Supporting Students Through Our New Normal

Did anyone get the number of that bus that just hit us?  If you felt a bit that way when COVID-19 started, you were not alone.

With the benefit of a bit of time in the rearview (and some of us earning our e-learning stripes), our viewpoint is beginning to shift from “do what?!?” to “how can I make this better?”

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On April 22, 2020, InsideHigherEd published an interesting article on a new survey that asked 826 faculty members and administrators at 641 American colleges and universities how they fared in the recent “forced march” into digital learning.

The results were not surprising.

The major takeaways were:

  • (90 percent) engaged in some form of emergency distance/virtual education to conduct or complete the spring term
  • Almost two-thirds said they changed “the kinds of assignments or exams” they gave to students
  • Nearly half said they lowered their expectations for the amount of work students would be able to do (48 percent)

One of the most interesting aspects of the survey from our perspective was the question “What assistance would be most helpful for faculty” at the time of the survey.

Respondents’ number one answer was “Information on how to best support online students.”

Honorlock just so happened to host a webinar on change management that same week.  Here is a link to the recorded webinar if you are interested in learning more about change.  Hundreds of people registered and attended, so we know it was a topic that resonated.

Within that webinar, we had curated a list of resources for our attendees on the subject of how to support student learning during the transition.

We want to take the opportunity to share them in this blog as well. Two of the resources (Rutgers and Michigan) are more of an infographic, while the others were full-blown manuals on how to offer support.

While these are written primarily for their own institutions, there are great tidbits that can be gleaned.  Here are the links and a short summary of each of the resources.

University of Michigan – Adjusting your study habits during COVID

This is an overview of how to stay organized and adjust study habits, including a template for helping students set up a schedule that works for them, as well as tips for working in teams.

Rutgers University – Student remote learning tips

This handy reference offers tips on how to get online, find WiFi if you don’t have it, and managing your time.

Boise State University – Learning remotely: A guide for students

The Boise State University resource is an exhaustive guide to everything from taking care of yourself (including sections for LGBTQ students and those with disabilities) to an outline of various platforms and technologies that can be used to facilitate learning.

Lehigh University – Preparing for Remote Learning – 10 Crucial Steps

Lehigh University includes a short video on the 5 Steps to Online Classes

San Francisco State University – Keep Learning Student QuickGuide

The San Francisco State version contains how to get help front and center at the top of the guide. Sometimes that information is buried deep in a document, and when students are in a panic, it’s helpful to have those contact numbers front and center.

But back to the survey numbers for just a moment.

Educators were able to use tools like our digital assessment software to not only adjust to a new way of instructional delivery – a herculean feat – but also to make dispensations for the amount of work as well as the type of work they assigned to students.

This change was not easy for anyone. Our students were leaving campus for home (if they were one of the lucky ones), figuring out how to participate in learning, juggling space, schedules, and mindset to navigate the pandemic, keeping families safe and perhaps even dealing with food insecurity, the list goes on.

Through it all, you kept the educational fires burning. It may have felt to you like a bit of a dumpster fire at first, but you persevered and whether you realize it or not, you helped your students by modeling behaviors that helped them see “we can get through this together.”

Your number one need from the survey (and Honorlock would concur from our webinar results), was to be of help to your students. Honorlock can think of no finer commentary on the state of education in the country today.

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Jan Wilson

As an organizational development and learning consultant, Jan has provided strategic planning, process alignment, change management, curriculum development and planning, as well as learning solutions to a variety of clients in pharma, healthcare and state governments. Jan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Education in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, she has served as adjunct faculty at the Peabody School of Vanderbilt University.

5 Things You Should Know About Change Management

A great deal of potential change in higher education has been identified. These changes are also all happening simultaneously. It would be wonderful if life provided just as much change as we humans could handle and wait patiently to deliver the next round. That isn’t how change—or life for that matter— works.

So how can change be made easier or more palatable? Whether you are an individual or a leader managing a team through change, having greater knowledge of change management information helps a great deal.

Thing One: Getting Smarter About What Change Management Is

Change management is defined as the process, tools and techniques to manage the people side of change to achieve the required outcome. Change management techniques incorporate the organizational tools that can be utilized to help individuals make successful personal transitions resulting in the adoption and realization of change.7

That definition didn’t say a word about a project management spreadsheet, which is what most people think of when grappling with organizational change. Absolutely there will be spreadsheets in any change initiative, but the human side of change is what the art of change management is about.

Tasks can be legislated, assigned and tracked all day long, but that doesn’t mean the workforce embraces them. Many times, that is how change efforts fail. In fact, nearly every time a change effort fails, someone did not shepherd the human component.

Thing Two: Realizing Change Management Really Does Work

Effective change management is a success enabler. Research on thousands of initiatives shows a direct correlation between how well the people side of change is managed (change management) and how successful the effort is.

