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As academics, we can work harder to show students we are invested in them personally. This means keeping a meaningful connection and delivering rounded, challenging, and exciting online classes. In this unsettling time, gaining insights from learners’ perspectives about academic content, but also about their sense of (dis)connection, is crucial. We need to keep exploring how we can help students feel that they are part of a community, ask them what they are missing from online learning and address those issues.
Institutions could also consider abandoning some of the PR-approved mass emails to students, and be honest enough to acknowledge the uncertainty of student circumstances while describing the supports available. Listening to students and providing them with safe communication channels and targeted responses are crucial, too.
Students also have a role to play. They are young adults on the cusp of really going out into the world. They can choose to engage actively with whatever the university has on offer. Studies show that active participation enhances success rates of students during university, as well as employability prospects after graduation.
As the pandemic continues to transform the educational landscape, we now have a perfect opportunity to acknowledge that we need a more fluid and student-centred approach to learning.
