What We May Be Learning in College This Year

In these difficult times, it’s easy to get lost in what we’ve lost. Now that I’m two weeks into the fall semester—teaching remotely after almost 40 years of working on campus—I’m reflecting on what my students and I might be learning that will potentially be useful in a post- (or between-) pandemic world. Some of these lessons are extensions of what we’ve been learning all along, but now they’re in sharper focus.

We may be learning what is most important about college. Here’s the way Jeff Maconi, a senior at Purdue senior, put it in a recent article: “It’s all the work of college, minus the fun of being able to socialize in person without being 6 feet apart.” College is not the only opportunity students will get in their lives to socialize. But college may be the only, or best, place to learn some of the precise thinking and communication skills that are necessary in the professions and jobs to which students aspire. Tipping the balance of effort in favor of academic and professional skill development may have some long-term benefits.

We may be learning about altruism. In that same article, Maconi said this about all the masks, face shields, distancing requirements, etc.: “It’s inconvenient, for sure, but people are willing to accept these inconveniences for the greater good. They hear all these stories of people refusing to wear masks, that their rights are violated, and so on. But at the end of the day, everyone here seems to be working together.” Everyone? Maybe not. Lots of students continue to party and defy the rules. But it could be that the students who are behaving “for the greater good” are learning that lesson more effectively than they would have otherwise.

We’re learning to be more organized and structured. My students are learning about managing time—a major challenge in the best of times—in the absence of traditional cues and affordances (like a quiet place to study). I am learning the value of having all my assignments and requirements mapped out at the beginning of a course—so that students always know where they are and what’s coming next.

We’re learning to be more flexible. My students are learning to collaborate and create relationships in ways other than, for example, hanging around a hallway before class begins. I’m learning that the goal of submitting papers is way more important than the goal of submitting them as a pdf file on Canvas or Blackboard. I’m accepting emails, messages, screenshots, and anything else. I’ll even accept a message by carrier pigeon … if the pigeon is wearing a mask.

We’re learning how to communicate with each other in a wider variety of ways. My students are learning how to communicate via email, submitted papers, Zoom office hours, producing a video. I’m learning new ways to show people that I’m paying attention to them. In the past, all I needed to do was point, nod, and establish eye contact—none of which work on Zoom. I’m learning how to tell people that I’m paying attention to them, I’m learning how to give feedback by creating video files (I’m learning this late—my colleagues have been doing this for years), how to pay attention to individual students, and how to value each interaction with a student. I find that each interaction becomes more important because it takes more explicit effort. I can no longer just sit in my office and wait for students to show up.

I’m (finally) learning how to use backward design. For years I’ve been touting the benefits of backward design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2006), which includes starting the development of a course from the goals you have for your students rather than what you are going to do on the first day of class. I learned this summer that I’d never really practiced backward design as fully as I thought. For me, the key to developing a remote course (once I got past my complaining) was to start with course objectives. This helped me sort through the morass of (often excellent) advice I was getting about online teaching: “You can use videos!” “Techsmith Snagit is a great program—it’s very user-friendly and flexible.” “Flipgrid is the best program to use.” “Have students do a Group Me group.” “Have students do discussions.” “Students can text each other while watching a video in their chat rooms while you review their analytics in Canvas and grade the percentage of the video watched as a function of peer interaction calculations.” (OK, this last one is more of a composite.) The only time any of these techniques or suggestions made any sense was when I knew exactly what I wanted my students to be able to do and know at the end of the course. Technology is a means that is only as good as the purposes for which it is used.

Maybe we’re learning that backward design has its limits. It might not have been the best idea to have “come back to campus” as a primary goal of higher education. Many colleges are reorienting their goals, and the resulting strategies, in light of goals such as learning, safety, continuity, community, etc.

Maybe we’re learning that critical thinking is as important as ever. A major focus of my first-year seminar (“How to Think Like a Psychologist”) is critical thinking, “the ability to evaluate claims by evaluating the evidence that supports (or refutes) those claims.” The goal is to reach decisions that are less influenced by biases and other shortcomings. I would submit that being able to view situations and decisions from more critical lenses will be the skill set most necessary to move to a better future.

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Maybe we’re learning to pay better attention to our mental health. Colleges have known about, and been dealing with, issues of mental health (Lipson, Lattie, & Eisenberg, 2019; National Council on Disability, 2017) and loneliness for a long time. Things may change now that these issues are being recognized as facts of our existence, not just unusual occurrences.

Maybe we’re learning how to be good to ourselves. Once we’re finished binge watching, maybe we can focus on those aspects of our existence that we haven’t lost, or that we can develop. After we exhaust ourselves with decisions that used to be easy and automatic, we need to give ourselves some slack, some credit, and some reward. I, for one, am going to finish writing this and have a small piece of good chocolate.