Thing Three: Secure All Constituencies Affected by Change

For change to work, a high degree of collaboration is needed from those who want to see the change implemented with ones who will be affected by the change. It’s that second segment that is the most overlooked.

The easiest way to ascertain if a change effort is on the right track is to ask the simple question “Who here are the users?” or “How are the users represented?” If the change team can’t answer that question or the response sounds something like, “Their supervisors will get them on board,” you have a problem.

Disengaged users will avoid at best, and at worst, even sabotage your change efforts. If the change desired makes their work harder (and you didn’t do your homework to figure that out), they will not embrace the change.

Thing Four: Don’t Outsource Your Responsibility For Managing Change

Ron Ashkenash in the Harvard Business Review notes:

“The content of change management is reasonably correct, but the managerial capacity to implement it has been woefully underdeveloped. In fact, instead of strengthening managers’ ability to manage change, we’ve instead allowed managers to outsource change management to HR specialists and consultants instead of taking accountability themselves – an approach that often doesn’t work”

This is closely tied to Thing Three. Managers are often completely overlooked, overwhelmed and then responsible for a mission-critical change effort, which adds to the anxiety of the change effort. Think about change in your own institutions. Who in your reporting order is managing your change?

Thing Five: Adopt a “Bucket Approach” Way of Thinking

If you are a manager helping your staff through change, here is an easy way to gauge whether or not your efforts are on target.

When employees adapt or adjust to change, they make a choice to invest their valuable resources. Time, effort, cognitive and physical energy are all invested by employees to make sense of their changing workplace. Employees must learn new information and skills, change their behaviors, and even think and feel differently. Quite frankly, it can be exhausting.

Not only can a turbulent workplace reduce employees’ commitment to their organization, but multiple changes may also deplete employees’ resources to the point where they become dissatisfied and are no longer able to invest high levels of involvement in their work.

Once their bucket is empty or near empty, these workers—your workers —look elsewhere.

However, many employees are successful through change, so what do they do differently? They believe the change will impact their job positively. Not the institution’s view of success, but their own personal job satisfaction.

Who Can Help With This?

If you are a part of a large institution that has the means to drive large complex change initiatives, you are in luck. Most likely they will have the resources to shepherd change. However, if you see that various constituencies might be left out, you have a duty to raise a flag.

In smaller institutions who may be struggling with change, there are a variety of models, resources, and change management tools that are worth investigating to assist yourself in dealing with change or to support your teams.

If workers feel the change will help them refill their bucket somehow at some future point—more time saved, better outcomes, better networking—whatever it is that drives that individual, the change will more likely be perceived as “good.”

It behooves managers that are managing through change to actively monitor where their employees are in regard to their buckets. Is the bucket leaking? Or is it filling? Are you helping them see the positives? Are you enlisting those that are doing better to help those that are still struggling? Peer and manager support through change is vital.

The moral of the story is that the tighter you as a manager are with the perceptions and feelings of the staff navigating change, the more successful you will be.

Learn more in our whitepaper: Succeeding in the Maelstrom of Change: Unique Challenges in Higher Education.

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Jan Wilson

As an organizational development and learning consultant, Jan has provided strategic planning, process alignment, change management, curriculum development and planning, as well as learning solutions to a variety of clients in pharma, healthcare and state governments. Jan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Education in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, she has served as adjunct faculty at the Peabody School of Vanderbilt University.

Educators: 4 Ways to Stay Sane During COVID [Infographic]

Don’t let yourselves lose sight of all the good you are doing.  We, here at Honorlock, want you to keep yourselves safe (and sane) as we go further into this new normal. This online infographic provides some advice for teachers to keep you going. Click here to download the Infographic.

If you’re looking for online proctoring services during COVID-19, click the button below for more information.

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Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.

Succeeding in Times of Change: Challenges in Higher Education

Download:

Whitepaper: Succeeding in the Maelstrom of Change

Jan Wilson

As an organizational development and learning consultant, Jan has provided strategic planning, process alignment, change management, curriculum development and planning, as well as learning solutions to a variety of clients in pharma, healthcare and state governments. Jan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Education in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, she has served as adjunct faculty at the Peabody School of Vanderbilt University.

Academic Leadership During Crisis: 5 steps to improve skills

If you are a leader now or just being called to lead during the COVID pandemic, leadership right this moment is feeling not so fun. Figuring out a plan forward is critical, but it is also daunting.  

Higher education leaders play a pivotal role in helping their institutions not only cope but succeed in these difficult times.

Though it seems overwhelming, it is paramount to get out of the gate quickly and pull together a workable strategy for going forward. This is no different than what you’ve been doing in crisis, but this lens is more about how do we get through the shock of it all and use our academic leadership skills and talents to not only surmount this challenge but also prepare for the next pandemic, the next business interrupter.

Chief Learning Officer magazine provided an article using the ADAPT model for leading through change that we’ve adapted slightly to apply to the situation we find ourselves in at present.

