As I watch my teacher friends and neighbor parents deal with remote learning, I find myself wondering about both the short-term and long-term impacts of the current upheaval.
Certainly teachers, students, and parents are likely gaining some technology skills as they navigate online learning and teaching. EdWeek insists that “[t]hese are not normal teaching and learning conditions. What we are experiencing now is emergency remote teaching and learning—or as some have called it, “pandemic pedagogy.”[1] In that article, Natalie Milman assures us that well-designed online teaching can be effective, that “the truth is that it is not the medium that matters but the design of the learning experiences, the quality of the content, and the engagement of learners.” But, she warns, our emergency response to Covid is quite different, and the context of fear and uncertainty further challenges online instruction.
The current chaos causes questioning and exploration. How much remote learning is enough? When is it too much? Can Zoom gatherings replace face-to-face interaction? How can we fairly assess learning under these circumstances? How do we collect data about all this to inform future decisions?
Though the questions and options may often seem overwhelming, I hope they suggest a true opportunity to transform education. Now that we cannot continue business as usual, now that our traditional models of teaching and learning, and of assessment, have been upended, where do we go from here?
I hope we seize the opportunity to build on some of the very best changes occurring right now: more ownership of learning by the learner thanks to good facilitation of that learning by the teacher, more project-based and problem-based experiences that cause learners to think critically about the world around them and to solve problems, more collaborative learning made possible through technology, more self-publishing and sharing – these are the first that come to mind for me, but they are only the beginning.
In our home we start each morning with an expression of gratitude. Lately we’ve sought to include gratitudes for the occasional good changes brought to us by this pandemic. The challenges we all face may also become a force for good if we have the will to fight for positive change. Some would struggle to return to “normal” and business as usual. I would like to see us embrace the uncertainty that this pandemic has created and choose how to shape teaching and learning for the future. We can do better. We must do better by our learners. And if we do, then we will have found one silver lining in the current tragedy.
[1] https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/03/30/this-is-emergency-remote-teaching-not-just.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2-rm&M=59233304&U=1603651&UUID=a2c5403f90bf9a526413b15a7b86a2e2