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Author: Scholé
Distance Learning – Why did schools use it?
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of most K-12 schools around the world.
With the uncertainty of the return to the face-to-face learning, the schools where compelled to plan and implement a distance learning approach, as education is more than the acquisition of knowledge, as it helps to sustain mental and physical wellbeing and offer stability and hope for the future (INEE, 2004),
In that moment, teachers faced their first challenge: transition from face-to-face to online learning while there was a pandemic around. There was no time to pre-plan any lessons nor to create any special resources to be used in distance learning as there was no time or previous warning.
So, teachers had to use the kind of resources and tools that they had available at the time, like websites, software, or computer assisted activities that intentionally focus on and facilitate learning via the Internet (Saadé et al., 2007).
There are different forms of online learning. Teachers tried to find a balance, between asynchronous and synchronous lessons. Asynchronous learning happens when the students are learning without the presence of others. As for synchronous lessons, the students can interact with another person or a group of people, learning online and communicating simultaneously.
Later, when the schools were authorized to reopen, blended learning occurred, since many classes had students that got sick and had to be sent home to get better. In this blended learning format, teachers were giving a face-to-face learning and suddenly had to change to an online environment, getting back to face-to-face as soon as the class got back to school.
Distance Learning – The challenges the educational community faced
There were many challenges that all the educational community (teachers, students, parents,…) had to face.
For students, being deprived of a face-to-face interaction, that they were used to have every day, left a feeling of loneliness and isolation. Even though they were able to have synchronous lessons, where they could have real time interactions and use social media networks to talk and keep in touch (De Paepe et al., 2018; Dumford & Miller, 2018), these strategies still weren’t enough for them to feel supported and in touch with their friends like they used to be.
Apart from the social and emotional impact that the distance and isolation brought, many students struggled with technological challenges feeling they weren’t taught to use most of the technology and resources that were presented to them, leaving the feeling that their digital literacy wasn’t enhanced enough.
A third challenge that ended up affecting students but also teachers was the motivation and engagement to learn using these technologies (Cook & Steinert, 2013; Davis et al., 2007; Lao & Gonzales, 2005; Leire et al., 2016; Saadé et al., 2007; Zhang & Lin, 2020).
As for the parents, they had to adapt to remote work while supporting their children in the school activities and in the adjustment to the online environment.
This was very difficult and stressful for families as it implied a great adjustment in terms of the use of the physical spaces of the house, since it was necessary to ensure that the different elements had the minimum conditions to be able to perform their work efficiently.
Teachers have faced some challenges as well.
As mentioned above, the sudden change to the online environment meant that teachers had few or no time to prepare themselves or to adjust their classes to the distance learning that was going to happen. And, in fact, the use of online technologies takes a lot of time and requires high-quality preparation from the teachers to ensure the students are provided with the best learning experiences possible.
STEM teachers, despite their knowledge of technology, also faced similar challenges. As it is well known, in order to teach STEM in an effective way, teachers need to master the pedagogical curriculum (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001) so that they can increase their self-efficacy when it comes to addressing that curriculum.
However, STEM teachers, like most teachers, attended training to improve their skills in face-to-face learning, instead of in content related to learning in an online environment, as they did not seem this to be necessary (Fox, 2004).
In addition, teachers found it very difficult to get around the absences of students, who often did not attend activities and to keep students motivated and involved in the proposals, since the general feeling was that students did not understand very well how they could learn online (Fox, 2004).
The difficulty in giving or receiving more immediate feedback and of making some contact at a time of doubt led students to feel more difficulties in understanding the online environment as a learning environment, leading them to neglect the conclusion of tasks and not be able to be accountable for their own learning.
When it comes to finding resources to use in the online classes, teachers experienced many difficulties in being able to find free and high-quality resources that fit their teaching method. Often, these digital resources had to be changed and adapted to match not only the curriculum, but also the needs of the students. This adjustments were very time consuming and implied a considerable knowledge of technology, which many teachers did not have.
Distance Learning – Successes and improvements
Integrating technology into moments of online learning is a complex process.
While it is not easy to assess the impact of the pandemic on students learning, we can draw some positive aspects of this experience.
Studies show that there has been an improvement in the students’ digital skills. With time, there has been a greater involvement of students in the online activities and an enhancement of their autonomy when it comes to using digital tools or working on some tasks.
There was also a positive impact on teachers, who have improved their digital skills and their use of digital tools.
Overall, teachers feel the need to continuously improve their digital skills and seek more technological tools that allow them to access content and address it in an interesting and challenging way, which helps students to work on their autonomy. However, teachers also need to find resources that allow the students to have access to feedback that guides them in the search for answers and in clarifying questions.
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