Analyze

Analyze the impact on your institution. Evaluate how this pandemic will affect your students, your colleagues, and how work gets done. Some key questions to consider are:

  • How prepared are we to do more with less? Now that the newness of the crisis is waning, have we assessed who may need additional training?
  • Are we becoming familiar with the telework shift — both in terms of the work process and technologies as well as the change in mindset from in-person to virtual?  What needs to happen to take this to the next level.  How will we go from alarm/reaction to a higher level of proficiency?
  • Has our supply chain been impacted? What are the provisions to address this? For example, do we need to secure, onboard and train new suppliers in the face of this pandemic?  This can be applied to people, supplies or even hardware/software needed to succeed.
  • Do we need to ramp production at our schools and colleges and, if so, does that require onboarding newly hired personnel or cross-training current employees? What can we do to reduce ramp-up time?  Do you need more instructional designers? How do you ramp up those designers to be able to support your move to digital? What do they need to know? Do you need to do your own instructional design?

Devise

Devise a plan to engage your community. The impact analysis should drive both the audience and the topics. This where every bit of your performance-consulting acumen will be leveraged to quickly and effectively tease out the specific challenges and discuss the impact on human capital. Starting with the end in mind (an actionable plan with roles/responsibilities) will help ensure you keep focus, get buy-in and establishes a clear path forward in terms of the next steps.

Assess

Assess your options. Tough times call for new approaches and new ways of thinking. If you still leverage instructor-led training, what is your business continuity plan? Key considerations include unwinding all the various ILT planning and logistics; evaluating other modalities, namely virtual instructor-led training; and migrating existing ILT into new modalities.  

Finally, if there ever was a spot-on situation for microlearning, this is it. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to micro elearning, either. All options should be on the table: podcasts, videos, infographics, quick reference guides, and so on. Less is more — more on-point learning and more opportunities to create additional content.

Prioritize

Prioritize your plans. In times of turmoil, everything seems important and things can quickly turn chaotic. Some training will need to take precedence over others and hard decisions will have to be made. Just like some international hospitals are having to triage patients, so might we need to triage learning. Some learning will be strategic and therefore high priority while other training will be addressed in a more tactical manner and with less priority. The key to prioritizing your plans involves consulting your department head, a trusted mentor, or another leader to get another point of view and a second set of eyes. This person can check if your plan is on-target, is close but could be tweaked, or has some gaps or blind spots that need to be addressed. Having a second opinion to glean objective insights will not only validate your plan but help you achieve needed buy-in and set your plan up for a successful implementation.

Track

Track both projects and intelligence. “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts” applies here. Efforts should not be managed as a series of disparate, disconnected projects. There needs to be a master plan that oversees all individual projects in a coordinated way (program management). Things are very fluid, and priorities may need to shift. Keeping a dashboard view of all the moving parts allows the learning leader to manage to the strategic outcomes and adjust individual components as needed to ensure the overall needs of the institution are being met. This is also a great time to turn data into information. Are we tracking for completion or for competence? Any data generated should be leveraged to inform future learning solutions to benefit both the learner and the institution.

ADAPT

This unprecedented time offers both challenges and choices: 

  • Moving from reactive to more of a proactive stance
  • Leading versus managing
  • Being a catalyst for creative solutions that help drive your institution through this period of difficulty and uncertainty 

 Now is the time for learning leaders of all stripes in all areas of our higher education institutions to ascend, and this ADAPT model for academic leadership skills can help you keep track of where you are in that process.  

Remember, the only difference between a leader and a coward is the direction they run when they are scared.

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Jan Wilson

As an organizational development and learning consultant, Jan has provided strategic planning, process alignment, change management, curriculum development and planning, as well as learning solutions to a variety of clients in pharma, healthcare and state governments. Jan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Education in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, she has served as adjunct faculty at the Peabody School of Vanderbilt University.

Top 10 Things To Take Care of You Right Now!

If you are like most, your attitude may have taken a real beating with the last few crazy weeks.  Uncertainty abounds, requirements are changing how you teach, and concern for your students, friends, and family are paramount.

That’s why this blog post is going to concentrate on tips to helps students and teaches adjust to COVID-19. By your very nature, you care for others, or you wouldn’t have gone into the teaching profession. But you can’t continue to carry others if you don’t make time to work on your own wellbeing.  

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Here are a few funny, timely finds for you to think about as you are swimming the maelstrom of personal wellness tips.

