Future Forward: Assessing the Potential of Post-Pandemic Expansion of Experiential Learning and Assessment Trends

Background

Even before the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, there were sustained, and growing calls for significant change in academy. In fact, Govindarajan and Srivastava (2020), argued in a recent Harvard Business Review article that “the current crisis also creates opportunities to remake institutions” with intentional steps around scaling plans around the implementation of new media, digital-based technologies. But most glaring was their suggestions that the forced move to online education have ushered in a new age of removing—or at the very least—challenging psychological misconceptions and resistance to these modifications from the university’s most critical constituents; faculty, staff, parents, and the students themselves. Simply, online education has existed for quite some time, but prior to the pandemic, had not been widely embraced and fully acknowledged as a legitimate platform to facilitate learning. However, with the forced change, there was a reckoning and now conversations and training have become more centered on improving online course design and student engagement is central to that outcome.