taking the initiative in their learning. Moreover, collectivist cultures emphasize group work and in-person communication. Consequently, students might feel more comfortable in face-to-face communication than in activities through online systems (Alfy et al., 2016). One of the main obstacles that Emirati students faced during remote learning were the lack of physical interactions with classmates (Almuraqab, 2020; Wren & Negron, 2020). With most students being English to Speakers of Other Languages learners, knowledge acquisition mostly comes from peer-to-peer guidance and translation. Students expressed the inability to ask peers questions for language understanding, not having anyone to confirm material comprehension, and complications with communication in group projects (Wren & Negron, 2020). While the UAE education system has undergone multiple economic changes for a more modern approach, the UAE federally funded education institutions are rooted in religious and cultural norms. Therefore, traditional rote learning remnants from previous conventional educational systems are still evident in HEI, culture, and society (Alhebsi et al. 2015). For instance, although more technologically advanced than other countries in the Middle East, the UAE blocked video calling until the COVID-19 pandemic forced new technology implementation for people to communicate in the education sector. The UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority was required to unblock multiple video applications amid the pandemic (Serkal, 2020). There are currently cultural tensions in the Gulf region regarding the implementation of video applications (Hurley, 2020). On traditionally segregated college campuses in the UAE, class sessions and office hour links remained segregated online to mitigate the potential

234  Shytance Wren cultural constraints around using video software for e-learning. However, for final examinations, video usage was required per the decree from the Ministry of Education. Gulf-Arab women felt uncomfortable breaching cultural taboos by showing their faces online. There were complaints from parents and female students about requiring students to use video and show their faces during examinations (Sanderson, 2020). Living in a collectivist or communal culture where face-saving or preserving self-image is a highly valued virtue and practice (Moussa & Seraphim, 2017), Emirati men and women consider societal, religious, and cultural constraints when online. Moreover, cultural and social norms have caused teachers to be mindful of state reprisals if things go wrong in the usage of e-learning (Watson, 2001). A cultural conflict may occur if male and female student interactions cannot be controlled (Al-Hunaiyyan et al. 2008). Thus, applying new technologies to student learning should be approached prepensely for political, social, and cultural reasons (Gokah et al., 2015). Trialability Trialability means the ability to try out an innovation within a limited time frame (Rogers, 2003). Innovative changes are manageable if they are tested temporarily. HEI in the UAE have used the COVID-19 pandemic to develop and improve platforms for e-learning. The spring and summer 2020 semesters served as an experimental trial period for HEIs due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing universities to go online in early March. While the online learning period was not predetermined, it served as an adequate diagnostic to assess how e-learning on a global scale would operate. Had the crisis not occurred, this change might have taken the UAE years of planning before being tested or implemented (Ministry of Cabinet Affairs & the Future, 2020). This minimal investment period improved the likelihood of adoption and diffusion by allowing HEIs in UAE to assess the intervention, resource availability, implementation methods, and students’ learning outcomes. Various learning platforms were reviewed during the distance education period to determine the ones that were the most beneficial (United Arab Emirates Government, 2020a). Another pilot project that assesses the external validity of adopting complete e-learning in HEIs is warranted. The first COVID-19 pandemic emergency trial period was unexpected and conducted in unstable conditions, potentially skewing any assessment results. Overall, this unanticipated pilot helped reduce operational uncertainty for e-learning implementation in the future. Complexity Complexity is defined as the degree to which the innovation is perceived as challenging to understand, learn, or use (Rogers, 2003). The complexities of the implementation and adoption of e-learning can be related to

