Teaching and Learning at a distance during COVID-19: Understanding, experiencing, and transformation in the online community

2020 brought many challenges and uncertainty to the distance learning environment. Despite over twenty years of online teaching, this presenter was confronted with further essential questions in their pedagogical role. What creates community online? What have I shared that learners found the most meaning in or connection with? What is most practical in a VUCA (violative, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment for online students in their career development?  And how to help provide resources at a distance in online learning for adult students to cope and flourish?
According to McCarthy (2016) ELT defines learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.  Since students in counseling must understand themselves in route to helping others experiential learning is a natural fit in online counseling courses. This presentation will provide participants with insights on how teaching online in 2020 furthered instructor and student transformation with opportunities for growth. Participants will embark on the following journey of inquiry: 1) an exploration of the phenomenon that are challenging everyone in the complex COVID-19 environment (in particular, effecting learning and teaching);2) experiential strategies at a distance used with online adults counseling students connecting to meaning in their life/work (career development); and 3) prompts universal to any discipline that can connect distance students to an online community.