One of the Big Topics of the last couple of years in higher ed is how severe and long-lasting the effects of Covid will be. The discussion has tended to be very pessimistic, with a lot of people speculating that “learning loss” and other factors will turn out to have made an effectively permanent change in the students we see coming into college. This is a fairly depressing thought, as last year was not a ton of fun. The thought that this might be the “new normal” until I’m ready to retire does not fill me with joy.
On the other hand, though, the most acute effects of the pandemic should be near the peak— this year’s seniors are the “Covid class” who arrived in the fall of 2020 at the height of the pandemic restrictions on things, so they never experienced the pre-pandemic normal. This year’s entering class, on the other hand, would’ve been just starting high school when Covid hit, and even in the more restrictive states would’ve had a pretty normal senior year before showing up to college. So if there’s going to be a turning of a corner, this could be where we start to see it.
It’s way too early to say anything definitive, of course, but so far I’m moderately encouraged. I didn’t have a lot of interaction with the first-year class— just a two-week module of a team-taught intro class— but that same tiny sample last year was enough to set alarm bells ringing. And this year’s experience was worlds better.
When I wrote about last year at the end of the year, I said that the biggest issue I saw wasn’t a lack of any concrete academic skills, but “a deficit of knowing how to be a college student.” That was fairly apparent even in the first-term class, where an alarming number of the first-year students had just checked out completely by the time my module rolled around. Several students on the roster didn’t show up for any of the six class meetings, and didn’t even attempt to communicate an excuse for their absence.
This time around, I think I had maybe two students miss one class each, and they both had very good reasons for being away. Not only were they there, they were engaged— following closely, volunteering responses when I asked questions, asking questions about weird points (I was lecturing about quantum non-locality, which is mostly weird points…). The Fall term as a whole was a bit of a grind for me, but that was a really fun experience in a way that last year wasn’t.
The way our curriculum is structured we as a department don’t have a lot of contact with the first-year cohort (other than that one class) until Winter term, so the real test will come in January. I’m teaching a full class of first-years then, so we’ll really find out what’s up… Based on casual conversations with colleagues in other areas, though, I think there are some real hints of reasons to be optimistic. A few other people have said things that fit with my experience and suggest there may be a real improvement in this class’s ability to cope with being in college, both in and out of the classroom.
On some level, this probably shouldn’t come as a surprise— humans in general are more resilient than we often give them credit for, and young people doubly so. It’s not ridiculous to think that students who were in middle school during the nasty shock of Covid might rebound a bit faster than expected, particularly than expected by the sort of people who make a career of expressing opinions in public. Pessimism pays better than optimism, particularly in the social-media age.
Or I might just be getting fooled by a tiny and non-representative sample, and this winter will see a nasty correction to my mood. Right now, though, I’m willing to embrace a bit of cautious optimism about the trajectory of our students in a way that I wouldn’t’ve been last December, so I’m going to roll with that.
This is unusually upbeat for me writing about higher education; if you want to be on hand for the inevitable comedown, here’s a button:
And if you want to try to trigger said comedown, the comments will be open:
I teach freshman anatomy and physiology and I see a huge difference. Unlike the past two years, this semester students are much more present, engaged and motivated. Much less need for handholding and explaining website navigation or how to read a syllabus. Much fewer drops. Many fewer Fs for being absent and not doing the work. I raised the level of the material and they rose to the occasion. Instead of 2-4 As I’ll probably have a dozen.
Not central to your subject, but I really didn't understand this part:
"The way our curriculum is structured we as a department don’t have a lot of contact with the first-year cohort (other than that one class) until Winter term"
Do you really have only one physics course offered to fall term freshmen?