The Spring of 2020 brought many disruptions to our professional and personal lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic that forced worldwide mid-semester campus closures; pivoting of traditional, face-to-face classes to remote teaching and learning; and postponements or cancellations of conferences, workshops, and other professional development events. One example of the breakdown of scheduled opportunities for us as honors colleagues to gather in-person to enhance our practices and strengthen our community was the cancellation of the 2020 International Conference on Talent Development and Honors Education in Groningen, the Netherlands, originally slated for June 10-12 but moved to June 16-18, 2021. Immediately following the 2020 conference, we (the authors) had planned to offer the fifth Honors International Faculty Institute (HIFI), an international and highly interactive occasion for honors and talent development teachers, researchers, and leaders to engage in presentations, experiential activities, place-as-text explorations, collaborative group work, reflective exercises, and showcases designed to improve teaching, learning, and programming in honors. Suddenly, the coronavirus upended our world, and we had to reimagine the institute that we had previously organized four times alternately at Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands) and Texas Christian University (USA). Putting aside the disappointment of the moment and recognizing the value of coming up with an alternative to HIFI that would ensure the safety and health of our honors colleagues, we decided to create a fully online version with free registration to encourage participation and create resources accessible to all members of our international community. We wanted to highlight the challenges of how all of us unexpectedly had to pivot to remote teaching and learning as the global pandemic intensified, but we also wanted to share information, experiences, and models that could open new avenues for operationalizing online honors education more generally beyond the COVID-19 crisis. We wanted, in other words, to explore how honors pedagogy could (and maybe should) be adapted to the increasingly online world of primary, secondary, and higher education. Thus, HIFLO 2020 was born! HIFLO stands for Honours International Faculty Learning Online.
The COVID-19 pandemic forces millions of teachers worldwide to engage in online teaching. Teachers are exploring and experimenting with various digital forms to deliver learning content, keep communicating with students and colleagues, and assess learning outcomes. A digital knowledge-building community gradually emerges and becomes more vivid. This note reports results from a study among honors teachers and administrators from 18 schools of a large Dutch university who all shared their problems and recommendations after the first five weeks of remote teaching, Spring 2020.
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Abstract: Face-to-face contact in higher education was greatly reduced during theglobal health pandemic. This study examines how honors educators experiencedcommunity building with both students and colleagues during the period of emergency remote teaching. A questionnaire was developed to assess both the quality and importance of contact with students and colleagues as experienced by teachers, as well as changes therein due to the pandemic. Thirty-seven honors educators from various disciplines at a single institution participated in the study. Quantitative analysis indicates that teachers found the contact with both their students and colleagues to be of good quality overall and that they did not experience much change in the quality of communication as a result of the pandemic despite the lack of inperson interaction. Authors consider the large variation underlying their results, observing that while some teachers experienced a great deal of improvement, others perceived a significant decrease in the quality of contact. Results indicate that honors educators feel that too little attention was paid to their needs during the pandemic, especially regarding their need for community building with colleagues. Authors argue that educational leaders must ensure that teachers’ contact with both students and colleagues is sufficiently supported, emphasizing that both are important for fostering a sense of community. Authors conclude that honors educators might especially benefit from a strong sense of community in the upcoming transition to more blended educational models, as it can stimulate their professional development and promote adaptive ways of effectively dealing with change.
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