Importance of the Informal
As we're getting to the end of the academic session here in Scotland, I have to say I'm so looking forward to the summer holidays. It's been a long year, but there's a lot to do still - meetings, paperwork, form filling... It's been really interesting this past week though because it's allowed me to reflect, not so much on the processes that are underway, but on how they're happenning.
With a range of formal programme review meetings taking place, getting the chance to have those face-to-face informal "water cooler" conversation with colleagues you haven't seen in ages has felt like a breath of fresh air. Some of the meetings took place face-to-face while others have been online or some hybrid combination of both. But they've all felt like a pressure release. Sometimes it's provided the opportunity to venting our frustrations, other times its allowed teams to reflect on the problems we faced this session and come up with new solutions. But my favourite is when I get a text message inviting me for tea breaking the monotony since I work all day on my own usually in a classroom or pod so I can concentrate on accurately documenting students results. Tea breaks are the best because sometime it's just for a laugh and a chat. But other times we chat about more personal and serious stuff.
Similarly, today was wonderful attending a face to face graduation ceremony where I got to meet another student who I had been studying alongside in an online capacity. But meeting face to face was just fab!! It was like our online connection just got better.
The point I'm making here is that it wasn't about the technology. Although technology was present, it wasn't a barrier because of the way it was used.
At work, sometimes technology helped if it was a quick question or something that was easy to share. Or at my graduation ceremony it allowed other students to share parts of their stories and relay the difference online learning had made to their lives and careers. Over the past two years it has allowed people who were experiencing some major problems in their life to balance their work-life commitments.
But there is also the reality that sometimes you just need some face to face contact with a real person.
("UN Haiti Crisis Management Team Holds Videoconference with Port-au-Prince" by United Nations Photo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)
Technology can help in some situations, but not in others (that's the basic principle of Technology Enhanced Learning - if it doesn't enhance, why bother!?) But technology or not, what made the difference was the informality of each interaction. Being free to laugh, cry, chat, moan, plan, be creative, say hello, send a meme, share a thought... Put simply, the last week life has felt himan again for the first time in ages!
Moreover, none of these interactions were about formal speaches or making grand announcements. They were about colleagues and friends reaching out to each other. It was about Community.
In recognising that I was reminded of a quote from Tinto (1993) which in reference to student retention states:
"...it is precisely that informal world of [college] life that many times spells the difference between staying and leaving."
Community manifests in the informal.
What was interesting though, from a work perspective, was that in each of the review meetings I attended this past week technology was raised as a barrier, even a reason to return to face-to-face teaching. Huh? Something doesn't make sense here.
While I am an advocate of Technogy enhanced learning, I was also reminded of this quite, again from Tinto (1993) who comments that:
"Although programs can be helpful, they cannot replace the absence of a high quality, caring and concerned faculty and staff. Institutions should therefore not be misled by the use of modern technology... these are merely the tools of retention. [Retention] requires, if you will, a continuing commitment to the education of students. No technology, however sophisticated, can replace that kind of commitment."
Even back then, writing in 1993, Vincent Tinto recognised that technology is merely a tool, one of many, that teachers can use to enhance their learning and teaching practice. But there is ultimately no substitute for relationship building.
This session I've worked with students who have hated online/hybrid education because they simply have too many distractions in their home to work effectively, to name but a few reasons why people would choose a return to face to face traditional teaching.
Equally, this session I've worked with learners who have valued online education, even cherished it! I've seen students who have struggled to build relationships with their peers owing to social anxiety or autism. I've worked with students juggling caring responsibilities alongside full time study and part time work. I've seen students struggle with anxiety and depression to the point where they can't get outside their front door. I've seen students who work and appreciate the flexibility that asynchronus learning offers. I've seen students with chronic pain who can use video recordings and mobile technogy while on the move so they don't have to stay in one place too long and seize up. As a tool, technology enabled all of those students to access a form of education that met their needs.
From my perspective, each week I tried to check in with my students. I'd ask them how they were doing academically and personally. I'd share a bit of my week, a funny anecdote, a personal observation, a thought.. it didn't matter. The point is that I was trying to build trust, build rapport, build a relationship... Whatever you want to call it, I was doing exactly the same thing that my colleagues and I have been doing with each other this past week. Is it somehow more difficult to do that with students?
If we recognise that, for some students, technology can be used in this way, why should we be talking about removing a valuable tool for learning? Now that hybrid education is a choice, as opposed with an emergency necessity, how many of us will give hybrid education the proper consideration it deserves as a tool to enhance the learning experience?
I'll leave you with one final quote from Vincent Tinto (1993):
"An institution's commitment to the education of its students must be translated on a daily basis by the actions of each and every representative of the institution, but especially by the faculty. And nowhere are those actions more clearly felt than in the classrooms of the institution where educational activities primarily occur."
Perhaps our commitment could simply take the form of a professional resolution to consider technology as a potentially useful tool that might help us to connect with those learners in our classrooms who experience the sorts of barriers that traditional approaches simply don't work for.
You can follow me on twitter @McintoshMclean.
References
Tinto, V. (1993) Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition [ebook reader], London, University of Chicago Press.
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