We share some thoughts on the report of the Harvard task force on the Future of Teaching and Learning (FTL).

As we all know, in 2020 the world was plunged into a pandemic that kept practically everyone locked in their homes, having to get used to a different way of life and adapt to new circumstances.

Education was not exempt from this rule. The once face-to-face classes became virtual, and where before we could get together with our classmates while studying, in the pandemic we were limited to having meetings via Zoom or other platforms.

And this applied to absolutely all strata of the industry. Kindergartens, elementary schools, high schools, public and private universities. Including Harvard, one of the most prominent and recognized universities in the world.

After the pandemic passed, after two years of long waiting, Harvard formed a research group whose goal was to answer several questions that arose during the time of virtual teaching. These were:

• Are there aspects of remote teaching that can be maintained and expanded?
• What investments would be appropriate, and in which areas is it best to establish itself?
• How do we maintain the innovation and enthusiasm that emerged during virtual teaching?
• How do we make our teaching make a real difference regardless of the capabilities or possibilities of the individual learner?

With that goal in mind, the group went out to interview students and faculty at the university, and came up with many interesting results. An extensive analysis of those results is on the internet and is publicly available. It can be found here:

Harvard Future of Teaching and Learning (FTL) task force report. Harvard Future of Teaching & Learning Task Force Report.
Some of the results were, for example, the advantages of short, interactive content versus overly long content that fails to capture the attention and interest of learners. It also talks about the importance of forming an educational community, where students and teachers can interact with each other, have debates, discussions, presentations, and so on. The report also provides some tools that can be found on the Internet to make these objectives not so far out of reach.

At Aulasneo we did a live presentation, explaining the main points of the report, and translating them to real life and to the possibilities of smaller institutions or entities than Harvard, which has a budget of the magnitude of millions of dollars.

This down to earth report is very useful for those who are having trouble connecting with their students or who don\’t know how to maintain an acceptable level of interaction with the course.

Below is the full video of our Aulasneo Session: