The summer semester is coming to an end, and again a heated discussion flares up at universities and colleges about distance, mask and how to deal with the corona virus in the winter half-year.
On the surface, it’s all about the conflict between classroom teaching and another digital semester. In truth, however, the future of higher education is being negotiated. The past two semesters have given universities and colleges an opportunity that they have been stressed out and gambled away in a bad mood – and which they are still wasting.
At least 30 percent of the events should take place in attendance again from winter, especially the beginning semesters should finally be able to get to know their alma mater, including the opening of the cafeteria and campus life.
That is how the university rectors want it, and that is how it is right and important for students at the beginning. But many professors and students now also want something else. You would like to continue teaching and learning digitally and use the new freedom for more research and an individual learning pace.
Better to hear the brilliant speaker from another university on video
Digital teaching is pretty efficient. Under normal circumstances, anyone who has to give an introductory lecture sweats for an hour and a half once a week in a crowded classroom. If, on the other hand, she records the event, she can easily complete the 15 or so appointments in one week.
On the other hand, it is up to the students when and from whom to listen to the material. Why shouldn’t one be allowed to learn from a brilliant speaker instead of tormenting oneself through the lisp of a good researcher but a miserable teacher at one’s own university?
The lectures online, but more face-to-face seminars and study groups: This way, learning in the discourse would also be possible for the beginning semester – without the costs going through the roof. More autonomy for both sides, that could be the lesson.
In addition, the universities are still fixated on three- or five-year courses. But that dramatically ignores the need for lifelong learning. Combining courses and certificates from different universities into one degree in flexible study programs could become a second new normal – if the universities grasped the opportunity instead of denying it.
The “silent getting used to a normality that shouldn’t be”, complained by the Berlin historian Paul Nolte, has long since taken place. If digitization were understood not as an imposition, but as an extension of the university space, it could be used for the good of all.
I am a technology author with 8 years of experience in journalism. My writing covers the latest technology advancements and trends, drawing on my expertise in news journalism and social media platforms. I have contributed to major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.
