The pandemic forced professors to quickly teach online when colleges moved to emergency remote instruction this past spring. In the process, the changes prompted many to completely rethink the way they teach.

They’ve pared down assignments, covered less content, spent less time lecturing, given more-authentic assessments, and provided more flexibility around grades. They’ve decided what’s most essential for students to get from a course and found a way to make it possible. Those changes were made under duress. But in many cases, professors have found, they turned out to be improvements.

America is in the middle of a perfect storm: the largest pandemic of our lives, a major acceleration of the future of work, and the biggest recession in decades. Employers, policymakers, and credential providers must work together to design the “new normal” in the nation's economic recovery. 

Lumina Foundation's Holly Zanville and David Leaser of IBM offer a four-point plan to meet this challenge.

Northeastern University has spent more than $50 million planning for students' safe re-entry to campus. That investment is now being put to the test as approximately 8,000 undergraduates begin moving into campus residence halls.

The university has built its own labs for frequent testing with fast turnarounds, continually sanitizes buildings, and created a flexible-learning system that allows students to move back and forth between virtual and in-person classes in a richer, more interactive way than in a typical Zoom class. But is it enough to beat COVID-19?