Where Have All the Students Gone?

I don't know what it's like where you are, but on university campuses in southwestern Ontario, the students are missing from our classrooms. Furthermore, WE AS INSTRUCTORS are missing them from our classrooms. This is something I am hearing from instructors across campus - where have all the students gone? It prompts me to think of the 1997 song by Paula Cole "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" Aside from the title, the song lyrics bear no similarity to the case of the missing students, but the brain makes interesting neural connections. And, it's a good song.

September of 2022 marked "The Great Return" to normal, or at least "more normal" college and university experiences here in Canada, with the majority of courses returning to in-person teaching. After almost 2 full years of online teaching and social distancing, the buzz and excitement around returning to normal for the Fall 2022 term was at an all-time high.

Of course, the Great Return was not without its challenges. We knew there would be challenges and that we would have to remain flexible and adaptable to the working environment and the needs of our students. I am not, however, sure that we anticipated the extreme lack of presence of students in the classroom as one of them. Where did they go? Or, to be more correct (yes, I said more correct), why are they not here in the first place? This current term, Winter 2023 (Jan-April) seems to be particularly impacted, with the campus and classrooms barren of students.

In order to maintain aspects of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and flexibility in their courses, many instructors kept some forms of hybrid teaching; they live stream their lectures, they record their lectures to post later, they have posted narrated PowerPoints that were created in the pandemic. All to help students who had to miss a class due to illness or some other life event (because let's face it - life happens). We also know that there is a major housing shortage in the region (well, in most places in Ontario really) so many students have remained living at home and commuting to campus; sometimes on a bus-ride that can be 2-3 hours one way. Being mindful of these challenges faced by students is yet another reason why instructors are recording lectures. I love it when instructors keep student wellness in mind!

That said, many instructors also chose NOT to utilize any of these methods for the fear that students would not come to class. Maybe they were onto something as this fear has come to fruition. So how do we force them to come? What is the carrot that we can dangle on the stick? Participation marks? In-person assignments and assessments? Sure, these work, but they kind of feel like bribery, don't they? Not that I am completely opposed to this - but I do question why we have to / should we have to "force" adults to attend classes in person. A colleague teaches M/W/F morning at 0830 hrs and live streams their lectures. By the end of the term, the majority of students have not attended class in-person but rather have "attend" lecture by setting their alarms for 0825 hrs, turning on their computer while still in bed, watching the lecture, and then going back to sleep. Handy = 1, Good Learning Environment = 0.

It might sound arrogant, but I generally like to think of myself as the carrot. Or at least I hope I'm the carrot. I put a lot of time, care, consideration, and effort into designing my course, lessons, and active learning activities. I aim to educate and (somewhat) entertain. This is when another pop culture reference comes to mind: Russell Crowe in Gladiator when he walks around the Colosseum saying, "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!!!!!" The audience would be the students, and they are all giving me the thumbs up. Well, they would, if they were actually there. Many instructors are hitting a breaking point - they are so disheartened and demoralized by students not showing up. Why am I putting in all of this effort for students who don't care to benefit from it?

How do we encourage students to value the in-classroom environment as a more ideal place for learning? How do we encourage them to see the value of making social connections in the classroom with their peers and their instructor? Get them to value the active learning activities that were designed for them? I think many of us have ideas and have been implementing different strategies, but we are still not getting the student buy-in.

I think many of us are hoping that this is a residual effect of the pandemic which will hopefully undergo its own natural restoration and our students will return to our classroom spaces and interact with us, their peers, and the content. Right now it appears it will be a waiting game, and we'll have to wait and see what happens over the 2023-2024 academic year. Keep me posted.

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