Word from faculty member…

Like all of you, we find ourselves in a new world this Spring, trying to adjust to the reality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lebanon and all over the world. While the landscape is changing daily, as of this writing on May 04, 2020, AUB is functioning with minimal on-campus operations that include limiting on-campus activities to only core operational functions and moving all instruction to fully-online courses.

Online teaching requires careful thinking about how learners and teachers are equipped for this shift and serious consideration about whether traditional teaching styles are still effective when taken from the classroom and transposed to technological devices. Communication and transparency between professors and students are needed to effectively identify the methods that continue to serve our student body, as well as those practices that fall short. Amid this crisis, we should actively be sharing innovative ways in which we are working to address student and community engagement. How can we best maintain a lively and academically stimulating dialogue between faculty and students as well as amongst the students themselves? Are we incorporating opportunities for students to share their work so that they have the chance to learn from one another, instead of just via live-streaming lectures? And are we encouraging these remote presentations/projects to take full advantage of the wide range of dynamic media options available to us now, instead of plodding along with our attention-crushing PowerPoint presentations?

These are the types of questions we need to be asking. And as educators, we cannot hope to answer them without seeking the voices and feedback of our students. That is why publications such as COGS & CAFFEINE are so important in the current educational climate; It provides a platform for students to advocate for themselves and to discuss publicly how these fundamental changes in their education are working or not working.

While none of us know how long this COVID-19 situation will persist, we are confident that it will be overcome and that we will all emerge wiser and more prepared for any future challenges. The biggest future benefits of this pandemic virtual instruction will come after our professors and students return to their physical classrooms. We will come back with a much more widely shared understanding that digital tools are complements, not substitutes, for the intimacy and immediacy of face-to-face learning. After moving content online, precious classroom time will be more productively utilized for discussion, debate, and guided practice.

This is neither the first time nor will it be the last time, that the resilience of our AUB and Lebanon will be tested. We need to seize this opportunity to envision a stronger education system for the future. Let’s not miss this chance.