The Expansion of E-learning in the UAE  235 personal issues and technical issues. By having this trial period, possible future complications were able to be assessed and alleviated. The UAE’s resource readiness allowed for fewer complications in terms of information technology (IT) infrastructure. Technical issues for students and faculty mostly corresponded with connection issues. The UAE’s stable and reliable broadband connectivity was ensured by partnering with Ankabut for technical support to execute digital communication and distance learning solutions. Ankabut provides IT infrastructure to remove technologyuse barriers and empower educational institutions to incorporate learning technologies in classrooms (Online Learning Accelerates, 2020). The Ministry of Education collaborated with Al Yah Satellite Communications Company to facilitate students’ access to e-learning platforms amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The company provided high-speed satellite broadband services to various locations where terrestrial broadband services are unavailable. This service gave students not living in one of the major cities, where federally funded universities are located, the opportunity to receive higher education (United Arab Emirates Government, 2020c). A free home internet connection was also made available. Families in the UAE who had no home internet connection could sign up for a free Internet package through one of the two telecommunications suppliers in the UAE. These strategies are innovative and complement the Ministry of Education’s long-term vision of using technology to improve the education system. If these collaborations continue, working parents, students who live remotely, and students with a lack of transportation will have greater access to education. Outside of connection issues, faculty had the most technical difficulty using the e-technology due to changing their teaching methodology to integrate the technological innovation into their instruction and transfer their courses online to a new learning system. Training for faculty was ongoing, and spring break was moved forward by two weeks to allow faculty to prepare for distance learning (42,000 Teachers, 2020). The continuous asynchronous and synchronous training helped mitigate the complexity, but issues still occurred as they do when using a new system. Extensive training programs to support students, faculty, and staff were held, along with the implementation of hotlines for students to direct queries about lectures and IT issues, and tutorial and problem-solving sessions were conducted. Numerous online workshops were planned for the two weeks during spring break and beyond, covering both synchronous and asynchronous strategies. HEI practitioners in the UAE can influence the rate of adoption by ensuring that consistent support is available for faculty and students. As stated by Minister of Education Hussain Al Hammadi, the teacher’s role will change immensely in the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (Ministry of Cabinet Affairs & the Future, 2020). Based on an online study conducted in Dubai, students agreed that instructors did not give a proper explanation of class materials (Almuraqab, 2020). Hamdan

236  Shytance Wren Bin Mohammed Smart University has tried to mitigate the lack of faculty preparedness by providing the necessary online teaching skill training for faculty in the UAE (Tabrez, 2020). The continuation of e-learning pedagogy training is imperative for faculty to revamp their curriculum and not just transfer their in-class curriculum online. For students, their most commonly cited e-learning barriers were related to personal issues entailing time management problems and learning styles or preferences (Wren & Negron, 2020). Students did not have difficulty using the new learning platforms, as they were user-friendly, but they did have trouble understanding how to learn online. The absence of direct guidance from the instructor, who is often viewed as the sole source of information, caused students to struggle with distance learning. Students found themselves having to learn how to organize and time manage their courses and assignments without their instructor’s or peers’ accountability. The increased use of online student support resources, such as tutoring services and skill development workshops, is warranted for the future. Observability Observability refers to the extent to which innovation produces tangible results (Rogers, 2003). The chances of e-learning adoption increase if the relative advantages of the new technology can be easily observed. Besides the observed benefit of limiting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, e-learning has shown how higher education access can be increased regarding access to remote areas. This increase in accessibility improves the scalability of resources available to students. It was observed that incorporating more e-learning helped increase enrollment (HCT Looks, 2020). At Higher College of Technology campuses, the largest higher education provider in the country with 17 campuses across all the Emirates, a pilot study to test institutional readiness in technology, administration, support, content, and faculty delivery capability was conducted. The survey results also showed a satisfaction rate of over 90% for students and 75% for the faculty. Faculty even saw more participation from students in online delivery than face-to-face teaching (HCT’s Online E-Learning, 2020). The results from this observation will guide the continuous improvement of programs and the student learning experience. While all federally funded institutions participated in a study to document the effects of distance e-learning, these findings must be made visible to openly communicate the advantages and disadvantages of distance education to all HEIs in the region.

Discussion and Conclusion Challenges that ensued from the COVID-19 crisis compelled HEIs to rethink their current teaching and learning practices. In the UAE’s case, the trialability of e-learning due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

