Schools, from K12 to universities, rushed online after March 13, 2020. Sadly, the COVID-19 coronavirus and poor online education pedagogy and design went hand-in-hand thanks to this rush to deliver “content” without a clear strategy. Rushing to be online, instead of taking a week or two to prepare teachers and students, led to some of the worst digital versions of correspondence learning ever offered.
Online education differs from traditional classroom instruction. The research on best practices covers accessibility, interface design (UI/UX), student engagement, retention, and learning outcomes. I study accommodations and disability, including the costs of those accommodations. Under federal law, all students are promised a least restrictive, inclusive, and equitable learning experience. That’s not happening with the COVID-19 rush to online delivery.
Delivering content is not delivery an online education. It’s shoveling out materials and ill-conceived assessments simply to finish the school year close to “on time” as if that’s the most important goal for administrators and state authorities.
Public K12 systems rarely have full learning management system (LMS) implementations. And a result, these schools through students and teachers into Google Classrooms and hoped for the best.
I teach online. I believe in the promise of online education. But, online education requires expertise to prepare, deliver, and assess effectively. You do not simply take a good classroom teacher, toss that person online, and assume you’ll have a good online course.
By not taking time to move online, by not being willing to push the school year out a month, administrators and officials have help create a mess that is harming the perceptions of online education. I resent what is being called online education. So do students.
Though K12 teachers do not train to teach online, a “crash course” delivered online was possible. In fact, being forced to learn online would have helped teachers understand the situation before they were teaching students in the same environments.
As a parent of two elementary school students, I hate the online experience they are having. I do not blame the teachers, but I do blame those putting the teachers in this situation.