Certainly, online learning provides a customized learning experience to match the student, which helps avoid the pitfalls of one-size-fits-all templates for student populations. Online learning also helps schools be more cost-effective by not relying on traditional brick-and-mortar environments. Reducing institutional building footprints and providing more flexible schedules are just some of the advantages of this teaching modality, but there are many considerations to ensure a truly effective and efficient online experience.
The genesis of online learning might be traced to the University of London in 1865, when exams were made available remotely to students without being required to physically be in London. Nearly 100 years later, the University of Illinois created an intranet which linked computer terminals, allowing students to access recorded lectures. This system would eventually be transformed into PLATO – Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations. From these early days of providing materials remotely, a new online ecosystem was created comprised of technology, learning modules, online testing, remote learning resources, experiential activities, interactivity, and an anywhere-anytime teaching and learning environment. Paramount to success is making certain that instructors know how to teach, and students know how to learn, in this online environment.
While the idea of online learning continued to grow and innovate in the 2000s, the pandemic created a tidal wave of dramatic and sudden change in 2020. Teaching face to face, online and in hybrid modalities changed overnight. Higher education and K-12 had to shift gears to ensure students could continue to effectively learn in a remote environment.
FIRST GEAR: QUALIFIED TEACHING AND PROFESSIONAL STAFF
The first gear we need to shift into is ensuring institutions have the necessary qualified teaching and professional staff to appropriately use online education. During the onset of COVID-19, there was a question about whether instructors teaching remotely had the necessary qualifications, motivation and adequate time to do so. In some cases, instructors teaching only face to face initially tried to take their traditional curriculum and “dump” it into an online model, some with marginal results. The quick and sudden transition to remote education was a challenge for many.
SECOND GEAR: TRAINING STAFF AND STUDENTS
While educational institutions have been utilizing online learning for some time, there may still be a gap when students are not professionally trained and acclimated to the environment. Some institutions believe most students are entirely prepared for technology and an online environment, but while this is true in many cases, students can still benefit from a proper understanding of the online learning experience, coupled with the confidence to use it appropriately.
Writing last year for the Times Higher Education, University of Oxford Fellow Nikita Hari said, “While Generation Z know their way around digital technology, they still need to learn how to use it effectively to support learning. Institutions have a responsibility to provide a structured programme to teach students how to identify, research and interpret content they find online.”
THIRD GEAR: IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Having properly prepared instructors and students for an online environment is one part of the success formula, but equally important is having the necessary IT infrastructure and technology resources in place 24/7. A campus must have robust, secure network and server capacity, as well as the necessary software applications for teaching and learning to be successful. In the 2020 Harvard Business Review article, "What the Shift to Virtual Learning Could Mean for the Future of Higher Ed," authors Vijay Govindarajan and Anup Srivastava pointed out, “We have no doubt that digital technologies (mobile, cloud, AI, etc.) can be deployed at scale, yet we also know that much more needs to be done. On the hardware side, bandwidth capacity and digital inequalities need addressing. The (face-to-face) setting levels lots of differences, because students in the same class get the same delivery. Online education, however, amplifies the digital divide.”
FOURTH GEAR: INNOVATE
The transition to online learning during the pandemic created an environment that fostered new, innovative teaching approaches. The mere idea of using Zoom in the classroom transformed the word from a noun to a verb. In a 2020 post on Cambridge’s World of Better Learning blog, Nigel Caplan wrote, “I’ve begun to see references to holding a Zoom, rather than a Zoom meeting or a Zoom class, and there are hundreds of hits for Zooms (or zooms) as a plural noun with this meaning in the NOW corpus of online English.” IT departments provided the technology prowess to quickly deploy and implement Zoom teleconferencing capabilities, and faculty and students quickly found innovative ways to make remote learning more engaging and interactive.
New technological tools such as virtual tours and labs, gamification, digital storytelling, flipped classrooms and sophisticated student information management systems transformed the teaching and learning environment. While these tools grew during the pandemic, it is the post-pandemic environment institutions need to plan for now.
Govindarajan and Srivastava said, “The current experiment might show that four-year (face-to-face) college education can no longer rest on its laurels. A variety of factors — most notably the continuously increasing cost of tuition, already out of reach for most families, implies that the postsecondary education market is ripe for disruption. The coronavirus crisis may just be that disruption. How we experiment, test, record and understand our responses to it now will determine whether and how online education develops as an opportunity for the future.”
FIFTH GEAR: SUSTAINABLE FUNDING
Now we are ready to shift into high gear, the fifth one. All of our options and resources hinge on the ability of institutions to make their online successes sustainable. A great deal of federal and state COVID-related grants were distributed as one-time funding. Schools made significant investments in hardware, software and staffing. While this funding helped institutions transition and flourish in a remote COVID-19 environment, there is a need to sustain these investments in the future. Online learning is expected to continue to grow. According to Forbes, the worldwide e-learning market is projected to be worth $325 billion in 2025, and Business Wire estimated corporate e-learning to grow by over 250 percent between 2017 and 2026. Online learning is entrenched both in education and corporate environments. As we speed to the future online learning in a “fast and furious” world in fifth gear, we need to keep in mind who and why we shifted gears in the first place. Checking your rearview mirror, watching your speed and knowing when to apply the brakes will provide a margin of safety as you drive ahead into the future of online learning.
