Yet this thought has proven to be very relevant to our educational activities in 2020, since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, this unprecedented turmoil in our daily lifestyle has imposed a general reconsideration of the way we teach in our various educational programmes.
We had to review both the implementation methods and the framework to deliver courses. Also, the teaching tools that we had to adopt, in a context saturated with ever changing constraints and to be able to continue to provide high quality teaching, posed an added challenge.
Another key paradox that should be underlined: on the side of the applications for our training courses, the demand was particularly high, and we even had to refuse corresponding profiles. This phenomenon was probably stimulated by the fact that this new context offered an opportunity to consider a professional reorientation, or by the fear and anticipation of a highly probable contraction of the employment market. The fact that the confinement, due to the lack of convivial outings, sports and cultural activities, left more free time, certainly also contributed to this increase in demand.
At STSA Learning, providing several simultaneous training programmes over the last four months required balancing acts, flexibility, and organizational rigor. Firstly, all spring programmes had to be cancelled and postponed until autumn, with the consequence that all the programmes of the year had to be squeezed into four very short months. With the capacity of the STSA Learning classroom not allowing the necessary social distancing, large meeting rooms had to be booked in hotels. After utilising the latter only three times, stricter confinement rules had been imposed by the authorities. Hence, we had to adapt again and swap to fully online modules. This demanded an important adaptation not only from the participants, but also from the course lecturers. We had to find and test many options to offer the same variety of teachings, such as group works, directed exercises, case studies or trading games. We also had to find a way for the exams to take place electronically while ensuring the good respect of programme rules.
One of the negative effects of online classes has been the reduced networking opportunities between classmates, the course lecturers and even with the STSA Learning team. Many of the participants of previous intakes have built solid friendships and exponentially grew their network in the commodity trading village. Networking did exist in this special year of 2020, but more timidly. Confinement and distance learning had also reduced transversal learning – participants tend to share more knowledge, make comments, and ask questions when in class, as opposed to in a video conference.
In retrospect, we can consider that the lectures went smoothly and that goaded by necessity, everybody had to adapt to the situation. The course participants even appreciated to save time in transport and enjoyed being able to follow the courses from their living room or from their car (a real-life experience although not really recommended…).
We registered an overall satisfaction rate on the modules of 96% which indicates that the situation has not affected the desire of the course lecturers to pass on their passion for the commodity trading activities to the next generation and we are sincerely grateful to them!
We learnt a lot about our ability to adapt to changing situations and to bring the best out of ourselves. It compelled us to adopt new ways of teaching which would not have been considered under normal circumstances. We highly value human relationships and the importance of interactions between participants and course lecturers, but how to make sure that they really understood the subtleties or the complexity of what you just said? How can you read their eyes if their camera is off?
At the end of the day, we should admit that it worked well and that all parties were satisfied, sometimes a bit frustrated, but satisfied. This opens a whole new world of possibilities: thanks to the experience we gained with online courses, we are now able to offer the STSA programmes to young talents employed by our members without them having to relocate to Geneva. Thanks to online teaching, we reach participants from other Swiss cantons and from abroad.
This year 2021 will (hopefully) be the first one to see the return of classes with face-to-face as well as online participation at the same time. Such a hybrid classroom will surely bring its share of difficulties, but what is also certain is that we will keep learning a lot, which is the most essential component!