  1. You’re not stuck at home, you’re safe at home.  One word can change your attitude.
  2. What are you grateful for today?  Make a point of reflecting every day to remind yourself.
  3. Who are you checking in on or connecting with today?  We are all suffering from some powerful isolation, on top of everything we are trying to do to keep our various plates spinning.  Take the time to send a note or make a much-needed call.
  4. What expectations of “normal” should you be letting go of?  It’s perfectly all right to recalibrate. It can be big or small.   But give yourself the time and space to assess what can be “just enough” in these turbulent times.
  5. How are you getting outside every day?  Make a point to get outside when you can.  Your computer work is probably getting the best of you in how long you sit, or how much eye strain you may be dealing with.  Spend a few minutes outside (maybe working on that gratitude thing). It will reinvigorate you.
  6. Find some beauty in everyday things.  Be mindful of that around you. If someone is doing exceptionally well through this, let them know you noticed.  It will help you both. If a tree is blooming you’ve never noticed before, take that moment to drink it in.
  7. Here’s a novel one.  You probably don’t feel like you have any extra time but think about the time you normally spend commuting to your job.  If it is 20 minutes one way, that’s 40 minutes a day you have that you normally wouldn’t. Pay yourself by spending that time on activities you’re interested in for your own enrichment or self-development.  Learn some French, acquire a new skill, you name it, but think about all the time you are spending and carve some out for yourself.
  8. Limit your news consumption.  Many are limiting it to “x” number of minutes a day.  It is easy to go down the “too much news” rabbit hole.  It isn’t helpful. Stay informed, but don’t dwell in what-ifs. 
  9. Think of another challenge you’ve surmounted to remind yourself you are resilient and strong.  Maybe you lived through 9-11. Maybe you kicked cancer to the curb. Maybe you got out of an abusive situation sometime in your past.  You are stronger than you know.
  10. Close your day, every day, with a positive acknowledgment of something you accomplished or learned. It will help dilute some of the negativity you may be feeling right now.

Stay safe, stay sane and know above all else, how important you all are.

Jan Wilson

As an organizational development and learning consultant, Jan has provided strategic planning, process alignment, change management, curriculum development and planning, as well as learning solutions to a variety of clients in pharma, healthcare and state governments. Jan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Education in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, she has served as adjunct faculty at the Peabody School of Vanderbilt University.

Moving to Online Courses During the Coronavirus Pandemic

As more schools shut down and start moving learning online due to the COVID-19, it’s important to know that there are solutions out there for ongoing education and helping students continue acquiring the skills they need.

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Here are some common questions that people have as they convert their homes into an adequate learning space:

What if students don’t have their own computers or webcams?

If your institution has not implemented a 1:1 student-to-device program, it can be hard to find a resource for students now.  Unfortunately, laptops are one of those items people are rushing to buy worldwide due to the increase in work from home workers as well as learners.  Check with local nonprofits and businesses that may be ramping up programs that provide laptops during this time.  Here is a link to an article that lists several organizations and creative ideas to find a low price or free resources.

What if students don’t have adequate internet access?

Maintaining digital equity for all students is a major hurdle for most college campuses moving learning online right now because if they don’t have access to the internet during the current global pandemic, it will be impossible for them to learn. With shelter in place requirements in place or coming, even the public library may not be an option for learning for quite some time.

Here are some suggestions for how students can gain access to the internet:

  • Spectrum is offering free broadband and Wi-Fi internet access for 60 days to students impacted by the coronavirus shutdown. Charter Communications, Spectrum’s parent company, announced Friday that beginning March 16, it will make its services available for free for 60 days to households with K-12 and/or college students who don’t already have internet through the company. Installation fees will also be waived for new student households. It also said it would open its Wi-Fi hotspots for public use.
  • Comcast is also making it easier for low-income families who live in a Comcast service area to sign up by offering new customers 60 days of free Internet Essentials service, which is normally available to all qualified low-income households for $9.95/month. The company is also increasing internet speeds for the Internet Essentials service from 15/2 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps for all new and existing customers, which will be the speed of the service going forward.
  • More vendors may be offering access as the pandemic response matures.

What if I or my students lose the internet? Will their exam answers be lost?

Honorlock offers 24/7 technical support 365 days a week to help students with issues as they take their exam, easily accessible through an Honorlock support menu available on their screen. Honorlock also monitors additional activity like someone trying to leave the test session, copy/paste questions, or open a new browser. We also have encrypted protocols in place to save work, view the test taker’s answers, and allow the proctor access to review exam session videos.

What is Honorlock’s availability like during the coronavirus crisis if we launch and have issues?

As educational institutions transition to moving learning online during the current global pandemic, we anticipate an uptick in demand for our services. Our HonorSquad continues to closely monitor the COVID-19 situation, focus on best practices and plan ahead. We’ve contacted AWS (Amazon Web Services) to obtain extra capacity, talked to third party video conferencing vendors to ensure that they understand our demand, and increased our staff. More simply put, we’re preparing as if it was finals week. For more information, check out our Our Pledge To You During Coronavirus and feel free to email us (support@honorlock.com), or launch a live chat at honorlock.com.

What does Honorlock do exactly?

If you are in the process of quickly moving your instructors, students, and staff to an online platform to minimize any downtime with their continued education, keep in mind that Honorlock is a safe and efficient way to facilitate your exams.