The Expansion of E-learning in the UAE  237 allowed the UAE’s current initiatives toward e-learning to be accelerated and evaluated. The UAE’s government is now considering operating through modern teaching and learning paradigms. From contemplating the UAE’s feasibility of widespread e-learning adoption using the determinants from the diffusion of innovation theory, valuable insight on the relative advantages, observed benefits, complexities, and possible compatibility issues in adopting e-learning in the region were identified. The matter of eradicating traditional pedagogy to better prepare students to be independent thinkers emerged as a theme throughout the three primary determinants of relative advantage, complexity, and compatibility. As these determinants account for considerable variances in explaining future adoption decisions, it is suggested that the blended learning approach be utilized to lessen complications from exchanging traditional teaching and learning practices with e-learning pedagogical approaches. Based on the presented cultural compatibility issues in this chapter, it is anticipated that students may have difficulty transitioning to e-learning due to being accustomed to rote learning and having direct face-to-face communication. Blended learning as the preferred instructional delivery method will help promote learner autonomy and direct communication by combining in-person teaching and interaction with supplemental online educational tools. Moreover, since students have received little support during the transition to online learning, additional online student workshops and resources are necessary to provide students with effective e-learning strategies. The current swift transfer of in-class learning material to an online setting does not support students’ learning. It is recommended that faculty innovate new constructivist teaching methods aligned with an e-learning environment to support students’ independent thinking. With the UAE’s plans of becoming a smart learning hub, e-learning is likely to promote innovative learning for students. By using computerassisted education programs and innovative teaching methods online in place of the current traditional education system, blended learning has relative advantages of positioning the UAE as a global innovation hub and upskilling UAE national students to be successful and competitive in the labor market. The Dubai Future Foundation predicts that regulatory bodies in education may begin setting up more ambitious redesigning of traditional schooling to develop more innovative solutions (Dubai Future Foundation, 2020). It is reasoned that new policies, frameworks, and programs for e-learning will be adopted in the months to come. Policy makers internationally should further consider systematically identifying the determinants that alter the adoption of e-learning within their region’s institutions to better perceive the rate and barriers of adopting a new education system in the post-COVID-19 era. Overall, with the observed benefits of increased access, higher enrollment, and development of a new generation of technologically skilled and self-empowered creative thinkers, the UAE and its advanced infrastructure are equipped to move toward

238  Shytance Wren being a global hub for e-learning. As the potential expansion of e-learning progresses in the region, it is vital to increase the visibility of e-learning’s benefits by openly communicating the advantages and disadvantages of e-learning from the studies and data collected from HEIs in the region.

Bio Shytance Wren is an Instructor and Advisor at Zayed University, United Arab Emirates. Shytance received her master of arts in student affairs administration with a specialization in international development from Michigan State University. Her research interests encompass improving the effectiveness of international higher education through integrated reforms in curriculum, teaching, leadership, research, and assessment.

References 42,000 Teachers pass UAE distance learning course. (2020, March 16). Gulf News. https://gulfnews.com/uae/education/42000-teachers-pass-uae-distancelearning-course-1.70419973 Alfy, S. E., Gómez, J., & Ivanov, D. (2016). Exploring instructors’ technology readiness, attitudes and behavioral intentions towards e-learning technologies in Egypt and United Arab Emirates. Education and Information Technologies, 22(5), 2605–2627. Alhesbi, A., Pettaway, L. D., & Waller, L. (2015). A history of education in the United Arab Emirates and trucial shiekdoms. The Global eLearning Journal, 4(1), 8–14. Al-Hunaiyyan, A., Al-Huwail, N., & Al-Sharhan, S. (2008). Blended e-learning design: Discussion of cultural issues. International Journal of Cyber Society and Education, 1, 17–32. Almuraqab, N. A. (2020). Shall universities at the continue distance learning after the COVID-19 pandemic? Revealing students’ perspective. International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), 11(5), 226–233. Ati, M., & Guessoum, N. (2014). E-learning in the United Arab Emirates. In U. Demiray (Ed.), E-learning practices (pp. 20). Anadolu University. Aparicio, M., Bacao, F., & Oliveira, T. (2016). Cultural impacts on e-learning systems’ success. The Internet and Higher Education, 31, 58–70. Awad M. (2017), The cost of foreign labor in the United Arab Emirates (Working paper No. 2010–001). Zayed University. https://www.zu.ac.ae/main/en/ research/publications/_documents/The%20Cost%20of%20Foreign%20 Labor%20in%20the%20United%20Arab%20Emirates.pdf Dubai Future Foundation. (2020). Dubai future foundation foresees the future of distant learning. https://www.dubaifuture.gov.ae/dubai-future-foundationforesees-future-distant-learning/ Elango, R., Gudep, V. K., & Selvam, M. (2008). Quality of e-learning: An analysis based on e-learners’ perception of e-learning. The Electronic Journal of E-Learning, 6(1), 31–44.

