25 GEORGIANVIEW 2021 SPRING
PIVOTING FOR ExCELLENCE
When COVID-19 struck just over a year ago, life as we
knew it changed. Certainly, life at Georgian College
changed in ways unimaginable before the pandemic.
Students, teachers and staff were told not to come onto
campus. The college shut down for a week in the middle
of March 2020 to provide critical planning time for faculty
and staff as they prepared to shift to a remote learning
environment.
Kevin Weaver, Vice President, Academic believes the
Georgian community has shown tremendous strength and
innovation during this time.
"There have been some great positives out of it," says
Kevin. "I think the agility of faculty, staff and students, and
their resilience should be celebrated. There's no question
it was a tough year with lots of things happening that we
didn't envision, but I think for the most part, everybody
has made the best of it. We've learned a lot. We continue
to get better. So I think there's a positivity to the journey."
The Centre for Teaching and Learning immediately
stepped up to offer seven-day-a-week training for faculty
who were adapting their courses and teaching techniques
to a remote environment. Laptop computers were made
available to students who didn't have computers of their
own. Hotspot devices were loaned out for those with poor
internet, and free Wi-Fi was made available in campus
parking lots by spring.
Georgian has continually found ways to support students
throughout the pandemic by offering the COVID-19
Hardship Bursary, online counselling and peer mentoring,
live chat events, webinars, and mental health strategies to
cope with the isolation of social distancing.
The Georgian Learning Guarantee, which allows students
to withdraw from their program and have their tuition
applied to a future semester, is another way students are
being supported.
"We just wanted to assure students that we're committed
to them and their learning and that we're going to do
our part to give them the best learning experience we
can. If the remote environment isn't for them – it's not for
everybody – they have this guarantee that they can come
back in a future semester," says Kevin.
Technology-enabled learning has played a major role in
Georgian's COVID-19 adaption. Before the pandemic,
Georgian was already invested in exploring new ways to
use technology in the delivery of courses.
"The key for us is that we were already on this path.
We saw where we needed to go and if anything, I think
the pandemic just reinforced it and validated that we are
on the right path, that technology is going to play a role
in how we deliver education," notes Kevin.
"Right now, remote learning is an intentional term to
mean it's remote more out of necessity than it is by
planned, thoughtful pedagogy. So we're not going to
maintain this level of remote learning. But, at the same
time, we've had students access education at Georgian
who we're hearing from, who are saying because it's
remote they registered. Post pandemic, we'll continue
to look at more opportunities where we can offer online,
hybrid and hyflex learning to support student access and
flexibility."
AGILITY AND RESILIENCE CELEBRATED
COVID-19 changed the game in a major way
Kevin Weaver,
Vice President, Academic
