Article #9: Good change sometimes come upon us
The ongoing pandemic has dramatically changed the higher education landscape. It became a catalyst for digital change and many have had to adapt quickly to new ways of doing things. Students, lecturers, and universities now plan, operate, strategise, and move forward by embedding digital technologies and methods.
Amidst all the uncertainties, difficulties and challenges, there have been a lot of positives.
For universities, online teaching technologies are more warmly embraced and utilised. Many of these technologies have always been there to use for some time, but have not been fully appreciated and utilised, until the pandemic pushed them to the forefront. There have been improvements to these technologies as well to cater to the new demands and challenges of using them. Consequently, meetings, trainings, collaborations, and teaching have all successfully moved online (albeit, different people may view the success at varying degrees). A lot of money have been spent to build, maintain, and operate new infrastructure and resources for online activities.
For lecturers, adapting to teaching and working online proved to be a worthwhile challenge. New ways and approaches to teach, assess, tutor, and support students. New ways and approaches to collaborate and work with internal and external colleagues. New ways to reach out to and engage with the community. A lot of all these have been successfully done online (although again, different people may view the success at varying degrees).
For students, learning online has had numerous perks. No traveling to classes, no parking issues if you’re driving, and no worries about being late as classes can be accessed live or at a later time. Students can do other things while listening to lectures/tutorials and get more things done. Learning to learn online, to collaborate online, and to do many other things online are valuable skills that are integral to life, now and into the far future. For years, online learning in universities has been around but not fully embraced and plays a mostly backstage role. Online learning has since been successfully employed more widely and has embedded itself into the ecosystem (although yet again, different people may view the success at varying degrees).
It is actually impossible for all things to be done fully or mostly online. When the pandemic is over (and it will be), some pertinent questions that we can all spend some time to think of are:
- Will these new ways of doing things be permanent? Or will we go back to our old ways?
- How much of these new ways will still be welcomed, embraced, and utilised when doing things in old ways are possible again?
- When certain things have been done successfully in new ways, should we even go back to old ways? Should new ways totally replace old ways, or can they be used interchangeably?
- Do we try to strike a balance between the old and new ways? Take the positives of new ways and blend it with old ways?
And to graduating students of the future, if and when you are applying for a position with any company, important questions to ask will be:
- How did the company deal with the pandemic?
- How did the company support staff in terms of work and mental health during and after the pandemic?
- How did the company do things after the pandemic?
These questions will give you a snapshot of how adaptive, innovative, and caring the company is and whether you should work for them.And if you start a business, think of how your business will act if the world would face a pandemic again.
Contributed by
K.M. Tiong