The Expansion of E-learning in the UAE  239 Gokah, T. K., Gupta, N., & Ndiweni, E. (2015). E-learning in higher educationopportunities and challenges for Dubai. International Journal on e-Learning, 14(4), 443–470. HCT’s online e-learning pilot wins big with high student satisfaction rates. (2020). http://news.hct.ac.ae/en/2020/03/hcts-online-e-learning-pilot-wins-bighigh-student-satisfaction-rates/ HCT’s online summer semester courses prove big hit with students. (2020). http://news.hct.ac.ae/en/2020/06/hcts-online-summer-semester-coursesprove-big-hit-students/ Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). SAGE Publishing. Hurley, Z. (2020). Showing their faces online is difficult for some Arab women: Educators must respond. Al-Fanar Media. https://www.al-fanarmedia. org/2020/06/showing-their-faces-online-is-difficult-for-some-arab-womeneducators-must-respond/ Ministry of Cabinet Affairs & the Future (2020). Successful “distance learning” for 1.2 million students leveraging UAE’s futuristic vision, flexibility and advanced infrastructure. https://www.mocaf.gov.ae/en/media/news/successful-distance-learning-for-1.2-million-students-leveraging-uae-s-futuristic-vision-flexibility-and-advanced-infrastructure Ministry of Education. (2020). MoE virtually launches skill and academic activities system 2020. https://www.moe.gov.ae/En/MediaCenter/News/pages/MoEvirtually-launches-skill-and-academic-activities-system-2020.aspx Moussa, M. B., & Seraphim, J. (2017). Digital gender divides and e-empowerment in the UAE: A critical perspective. IJEDICT, 13(3), 145–161. Mynard, J. (2003). Synchronous computer-mediated communication and learner autonomy in female Emirati learners of English [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Exeter. Ndichu, D. (2018) E-learning in the Middle East poised for strong growth. https:// www.itp.net/616397-e-learning-in-the-middle-east-poised-for-strong-growth Online learning accelerates in United Arab Emirates amid COVID-19 outbreak with Ankabut, Mediasite partnership. (2020). https://www.globenewswire.com/ news-release/2020/04/29/2024058/0/en/Online-Learning-Accelerates-inUnited-Arab-Emirates-Amid-COVID-19-Outbreak-with-Ankabut-MediasitePartnership.html Raji, B. (2019). Significance and challenges of computer assisted education programs in the UAE: A case study of higher learning and vocational education. Education and Information Technologies, 24(1), 153–164. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10639-018-9767-6 Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). Free Press. Sanderson, D. (2020, April 13). UAE students speak out against webcam policy for online exams. The National News. https://www.thenational.ae/uae/education/ uae-students-speak-out-against-webcam-policy-for-online-exams-1.1005549 Serkal, M. M. (2020, March 24). UAE: TRA unblocks Skype for business, Google hangouts amid covid-19 outbreak. Gulf News. https://gulfnews.com/uae/ uae-tra-unblocks-skype-for-business-google-hangouts-amid-covid-19-outbreak-1.1585047632245 Tabrez, H. (2020, August 10). E-learning at UAE universities-what are your options? Gulf News. https://gulfnews.com/living-in-uae/education/e-learning-at-uae-universities--what-are-your-options-1.1597072447874

