Responding to Adult Learner Student Needs in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Modifying Online Graduate Courses in Education to Seize Teachable Moments

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how faculty teaching online graduate courses needed to modify teaching practices and make adjustments and accommodations in response to student needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the online platform did not need to change, student stressors significantly increased. This was particularly true in the Educational Leadership Department at New Jersey City University (NJCU), located in the most diverse city in the United States and in the epicenter of the pandemic. Most students were impacted directly by the pandemic with many becoming ill and losing loved ones. As a graduate program focusing on developing leadership skills, our student body is comprised of working professionals in the field of education. In addition to having to manage personal stressors, students who are educators and administrators in the K-12 and community college setting also had to shift teaching, learning, and supportive services from face-to-face to remote environments in a matter of days or weeks. Examples of how we gained an understanding of our student needs and responded to these needs are provided.

“Students are whole people and need to be treated as such. Their learning is impossible to separate from this virus or from remote learning. The way forward is learning, and learning deserves our focus.”The TPHE Collective, May 6, 2020