How higher education adapted to online teaching at aalborg university after COVID-19: Experiences and perspectives

The lockdowns imposed in several countries in the spring of 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic changed the approach to teaching in higher education in the course of a few days. Because higher education institutions had to close access to campus, teaching activities had to move online. This was the result of decisions taken at management level. Many teachers had little or no prior experience with online modes of teaching such as producing digital teaching content and online activities, but now had to adopt these very quickly. We give a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results of an ongoing university-wide survey at Aalborg University regarding the initial teacher experiences of the transition to online teaching. We study if the changes have influenced perspectives on teaching with technology, if and how the effects on courses and project differ and if and to what extent the sudden transition may give rise to a lasting change of practice. In order to assess how the imposed transition may have this kind of impact, we use Engeström's expansive learning framework to understand the transformative dynamics of changing practices. The paper marks the beginning of a longitudinal study that will examine how the sudden transition to online teaching has affected the pedagogical practice at Aalborg University for teaching staff as well as for students.