COVID-19 and the Shift to Remote Education: Opportunity and Obligation for Adult Educators

One of the most obvious and immediate impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on education was the rapid shift from in-person to remote instruction. This affected almost all K-12, higher education, and adult education settings in an incredibly short timeframe (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, n.d.) and often with minimal support to facilitate the transition. This rapid conversion to remote education offers consequences for adult learners and educators (Boeren et al., 2020). While imperative to understand and address these issues, the field also has an opportunity for a positive outcome. The shift to remote education created a “need to know” about how to teach and learn at a distance, which translates to educators seeking new teaching approaches. This presents a unique opportunity to recognize adult educators as exemplars and leaders in both online and in-person education, including sharing our wealth of teaching knowledge with people and organizations, many of whom do not realize the expertise adult education practitioners and researchers have to offer. This article does not attempt to identify a comforting outcome amid the myriad of issues facing adult education as result of the pandemic. Rather, we intend to recognize the situation facing education and to illuminate our obligation to share our collective knowledge and experience.