Pondering New Normal

Some thoughts on these areas:


Higher Education: with campuses closed, college students are learning at home via remote technology. That same technology provides research outlets and resource materials to study. Instruction creates the manner in which to learn. Deep dives into class material is provided by faculty. Classrooms and lectures are scaled to size of attendance. Individual attention is readily available, too.


So how much of this methodology will be kept going forward? A lot? How will this affect the shape and presence of college campuses. Group learning and team research projects surely will be handled on campus, but still these are capable of remote positioning, too. Laboratory research is different. Shoulder to shoulder tasking by students and faculty will be required from time to time, but not always.


Campuses are expensive places. To acquire, build and maintain, universities and colleges have untold trillions invested in physical plant alone. Might a lot of this become unnecessary? To what use can the idle facilities be put? If the students are remote, what about faculty? Might they also be remote? What will require both faculty and students to be present at the campus site in the future?


And what cost for an education in the future? Today’s private tuition and fees regularly tops $55,000 annually. Might this be brought down to $12,000 to encourage everyone who needs educational support to get it? Might education in some form be free for many?


Churches: what is church, and why? Social media has witnessed a huge increase in church reach during the pandemic. Where 100 attended church before the pandemic, now 500 connect with the church during worship times. And the business of the church and its many programs continue remotely and electronically. The connection and engagement of church members has grown in this time of challenge. What then does this portend for the future?


Church facilities will not disappear, but their size will likely be frozen or scaled back. Virtual space is much cheaper than brick and mortar. As well, thinking, worshipping, teaching and learning spiritual matters is virtually unlimited. An Idaho family ‘attends’ church in Illinois just as easily as another family a block away attends remotely.


The focus on church should be on its why, its purpose and function in the lives of those engaged. This has always been true, but often we are distracted by other things that take us off track.


Time to redesign church.


Public education: teaching and learning is a cooperative and collaborative process. One on one models are helpful in some instances, small groups are another. Large lecture groups work in some settings for specific material. Mostly large lectures are guides to reading broader materials. Smaller discussion groups help cement the key concepts. Self-guided reading is yet another method. Still out there is programmed learning pods either in printed material or digitally shared over computer screens. Interactive steps challenge the student to work through materials in a logical sequence.


All of these learning methods can be adapted to home study with both computer, video and audio connections. Tailoring the learning model to the student and material to be covered is being done currently. It can be expanded and studied for results. The current pandemic provides the opportunity to study the process and learn from it for future teaching gains.


My hunch is public education will not likely return to the old methods. Time will be needed to train faculty, students and families to new processes. It likely will help to include family involvement in the process as well. Imagine the strength of nurturing at home when parents and siblings are engaged in the overall education process. We may be on the cusp of something fabulous!

On the other hand, what about social learning of kids through all of their stages of maturation?


Career architecture: telecommuting is one element we have learned to do en masse in the pandemic. A few years ago, this was a new concept. It took a few years to trust the results. Telecommuting works in specific instances. Expanding that to more jobs and processes followed. Then the pandemic. A huge expansion in telecommuting was forced on the world of work and commerce.


Understanding how well this practice has worked will take time. Early indications suggest personal motivation, creativity and discipline supports valuable gains in productivity. Telecommunication skillsets and support systems will need improvement  and training of personnel. Human Resource management methods will be challenged to prepare the way for training, development and supervision of remote work sites. Measuring productivity and quality of work will be another challenge.


Saving employers from investing in physical plant will constitute a major benefit. Saving employees expense and time of commuting rewards the labor pool. Both employer and employee benefit from telecommuting.


Flexibility of work hours and response times will improve customer support.


Of course, telecommuting works best with service industries as opposed to manufacturing. However, manufacturing requires service departments for selling, advertising, planning, researching, and managing the enterprise from A to Z. Some employees can telecommute profitably for manufacturers.


With a turn to technology in huge measures, careers will require skill training and adaptation. Younger workers already know this intuitively; they have been exposed to technology their entire generation. Older workers have not. Training older workers may require tasking them with career functions that do not rely on a personal engagement with technology.


How individuals identify with a career and prepare for it will change greatly. Life-long learning will become the standard for all of us. And that feeds back to the topic of education innovation.  


Conclusion: the new normal is squarely focused on the individual; and our society’s investment in nurturing and educating each person to engage a deep understanding of life, the world and the personal contribution each of us can and should make to the common good.


Sounds a lot like what we learned in Kindergarten and Sunday School, doesn’t it?


April 19, 2020