Northwestern’s Next Normal series examined changes in the teaching and learning landscape through the experiences of a fictional character, Dr. Roberts. Dr. Roberts was created to represent the myriad experiences anecdotally relayed to members of the Teaching & Learning Technologies team throughout the pandemic and into the transition back to the classroom. The topics raised in the series – the use of remote office hours, implementing flexible course policies around attendance and assignments, and lecture recordings – were reflections of how instructors were reimagining what teaching should look like in their own next normal.
Near the end of the 2021–2022 academic year, we brought some of the ideas touched upon during the series back to a number of Northwestern instructors, asking them: What instructional practices and technology would they continue using? What had changed about their approaches to teaching?
Distilled here into short videos, our interviewees share practical ideas they are using in their classroom. Moreover, these conversations once again illustrate the care, rigor, and thoughtfulness instructors at Northwestern have brought to the challenges of teaching and learning over the last few years.
While the ideas compiled here represent the thoughts of a few instructors from disparate schools and fields, they reflect a community that is actively engaged with the challenges of an ever-evolving educational landscape.
Casey Ankeny
Associate Professor of Instruction
McCormick School of Engineering
Achal Bassamboo
Charles E. Morrison Professor of Decision Sciences
Kellogg School of Management
Arionne Nettles
Lecturer and Director of Audio Journalism Programming
Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications
Scott Ogawa
Associate Professor of Instruction
Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences