New Technology and Attitudes Emerge from the Pandemic

At the start of 2020, there was robust availability of online higher education, but no one anticipated that a worldwide pandemic called COVID-19 would soon usher in a new world of distance learning. 

“The pandemic opened the door for many faculty to experience teaching online that hadn’t before,” said Dr. Elizabeth M. Luoma, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Sacred Heart University. “In general, it’s really opened conversations about flexibility and thinking about how we can use technology to be more inclusive to provide opportunities.”

Making the shift and continued development

Luoma was on Yale University’s faculty initiatives team when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. Her role included helping faculty learn how to use web conferencing to hold classes online, making sure course materials were on the university’s learning management system, and helping with the pedagogy.

Dr. Felesia Stukes“As we moved beyond the pandemic, I as a member of the faculty initiatives team was closely collaborating with members of our educational technology team to offer workshops and communities for faculty about how to engage students through the use of technology, how to build community through technology, really making sure that the use of the technological tools was paired with its pedagogical purpose,” Luoma said. “It’s still something very much on our minds.”

Dr. Felesia Stukes, an associate professor of computer science at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), taught Introduction to Network Science spring semester 2020. Network science looks at complex systems and helps people understand how everything is interconnected. Stukes could see a pandemic on the horizon and quickly trained her students for a shift to virtual.