BY KIMBERLY HARDING
Spring 2020 was the unanticipated semester. Few thought in January 2020 that we would be teaching remotely by the end of March. Even then, hope existed that Fall 2020 would emerge as a more “normal” semester. This hope has since been put to rest for most institutions of higher learning. During this time, faculty have been inundated with communications about resources, technology trainings, and plans, new and revised. In the face of these decisions, faculty have been left to implement the “hows” within new and different learning environments. Along with faculty, students have also been asked to adapt to ever-changing parameters. In some ways, both teachers and learners have experienced a sense of unmooring from typical classroom involvement. Faculty and students, who have taken years to cultivate a way of being in the classroom, are now under pressure to develop new approaches.
With experience, most instructors can confidently and proficiently convey subject matter across modalities. The format of content may vary depending on whether the delivery is in person, synchronously remote, or online, but teachers can trust in the consistency of the curriculum. Similarly, students, as we have witnessed, can rely on their prior academic skills, as they adapt to managing academic material in virtual teaching and learning spaces. With time and practice, both teachers and learners may even come to embrace, more than ever before, the potential of these various modalities.
The problem has never been whether academic content can be provided and received in more remote modalities. We know it can be. What we do not know, and what we have perceived to be more of a challenge for ourselves and our students, is how to address the multidimensional relationships inherently built into teaching and learning in environments that are changing. Our anxiety has arisen from our sense that some of these relational aspects, which we perhaps took for granted with in-person instruction, are essential to our success as teachers and learners. Both faculty and students may have received technology support, but may have received little guidance as to how they are expected to make an appearance, relationally, in more remote teaching and learning. In essence, we are seeking to learn how to show up for one another, as teachers and learners, so that the connections—the interplay between individuals and not just the interplay of academic ideas—remain.
The importance of the relational components of teaching and learning cannot be overlooked. Many of us have experienced, in various ways, how instructors can present similar content with very different results. Often these variances can be traced to the level of success an instructor has in managing the teacher-learner relationship. Curriculum within a course may be consistent, but relationship management, the reciprocity with the students, is likely to be unique to each individual teacher. A teacher is often considered to be a “better” teacher not because he or she is teaching “better” content, but rather because he or she is more accomplished in navigating relations with learners. Likewise, for many students, a positive relationship with a teacher is a key to a student’s perception of success. I have heard from many students that a sense of being “seen” and “understood” by a teacher can transform their classroom experience.
For those of us who teach, working across the different modalities has asked us to acknowledge the importance of relationships in the perceived success of the learning environment, for ourselves and our learners. Students, too, are wondering how to “show up” in this virtual environment in a way that cultivates success, not only with learning but also in building and maintaining a successful relationship with the instructor. Both teachers and learners can no longer default to established relationship dynamics that developed within in-person learning. I know for myself that my engagement online with students is less fluid and less spontaneous than when we have met in person. Small things shift the relationship dynamics online, the constant searching for the “unmute” button, or the apologetic talking over one another when conversations finally do start. In our new environments, a myriad of relationship questions arise. For example, cameras on or off in synchronous courses? If a course meets in person and online at the same time, how are the online students involved in participating? What is expected class participation in online environments? How do I check in and know that my students are doing okay?
How wonderful would it be if, amid all the discussions of educational and technological offerings this semester, we took time to reflect on the relational aspects of our work? I think we wonder, as teachers, if our best material, the joy and love we have for learning and sharing, is being lost in the stress over delivery format. We also think about how our worries and concerns may impact our relations with students. My mental space for fostering engagement with students lessens when my mind is filled with the logistics of new teaching environments. Likewise, students wonder how they are appearing in the virtual environment. Many of our students want to do their best in any classroom setting, but as the environments have changed, they lack the experience and confidence to know exactly what to do. Their mental space, like ours, is now taken up with new parameters to manage.
Of course, we can work on these relational aspects, regardless of modalities. In many ways, we are already doing this. We are becoming more innovative in how to engage our students when we do not see them in person. It may mean holding a few minutes open in the beginning of a remote synchronous course to let students share thoughts. Or the creative use of “breakout sessions” or discussion boards or other forms of engagement. We, along with our students, will continue to evolve these relationship dynamics. But we will be more effective, if we bring into our conscious awareness how critical relationships are to teaching and learning. No one would ever say that the academic content is not important. However, the relational aspect of teaching and learning, regardless of modality, must also be addressed so that we and our students have the most successful experiences possible.
Coming up with one more synchronous platform or one more learning-management system is not enough when we fail to recognize that behind every learning-management system or other technology option, there are students and teachers who are involved in the relational aspects of teaching and learning. The honoring of this relationship should be discussed as frequently, if not more often, than the technological aspects of our work. We have learned that academic content is transferable across modalities. We are now being asked to not leave behind but rather create anew, with equal care, the relational aspects so inherent in teaching and learning across all modalities.
Guest blogger Kimberly Harding is professor of biology at Colorado Mountain College.