240  Shytance Wren Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation & United Nations Development Program/Regional Bureau for Arab States (UNDP/RBAS). (2014). Arab knowledge report 2014: Youth and localization of knowledge. Al Ghurair Publishing House. UAE Vision 2021. (2020). First-rate education system. https://www.vision2021. ae/en/national-agenda-2021/list/first-rate-circle United Arab Emirates Government. (2020a). eLearning, mLearning and distance learning. https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/education/elearningmlearning-and-distant-learning United Arab Emirates Government. (2020c). National Strategy for Higher Education 2030. https://u.ae/en/about-the-uae/strategies-initiatives-andawards/federal-governments-strategies-and-plans/national-strategy-for-highereducation-2030 Watson, D. M. (2001). Pedagogy before technology: Re-thinking the relationship between ICT and teaching. Education and Information Technologies, 6 (4), 251–266. Weber, A. S. (2010). Web-based learning in Qatar and the GCC states (Occasional Paper No. 5.). Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Center for International and Regional Studies. https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/558293/CIRSOccasionalPaper5AlanWeber2010.pdf?sequence=5 Wren, S. T., & Negron, C. (2020, June 27). Changing Paradigms: Reflecting and assessing students’ remote learning experiences. [Conference presentation]. ALLT Summer 2020 Academic Forum, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Epilogue The Future of Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education after COVID-19: Lessons Learned and Best Practices Roy Y. Chan, Krishna Bista, and Ryan M. Allen The 17 chapters in this book (along with the foreword from Gerardo L. Blanco) have highlighted several key overarching messages and commonalities surrounding the current and future state of online teaching and learning during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Among them recognizing the dignity of all students remotely (regardless of their background or circumstance), embracing equity-mindfulness and culturally responsive pedagogies in online learning environments, and helping individuals and institutions work toward justice with purpose and hope. Of these overarching commonalities, we believe that two major themes were consistently shared and expressed by our contributors: (1) addressing unequal access and affordability to information and communication technologies (ICT) and (2) embedding digital transformation in institutional culture and investing in digital infrastructures for a more robust online learning ecosystem. First, we believe that access and affordability to ICT have remained vastly unequal between rich and poor countries throughout the COVID19 lockdown, as outlined by several of our contributors (e.g., Dam, Pham, Manzoo, Gruzdev, Mukherjee, Wren). Specifically, students from lowerincome countries have consistently experienced limited Internet deployment and low broadband capacity compared to middle- and upper-income countries, thereby affecting their ability to complete remote courses virtually. These barriers have only increased inequality in a system that was already unequal before the pandemic. To address this digital divide, policy makers and practitioners must develop innovative educational approaches, at the national and institutional levels, that focus on achieving equity and inclusivity for all students. For example, the world’s top research universities (or wealthy elite institutions) could explore the possibilities of offering international degree programs, teaching online courses collectively, and conducting virtual research collaboratively, combining their talent

242  Roy Y. Chan et al. and financial resources more effectively. In addition, aspiring world-class research institutions could donate outdated or unused technological devices to students from less well-off families and offer Internet bundles to provide online access remotely. By doing so, colleges and universities worldwide can ease some of the exacerbated inequalities in access for all students regardless of income, gender, age, or race/ethnicity, although true equality will take more than individual institution action, as these issues are system-wide problems. Second, we observe that the COVID-19 restrictions have accelerated the professionalization, normalization, and legitimization of online teaching, learning, and assessment around the world, as noted by several of our contributors (e.g., Rippy, Turnbull, Seeletso, Tavares, Stephens). Prior to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, online and distance education programs were viewed as a “hidden market” to primarily older adults and high school graduates who held full-time jobs and had families at home. This inevitably changed when the worldwide pandemic forced several institutions of higher education to conduct their courses fully remotely, thus prompting a digital transformation in institutional culture for a more robust online learning ecosystem. As noted by Altbach and de Wit (2020), “The fact is that developing high-quality online courses requires skill, new ways of thinking about pedagogy, and money” (p. 4). There is likely no turning back from this digitization trend, as the unprecedented nature of the situation proved that the educational curriculum can be delivered easily and efficiently through digital platforms. There is no denying that it can be done, but the real question remains in the efficacy of the new trend. Because online teaching is complex, demanding, and can often lead to burnout, we believe that campus leaders should think hard and critically about the effects of these digital transformations. With the snap of a figure, hundreds of millions of students across the world were suddenly thrust into schooling online, an unprecedented scale and rapid change in education that has not been seen before in human history. We must admit, this is all an experiment, one happening on the global level. The early research born from this book does provide hints at how these trends will fair in the long term when they are further normalized and adapted. For instance, we believe that in order to thrive in the new system, institutions will have to develop meaningful partnerships with external constituencies and stakeholders, including digital technology and telecommunication companies, that promote global learning and development. Specifically, institutions of higher education should invest in digital infrastructures and platforms that enable them to stay current with the changing digital preferences, expectations, and capabilities of students, faculty, and professional staff. Although many campus leaders have recently begun to professionalize, normalize, and legitimize online and distance education at the institutional level, very little research has shown whether such efforts will positively (or negatively) promote inclusivity, intersectionality, and interdisciplinary teaching and learning after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Epilogue  243 Even with these important early studies on the impacts of the pandemic on education, there is still considerable unknowns for the future of the sector. Further studies should unpack information on how the faculty and staff can design remote courses of quality and excellence that foster students’ social and emotional development in the post-COVID-19 era and outline innovative educational approaches, paradigms, and methods to normalize the student experience from a distance (Oleksiyenko et al., 2020). Future articles, books, and policy briefs should also examine longitudinally the effects of online and distance education on student outcomes and assess those impacts among underserved and underrepresented groups (Shahzad et al., 2020). We must also not forget that the digital environment is only a part of education, not the whole thing, and that it is crucial to understand how the traditional physical spaces operate and incorporate the new online aspects. It is more important now than ever before that our efforts to create inclusive environments go beyond words and translate into actions. We sincerely hope that the lessons learned and best practices highlighted throughout this book have inspired you to become more equitable, accessible, affordable, outcomes-focused, flexible, resilient, and sustainable during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bios Roy Y. Chan is Assistant Professor of Education and Director of the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) Program in Leadership and Professional Practice in the Helen DeVos College of Education at Lee University, Tennessee, USA. Krishna Bista is Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Advanced Studies, Leadership and Policy at Morgan State University, Maryland, USA. Ryan M. Allen is Assistant Professor of Practice in the Attallah College of Educational Studies at Chapman University, California, USA.

