Kathleen Bortolin, a Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Specialist at  Vancouver Island University shares in a blog post the effort she and her colleagues put in to support faculty when the university closed and teaching had to shift online.

In the first few weeks of the crisis, our centre offered countless zoom sessions on everything from how to use zoom (after you’ve turned on your computer) to why testing in the online world is problematic, or even fraught with trauma.

…

Amid the big pivot, most of us, including me, worked overtime just about every day for the first six weeks, also putting in handfuls of hours every weekend. Once the semester ended, there was intercession to prepare for, and an uncertain fall looming in the distance. Even if nobody really knew what alternate, normal or near-normal universe higher education would be in, we carried on preparing as if alternate was the new normal.

She hopes out of this experience for a development of a greater awareness of “what teaching and learning centres do, and how educational developers are a valuable asset to faculty, curriculum, students, and institutions.”

Location: Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
More Information: https://www.drbortolin.com/post/how-teaching-and-learning-centres-saved-higher-ed-during-covid-19

Contact Name: Kathleen Bortolin @KMBorto
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