Educational technology as social tradition: cultural transmission of remote teaching techniques during the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic seriously tested Higher Education Institutions preparedness for Emergency Remote Education. Amidst the call for a ‘pivot online’ educators quickly realised that simply switching to online distance learning was a forlorn hope. What followed was an undignified stumble into remote teaching. Social theories of innovation suggest that rapid technological change is simply a matter of choice and organisations can make rapid and strategic changes when required. I argue that talk of pivots and innovation is misleading and deflects enquiries from an important reason for academic resilience: teaching as tradition. By using a sociocultural evolutionary lens to analyse 102 courses in a business school, I demonstrate the persistence and resilience of teaching traditions. Using a phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of these courses prior to, during and after the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, I show how digital drift, punctuated by unstructured change, allowed the school to survive the dissolution of the campus and to iteratively add to teaching capability, without undermining the importance of tradition. I argue that viewing teaching as a tradition and applying the methodology of cultural evolution is a more productive analytical instrument in understanding adaptation than is innovation. I explain how these results can inform resilience building in Higher Education by supporting the persistence of tradition and descent with modification.