Building resilient learning ecosystems

Building resilient learning ecosystems

Patrick Blessinger and Mandla Makhanya

The COVID-19 pandemic (from March 2020 to May 2023) had a significant impact on every segment of society around the world. The pandemic caused over 750 million people to contract the virus and it resulted in nearly seven million deaths worldwide, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. The highly infectious airborne nature of the virus, coupled with the ease of global travel, allowed the virus to spread quickly from one country to another. In order to control the spread of the virus, much of the world was placed on lockdown.

In addition to the tragic impact on human life, the pandemic resulted in the loss of trillions of dollars in global economic output as many countries shut down large portions of their economies to help stem the spread of the deadly disease. Entire industries, like travel and tourism, were decimated. Many businesses failed due to lost revenue, resulting in huge spikes in unemployment. The pandemic-induced economic depression disrupted global supply chains and severely reduced consumer demand, creating the greatest economic contraction since the Great Depression.

As with any economic downturn, the hardest hit were the poor and low-skilled workers, thereby exacerbating income inequality. Governments around the world took unprecedented steps to curtail the economic, social, and healthcare crises. The pandemic showed, in stark terms, the need for governments, companies, and individuals to put in place risk management and contingency plans in the event of future catastrophes (for example, disease, war, natural disasters, and climate change, among others).

The need for digital infrastructure

Building a high-quality learning ecosystem is essential in an increasingly globalized world. In a world where societies around the world are increasingly interconnected and interdependent, what happens in one part of the world will likely affect, for better or worse, other parts of the world. In the modern world, no society can isolate itself from other countries. The COVID-19 pandemic is a good example of this reality.

The pandemic also provides a concrete example of how potentially vulnerable the world has become to the devasting effects of biological agents like viruses. One only need imagine the potential impact on the world if a highly contagious disease was released, deliberately or by accident, into the public. This is why risk management and contingency planning is now necessary for all organizations, governments, and intergovernmental agencies. Although globalization has brought about unprecedented economic and social development, it has also brought with it unprecedented complexity, uncertainty, and risk which must be managed.

Fortunately, with advanced medical science and pharmaceutical research capabilities, the world is now able to respond much more quickly to deadly diseases with effective vaccines. For the COVID-19 virus, it only took several months for pharmaceutical companies to research, test, develop, and distribute the first vaccines, which saved millions of lives. This scientific and technological capability is the direct result of high-quality systems of education, from primary to secondary to tertiary systems of education, creating the advanced scientific knowledge required to effectively manage different crises.

The pandemic disrupted learning processes at all levels in an unprecedented way. Depending on the quality and resilience of the educational system, some countries were able to respond and adapt to the pandemic better than other countries. Digital technology (for example, internet, wireless, mobile phones, laptops/tablets) played a large role in determining how well countries were able to respond to the crisis. Countries that had a well-developed digital infrastructure were better equipped to make the transition to remote learning.

For those with internet access, free global learning management systems like Google Classroom coupled with low-cost or free video conferencing platforms like Zoom or Google Meet allowed schools to transition relatively quickly from face-to-face learning to remote learning. However, most professors, teachers and students still experienced a steep curve in learning how to make remote learning as effective as in-person learning since many of them where not accustomed to using such technologies until the pandemic hit.

The need for resilience

Resilience is the ability of an individual, group, institution, or system to quickly respond, adapt, and recover from adverse conditions. Resilience is not an innate trait; rather, it is a skill and ability that can be learned. Since life is continually subjected to various types of adverse conditions (for example, recessions, disease, disasters), it is imperative that humans learn how to develop strategies and methods to increase resilience at all levels and across all sectors so societies can bounce back quickly when faced with adversity. With respect to education and learning, there are several strategies to pursue.

At the individual level, resilience can be cultivated by developing emotional maturity in students, which would include engaging students in activities that promote a supportive and inclusive learning environment as well as fostering positive relationships between peers. Activities that require perseverance, effort, and relationship-building help cultivate a more resilient mindset. In addition, strategies such as goal setting, time management, and self-reflection help foster self-regulated learning in students. These strategies should be taught and modeled explicitly.

Group activities (for example, group projects, clubs, extracurricular activities) help foster a sense of belonging and connectedness among peers. These relationships help students build emotional intelligence (that is, emotional awareness and regulation), which in turn, develop the ability to navigate complex human relationships. In addition, requiring students to work on complex problem-solving activities and projects helps students develop critical and creative thinking skills as well as collaborative learning skills.

Building psychological resilience in students is a necessary, but not sufficient, component in building resilience across the learning ecosystem. Resilience must also be built at the institutional and system levels. From a human resource perspective, a high-quality learning ecosystem that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive helps foster a more resilient culture. From a leadership perspective, these values are reflected in the institution’s vision and mission statements and supported with appropriate policies and strategies.

For policy-makers and decision-makers, the pandemic highlights the need for all countries to build a resilient digital infrastructure to mitigate such crises. Countries with a poor digital infrastructure found it difficult to transition to remote learning. For example, due to the lockdown and school closures, about 140 million learners in Africa were unable to access learning during the pandemic. In fact, the internet has become so vital to modern life (for example, e-commerce, remote learning, communication, video streaming) that some now consider internet access to be necessity of life or even a human right.

Conclusion

Internet-based digital learning technology played a crucial role in enabling remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Online remote learning allowed the world to respond to the crisis in real-time. When the internet was first envisioned and designed in the 1960s, it was designed to be a resilient, open architecture packet-switching communication system. Since its early conception, it has proved to be highly resilient in the face of all sorts of disasters.

No one could have predicted the impact that COVID-19 on every aspect of life. The pandemic resulted in huge learning losses in some parts of the world, amplifying existing inequities of learning, especially for those with poor digital infrastructures. This situation highlights the need to build more resilient education systems around the world. All educational systems around the world should put in place contingency plans in the event of prolonged school closures due to catastrophes to ensure a continuity of learning for students at all levels.

Education and lifelong learning is a human right. To ensure this right, all organizations should implement risk and crisis management policies and strategies to deal with a wide variety of crises. This approach starts with prevention policies to mitigate crises from happening in the first place, such as implementing comprehensive safety, health, and hygiene services and protocols (for example, immunizations, clean drinking water, modern sanitation system – toilets, soap, water) to minimize the spread of germs and disease. Building educational resilience is a long-term effort.

Patrick Blessinger?is an adjunct professor of education at St John’s University, New York City, United States, and chief research scientist for the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association or HETL.?Mandla Makhanya?is former principal and vice-chancellor of the University of South Africa (UNISA) and is professor emeritus of sociology at UNISA.

Suggested Citation:

Blessinger, P. and Makhanya, M. (2023). Building Resilient Learning Ecosystems.?Higher Education Tomorrow, Volume 9, Article 6,?https://www.patrickblessinger.com/building-resilient-learning-ecosystems

Copyright ? [2023] Patrick Blessinger and Mandla Makhanya

Disclaimer

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and as such do not necessarily represent the position(s) of other professionals or any institution.