Implications of Emergency Remote Teaching During COVID-19Lockdown : an Exploratory Analysis

In Spring of 2020, universities and colleges in the USA implemented a number of alternative pedagogical measures in compliance with social distance policies to curb the spread of COVID-19 and persist in academic activities. "Emergency Remote Teaching" ERT, defined as a temporary shift of pedagogy to remote models due to crises, appears to be the most popular among these measures. The transition to ERT has a range of pedagogical implications in many areas including student engagement, technology use and access, emotional stability and student assessment. Data on students and faculty experiences with respect to these areas can offer immediate and strategic insights into the implications of ERT. Current literature focuses on the development of various pedagogical approaches and technologies for remote learning. However, in depth analysis of the implications of ERT is currently lacking. This research seeks to provide insight into the challenges and implications of ERT to pedagogy, specifically we focus on student engagement and academic performance. Hence this research seeks to answer the following research questions: (i) What are the implications of emergency remote teaching on students' learning experience? (ii) What is the impact of emergency remote teaching instructors' teaching experience? In order to answer this research question, we designed a questionnaire in "surveymonkey" and distributed this to students and faculty members at small Universities in Northern Pennsylvania. We received 240 responses. After performing an exploratory analysis on the collected data, we found that although students are engaged with course materials and university staff, peer-to-peer and student-instructor engagement are low in an ERT. Also, ERT appears to have a negative impact on assessment from both students' and instructors' perspectives. As instructors continue to search for effective and alternative pedagogical strategies to deliver their courses in the face of COVID-19, we recommend that future efforts towards implementation of ERT should focus on strategies for improving peer-to-peer and student-instructor engagement.