Academic Voices: A Conversation on New Approaches to Teaching and Learning in the Post-Covid World

The sacrosanctity of the academic voice has long been the central tenet of higher education. While history is replete with challenges to this, the current rapid shift to online education may represent the greatest threat and opportunity so far. How the academic voice is heard going forward will depend largely on how academics respond to the new forms of teaching, learning, and assessment. The impetus for this book is the COVID-19 pandemic that has propelled Higher Education Institutions (HEI) to rethink, redesign, and respond in real time. There has never been a time such as occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the collective attention of the world has scrutinized education in such a focused way.

The dramatic closure of education institutions around the world raised several questions in terms of the adaptability and readiness of the HEI sector to adapt and respond to the changes. The changes called into question issues such as student mobility, pedagogical readiness of academics, technological readiness of institutions, student readiness to adopt online learning, the value of higher education, the value of distance learning, and the changing role of administration and faculty. While research has shown for some time that the higher education sector must adapt and adopt new technologies in teaching and learning, it took the COVID pandemic to force wholescale, worldwide adoption. This rapid adoption not only highlighted the shortcomings of many higher education institutions to adapt to online teaching, but also forced academia to reassess teaching and learning going forward.

An area that needs particular attention with the rapid introduction and immersion into digital technologies, as took place during the pandemic, is the issue of quality assurance and assessment. The unprecedented speed of international lockdowns, caused by the pandemic, necessitated HEIs making rapid changes in both teaching and assessment approaches. The quality of these approaches needs to be carefully assessed in light of the reality that these may become the necessary or desired approaches in the future. Another important element that has impacted online learning both prior to and during the pandemic is the lack of student engagement. Overall, the rapid change in the HEI landscape suggests a need to address policy gaps, identify appropriate online tools and approaches, assess the readiness of academic staff to adapt to the new teaching situations, and determine the readiness of students to learn in online environments.

The purpose of this book is to contribute to the scholarship on the creative adoption of technology to support online teaching, learning, and assessment and more importantly to give a platform for academic voice. The need for academics to reflect on the lessons learnt and articulate new educational approaches and paradigms going forward, will be key to both the validation of the importance of the academic voice in higher education.