References Altbach, P. G., & de Wit, H. (2020). Responding to COVID-19 with IT: A transformative moment? International Higher Education, 103, 3–4. Oleksiyenko, A., Blanco, G., Hayhoe, R., Jackson, L., Lee, J., Metcalfe, A., Sivasubramaniam, M., & Zha, Q. (2020). Comparative and international higher education in a new key? Thoughts on the post-pandemic prospects of scholarship. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. https://doi.org/:10.1080/03057925.2020.1838121 Shahzad, A., Hassan, R., & Aremu, A. Y. (2020). Effects of COVID-19 in e-learning on higher education institution students: The group comparison between male and female. Quality & Quantity. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11135-020-01028-z

Index

assessment 114, 130, 185, 242 Australia 9, 45, 50–52, 57–58, 81, 85, 109, 173, 183, 215–226 authentic learning 13–15, 22, 69, 71 Botswana 8, 120–124, 126–128 Brazil 81 Canada 93, 95–100, 170, 183 China 28, 33, 42, 45, 69, 83, 98, 121, 124, 170–171, 183, 187, 199 COVID-­19 3–5, 7, 28, 36, 45, 73, 122, 128, 130, 134, 181 curriculum 20, 21, 41, 60, 134, 230, 242 disabilities 4–5, 113 Disruption in Higher Education 9, 153, 154, 209, 218, 226 distance learning 121, 199, 205, 210 Egypt 81, 84, 86 e-­learning 39, 46, 51, 229, 230, 232, 233 equitable access 107, 110, 115 Germany 81, 85 global crises 32, 170, 181, 194, 218 global higher education 81, 168, 170, 177, 181 Hong Kong 170–173, 175, 181–190, 192–195

India 9–10, 81, 84–86, 136, 170, 183, 199–202, 206–212 Indonesia 120, 125 international students, 50, 93–95, 99, 102, 111, 113, 183, 225 Iran 98 Native American 112–113, 115–116, 118 online courses 15, 21, 121, 205 online teaching 7, 20, 24, 50, 56, 60, 94, 96, 121, 124, 236 open and distance learning 120, 121, 132 Pakistan 98, 127 pandemic pedagogy, 16–18, 23, 28, 30, 34, 36, 121 Papua New Guinea 40 post pandemic 13, 201 remote teaching 8, 28, 30, 35, 154, 162, 186, 202 Russia 8, 134–138, 145–146 Spain 50–51, 58, 63 social inclusion 8, 79, 86,121 social media 8, 28, 29, 81, 82, 85, 86, 189, 193 South Korea 44 student experience 82, 85, 93, 95, 136, 243 Sweden 84

Index  245 teacher education 9, 51, 52, 216–218, 222 teaching and learning 3, 7, 50, 57, 62, 89, 121, 128, 131, 141, 186, 190, 203, 230, 242 Turkey 98

United Arab Emirates 9, 229–237 United Kingdom 81, 83 United States 4, 17–18, 28, 81, 87, 109–115, 153, 175, 182–185, 199 Vietnam 69–76