Honorlock provides on-demand proctoring services that do not require advanced scheduling or bulky software downloads. Because maintaining academic integrity is of the utmost importance to us, we’ve also patented a one-of-a-kind mobile device detection system.

Honorlock’s innovative and exclusive online proctoring features include:

  • Search and Destroy: To help deter cheating, we employ our proprietary test bank removal service that actively searches the Internet and destroys any unauthorized copies of your test questions. In an online world, it’s far too easy to share and find test answers. We put a stop to this by immediately filing DMCA copyright takedown notices if we find any copycat test information.
  • Multi-Device Detection: Honorlock is proud to have the only technology that can detect multiple devices that may be used during test-taking to try to find answers. Our system even takes screenshots to help prove that attempted cheating may be happening during an exam.
  • Voice Detection: Faculty has told us that online testing services that send voice detection alerts tend to be over flagged, putting unnecessary stress on students. Honorlock reduces the number of inappropriate flags with its proprietary system. The voice detection service even goes beyond that by listening for keywords that students may be using to try to cheat, like flagging words such as “OK Google” and “Hey Siri”.
  • Live Pop-In: Honorlock offers the only Live Pop-In system that combines automation and live proctoring by prompting test proctors to pop into the exam if there’s any suspicious activity going on.

How to get started transferring courses online ASAP with Honorlock

The urgency to get students transitioned into an online learning environment has never been greater. If you are a school or administrator that needs a safe, secure robust proctoring system right away, Honorlock can help. To get started, simply go to this page and follow these steps:

Step 1: Sign a condensed 2-page agreement that makes it easy to get up and running while eliminating liability threats.

Step 2: Fill out a simple order form (Honorlock charges $5 per exam) that will only be billed after the impact of the coronavirus has lessened.

Step 3: Go live with same-day integration and training.

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Resources for Further Reading

Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.

Hats Off To Higher Ed

Really, our hats are off to you, higher ed. You have really had your hands absolutely full lately.  We have seen you move from “maybe we should look at moving to online courses” just a few short weeks ago to a full-blown “everybody go home” mandate, with schools large and small dealing with how to continue to provide quality education and support students in the face of COVID-19.

In this post, we’ve curated and synopsized a variety of really germane articles for you to reflect upon in the hopes that you can begin to draw a breath and consider how to keep yourself, your institution and your students centered as we navigate this.  Links are provided as well as citations at the end of the post.

For teachers and professors, the immediate issue the last couple of weeks was “how do I teach online?”  Our last blog post covered a few options, and of course, you must follow your school’s directives. One of the more important passages in that blog post, though, didn’t have anything to do with tools. 

The more important passage was to absolutely give yourself the grace to know it may not be perfect right out of the gate.

Sometimes with change – especially major, unforeseen change of this magnitude – we hurt ourselves with our own THINKING.  We put it upon ourselves that the new has to be equal to the old or we have failed somehow.  

Let’s back up a bit and look at some interesting facts and circumstances that are involved with this COVID-19 phenomenon that you might not have had time to consider quite yet.  This will help us better understand what we are all going through as humans and learning cohorts. Then let’s begin to layout concrete ways to navigate this very, very “not business as usual” time and might help you cope.

College closures across the country are disproportionately affecting low-income students.

 

As The Harvard Crimson’s Juliet Isselbacher and Amanda Su wrote last week, the financial weight of their sudden move-out has overwhelmingly affected first-generation and low-income students — many of whom have had to juggle the abrupt change with a slew of unexpected expenses in addition to missing wages that segment of students may have been relying on to support themselves. 

“For a lot of students, college is the only place where they have access to food on a consistent basis,” Anthony Abraham Jack, an assistant professor of education at Harvard, tells Inside Higher Ed. “Oftentimes, especially at residential colleges, it’s the only place that they have shelter without the worry of disruptions in utilities, disruptions in terms of feeling unsafe.”

This need to shutter campus operations has served as a reminder that for many students, college provides a support system that goes far beyond the classroom, especially for international students and foster youth, who aren’t able to return home on such short notice.

Concerns about remote internet access, especially, are being felt at a number of institutions. Queens College Professor Kate Antonova told Wired she asked her students about high-speed internet access and found that many didn’t have it readily available.

According to a 2018 study from Indiana University, about 20 percent of college students have dealt with technical difficulties when it comes to schoolwork. Companies including Charter are offering free broadband packages to students who have been affected by these closures. 

Other groups are trying to fill gaps left by colleges and universities

Groups run by alumni and students have rushed to fill the gaps colleges and universities have been unable, or unwilling, to account for.

And many students at different colleges have posted the specific costs they’re facing on social media, with information about their Venmo accounts.

There are other needs as well.

Jeff Rubenstein, Education Technology and Strategy @Kaltura wrote a good article on what’s to come next – after we’ve successfully gotten over the online learning hump.

Advising, physical and mental health, financial aid, immigration services…. some of these services will become more and more acute the longer that students are away from their campus, until online replacements are created.

A large number of residential students rely on campus-based mental health services to deal with the challenges of simply growing up (not to mention those provoked by the stresses of education and financial matters). 

Certainly the immediate concern is to ensure continuity of instruction, as that is required to make sure that students can complete their education (and what they need to do every day). So it makes sense that the first reaction is to make sure that classes can go forward.  But step two needs to be focused on these other ancillary services.

Your leadership skills will be tested.

Korn Ferry contributor Daniel Goldman provides the following overview of emotional intelligence and its role in navigating crises.

Many large organizations have formulated contingency plans for emergencies. But what most of these plans omit is a crucial factor in effective crisis management: emotional intelligence (EI). 

Intelligent handling of the emotions that come with crisis is crucial. An emotionally intelligent leader will handle any crisis, big or small, better than someone without EI competencies. 

The four domains of Emotional Intelligence

  • self awareness, 
  • self management, 
  • social awareness, and 
  • relationship management

Each can help a leader face any crisis with lower levels of stress, less emotional reactivity and fewer unintended consequences.

Self Awareness

 You demonstrate Self Awareness when you’re conscious of your own feelings and your thoughts about them. The adage, “Knowledge is power,” holds true here. Being aware of your own feelings puts you in charge, not your emotions.

Self Control

We may feel frantic about the uncertainty confronting us. Without self control, we will be in the grip of an amygdala hijack and be at the mercy of our feelings. The amygdala, the “fight or flight” section of the brain, responds rapidly to threats, real or perceived, and during a hijack can overwhelm the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for planning and strategizing. Likewise, Jack feels frantic about the tech mess confronting him. 

When you’re in the middle of a crisis, you want the good boss to come to work and exert control over the bad boss. You can train your brain to strengthen the prefrontal cortex’s capacity to exert control over the amygdala. Research done by Richard Davidson and Jon Kabat-Zinn shows that regular practice of simple yet powerful mindfulness exercises can make employees more resilient. All of this can result in leadership that’s much more emotionally balanced and effective.

Social Awareness

 Harriet faces major challenges in dealing with the coronavirus problem and its potential effect on her colleagues. Much of the work before her involves dealing with people who are worried or upset, including potentially sick staff members, the panicky building crew and public-health officials. If Harriet approaches each of these people with empathy for their concerns, she will be much more successful in obtaining their help to resolve the crisis. Likewise, if she has a sense of social awareness for all the ways in which this crisis impacts the business, people, and systems involved in correcting the problem, she’ll be much more likely to succeed in handling it without missing something important.

Relationship Management

When crisis strikes, it is essential to manage many relationships among many people. I call relationship management “friendliness with a purpose,” the ability, through inspiring others, managing conflicts, fostering teamwork, and other competencies, to moving people in the direction you desire. 

Each of these competencies requires self awareness, self control, and social awareness. Developing the competencies will take time and effort, but you will be rewarded for your work. You may not be able to undo a crisis this moment, but emotional intelligence will help make the process of getting through the next one much smoother.

Mark Belles, CEO and Publisher at Inside Higher Ed writes of the following 5 Cs of leading in crisis.

Compassion

First and foremost, we are all human beings and all dealing with this crisis in varying ways. We are experiencing concern, fear, information overload and misinformation, all at the same time. Remember the human element in your interactions and now more than ever, assume positive intent.

Calm

Do not confuse calm with a lack of action. Take a breath (literally) and be thoughtful and measured in your decisions.

Communicate

over and over and over. Talk to your staff, clients, neighbors. Ask them how they are doing. See what you can do to help. And internally, communicate updates and expectations. And as much as you can, leverage video conferencing vs. email for these messages, so people can ‘see’ and feel the intent and compassion.

Clients

I’ve always believed that if you take care of your people and your clients, your business will succeed. Clients are going through the same issues we all are. They are human beings that are scared and have their own challenges. Communicate with them and be flexible. Flexibility builds trust, and trust builds loyalty. And see point one above – lead with compassion.

Community

In times of chaos, we all want and need to be able to act; there is comfort in taking action. Leverage that desire and work with your local schools and make sure kids in your community are getting access to meals while public schools are closed. Check on your older neighbors and make sure they have what they need. Do something. It doesn’t need to be grand. If we all do just one thing, we will feel just a little bit better, and get through this just a little bit easier.

Lastly, take care of yourself through all of this, so you can take care of your students.

Jelena Kecmanovic provides the following on 7 science-based strategies to help deal with coronavirus anxiety.

The following suggestions, based on psychological science, can help you deal with coronavirus anxiety.

1. Practice tolerating uncertainty.

Intolerance of uncertainty, which has been increasing in the U.S., makes people vulnerable to anxiety. A study during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic showed that people who had a harder time accepting the uncertainty of the situation were more likely to experience elevated anxiety.

The solution is to learn to gradually face uncertainty in daily life by easing back on certainty-seeking behaviors.

Start small: Don’t text your friend immediately the next time you need an answer to a question. Go on a hike without checking the weather beforehand. As you build your tolerance-of-uncertainty muscle, you can work to reduce the number of times a day you consult the internet for updates on the outbreak.

2. Tackle the anxiety paradox

Anxiety rises proportionally to how much one tries to get rid of it. Or as Carl Jung put it, “What you resist persists.”

Struggling against anxiety can take many forms. People might try to distract themselves by drinking, eating or watching Netflix more than usual. Avoiding the experience of anxiety almost always backfires.

Instead, allow your anxious thoughts, feelings and physical sensations to wash over you, accepting anxiety as an integral part of human experience. When waves of coronavirus anxiety show up, notice and describe the experience to yourself or others without judgment. Resist the urge to escape or calm your fears by obsessively reading virus updates. Paradoxically, facing anxiety in the moment will lead to less anxiety over time.

3. Transcend existential anxiety

Health threats trigger the fear that underlies all fears: fear of death. When faced with reminders of one’s own mortality, people might become consumed with health anxiety and hyper focused on any signs of illness.

Try connecting to your life’s purpose and sources of meaning, be it spirituality, relationships, or pursuit of a cause. Embark on something important that you’ve been putting off for years and take responsibility for how you live your life. Focusing on or discovering the “why” of life can go a long way in helping you deal with unavoidable anxiety.

4. Don’t underestimate human resiliency

Many people fear how they will manage if the virus shows up in town, at work or at school. They worry how they would cope with a quarantine, a daycare closure or a lost paycheck. Human minds are good at predicting the worst.

But research shows that people tend to overestimate how badly they’ll be affected by negative events and underestimate how well they’ll cope with and adjust to difficult situations.

Be mindful that you are more resilient than you think. It can help attenuate your anxiety.

5. Don’t get sucked into overestimating the threat

Coronavirus can be dangerous, with an estimated 1.4% to 2.3% death rate. So everyone should be serious about taking all the reasonable precautions against infection.

But people also should realize that humans tend to exaggerate the danger of unfamiliar threats compared to ones they already know, like seasonal flu or car accidents. Constant incendiary media coverage contributes to the sense of danger, which leads to heightened fear and further escalation of perceived danger.

To reduce anxiety,… limit your exposure to coronavirus news to no more than 30 minutes per day. And remember that we become more anxious when faced with situations that have no clear precedent. Anxiety, in turn, makes everything seem more dire.

6. Strengthen self-care

During these anxiety-provoking times, it’s important to remember the tried-and-true anxiety prevention and reduction strategies. Get adequate sleep, exercise regularly, practice mindfulness, spend time in nature and employ relaxation techniques when stressed.

Prioritizing these behaviors during the coronavirus crisis can go a long way toward increasing your psychological well being and bolstering your immune system.

7. Seek professional help if you need it

People who are vulnerable to anxiety and related disorders might find the coronavirus epidemic particularly overwhelming. Consequently, they might experience anxiety symptoms that interfere with work, maintaining close relationships, socializing or taking care of themselves and others.

If this applies to you, please get professional help from your doctor or a mental health professional. Cognitive behavioral therapy and certain medications can successfully treat anxiety problems.

It is absolutely normal to feel helpless right now.  You are worried about your family, your students, your institutions and yourselves.  Hopefully, this post will help you see that we are all in this together. And again, hats off to you all for what you do and will continue to do as we navigate this threat.

Resources for Further Reading

Jan Wilson

As an organizational development and learning consultant, Jan has provided strategic planning, process alignment, change management, curriculum development and planning, as well as learning solutions to a variety of clients in pharma, healthcare and state governments. Jan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Education in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, she has served as adjunct faculty at the Peabody School of Vanderbilt University.

Honorlock’s Pledge To You During COVID

We’re Here for You During COVID

To our customers, friends, partners, and the entire higher education community,

As we move forward during this crisis, we recognize that many of you – administrators, faculty, and students – are navigating new waters as you transition to online courses. Our HonorSquad wants you to know that we’re here for you and praying for your health and safety.

Our focus is to ensure you have the support you need during this transition. We are already actively working with many of you who have transitioned to a fully online model and with others who are preparing to make the jump.

Click for information about implementing online proctoring if your institution is moving to online learning related to COVID.

Here are a few things we’re preparing to help you during this time:

Scaling online proctoring

Honorlock is cloud-hosted and has the ability to auto-scale to keep up with the increase in usage we anticipate. To ensure that we haven’t missed anything along the way we have:

    • Been in contact with AWS to ensure we can provision (proactively), extra capacity to ensure we are operating at a level that is severely higher than any volume expected.
    • Working with our partners (3rd party tools) who provide services such as video services, to ensure they too understand our expected spike in volume, they can provision and scale services, and that we work closely throughout this time to effectively manage the increase together.
  • We have increased our staff (as we do during finals) to account for the proctoring load required in the coming weeks. We are monitoring exam volumes continuously throughout the day and we have staff on standby should we need them.

Support & Training for Faculty

We understand that moving to online learning can create challenges and requires more help from our support and training organizations. To meet this need, we have also ramped up support and will continue to do so as needed. In addition, we have same-day training available for institutions that need to train new faculty members. We want to make sure you have all the resources you need to be successful so no matter the need, we’ve got you! All you have to do is ask.

We know there’s a lot of information available to you and a lot of information coming at you. We want to be helpful and not add to the noise. We feel hopeful as we see the community coming together to share ideas, best practices and support. We are here to help when you need us.

Reach out to use to see how we can help you implement online proctoring in 2 days to protect exams and support your students and faculty during COVID

Set Up Proctoring in 2 Days

Brandon Smith

Brandon has 10+ years of experience in leading organizations in both higher education and ed-tech. He is passionate about building a culture that puts the clients that he and his teams serve first. He hopes to make a positive impact on those around him and anyone he comes in contact with along the way.

It’s official. COVID-19 is here. (Wash your hands!)

COVID-19 brought many challenges in 2020 and it continues to do so in 2021 with the Omicron variant.

The ramifications to higher education are immense and changing daily. If you work for an institution that has already canceled classes or moved to online learning, you are not alone. If you are a part of an institution that still hasn’t decided on how to tackle this, you aren’t alone either.

Click the button below to learn how to implement online proctoring in 2 days to help protect academic integrity and support students during COVID

Set Up Proctoring in 2 Days

There are a variety of things to think about when transitioning to distance learning. It may feel overwhelming and more of a “forced march,” but it helps to keep calm and break this down into manageable chunks.

Transitioning to distance learning during COVID doesn’t have to be complicated, especially during this time. Your first line of defense can be something as simple as a videoconference session. For a small class size, if you have existing infrastructure to support video conferencing, it has a low barrier to entry.  

Even if you don’t have existing infrastructure, you can obtain a variety of free or low-cost video conferencing solutions for a short term solution.  Cisco Webex conferencing services has a page of resources devoted specifically to education customers.  Zoom videoconferencing also provides a link for their education customers.   Google said last week it’s offering free access to its Hangouts Meet video conferencing service and all its G Suite and G Suite for Education collaboration platforms. Vendors realize what a challenge this has become and are being proactive in helping the learning community surmount this challenge.

Professional organizations in learning are also scrambling to provide help with this transition.  The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is offering “Ten Strategies for Online Learning During the Coronavirus Outbreak”.

Part of their suggestions when moving to online learning are:

  • Break learning into smaller chunks.
  • Be clear about expectations for online participation.
  • Provide immediate (or at least frequent) feedback through online knowledge checks, comments on collaborative documents and chat to keep students motivated and moving forward.
  • Include virtual meetings, live chats or video tutorials to maintain a human connection. 

If you are fortunate to work for an institution that has instructional design staff who can assist with moving your classes to formal, distance learning modules, by all means, leverage them. But this solution takes some time, and the ability for institutions to ramp up a solution for distance learning during the pandemic may vary.

Inside Higher Ed recently published Planning for Coronavirus With Fewer Resources.  This article raised a variety of “softer” issues that may raise their head during this time that is not simply “how do we teach and test online?”

Issues like students may not have access to tech or sufficient communication plans at home.  How will students with disabilities fare in an online setting? Or how will we replicate a “high touch” environment for students (and staff) who are experiencing being remote for the first time?  Chat solutions can go a long way in keeping everyone connected and learning, so we will need to master that.

The Inside Higher Ed article calls out things like potential food insecurity and lack of monetary resources may also factor into this outbreak, depending on how long this goes on.

In fact, the article states students’ needs might actually increase. Rebecca Anne Glazier, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock says, “I think students will have a harder time finishing the semester because these changes will be so disruptive.”  

And let’s not forget teachers and administrators. Is your own home tech able to support you if you have to teach from home?  What is your plan for coverage if you become ill?  

Implementing online proctoring to help the shift to online testing

Even if you can teach successfully, how will you test successfully? Do you already use an online proctoring service? If so, leverage that. All proctored testing vendors are doing their best to install and ramp up schools all across the country that need access to these services.

Honorlock can help your institution quickly implement online proctoring during times of uncertainty. Click here to learn more.

 

Jan Wilson

As an organizational development and learning consultant, Jan has provided strategic planning, process alignment, change management, curriculum development and planning, as well as learning solutions to a variety of clients in pharma, healthcare and state governments. Jan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Education in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, she has served as adjunct faculty at the Peabody School of Vanderbilt University.