Reflections on online learning

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

Readers of my blog will know that I believe quality instruction makes a tangible difference in learning, and that well-educated and well-prepared teachers are essential. I have been thinking quite a bit about on-line learning, something that occupies much of my time.   

In the 1960s, around the time I was preparing as a teacher, John Carroll, an educational psychologist, proposed that the amount of time learners spend on learning a task, relative to the time required, is a critical factor in determining their success in learning.[1] One of the constraints of face-to-face schooling is that it imposes constraints on the amount of time learners have to achieve mastery.  

The advantage of online education aligns with Carroll's emphasis on learning time and individual differences in learning needs. In Carroll's model, the aptitude of a student, including their prior knowledge and learning abilities, significantly influences how they learn. Online learning facilitates this by allowing learners to tailor their learning to their individual aptitudes. For example, a student who finds calculus challenging can allocate more time to this subject, revisiting complex problems through videos and online forums until they grasp the concepts.  

Online learning provides learners with the flexibility to access educational resources at any time. Someone interested in history, for example, can spend more time investigating a topic of interest.  

Online learning requires perseverance. Self-motivated students can spend additional time mastering subjects of interest or difficulty. This is evident when a learner studying programming online spends extra hours developing an application. That learner is achieving mastery and exhibiting the willingness to invest time in learning.  

Quality of instruction is also a critical factor. Online learning offers access to varied instructional methods, materials, and instructional models (teachers). A learner who prefers demonstrations might explore YouTube while one who prefers print can look for articles and e-books.  

Carroll's model points to the importance of student understanding. Learners who find one video difficult to comprehend can look for another that is clearer or better aligned with the learner’s prior understanding. Self-discipline and motivation are two critical characteristics of successful online learners. The learner's willingness to engage with the material is crucial. Online learning offers flexibility and some level of individuation, but it demands a high level of self-regulation from students.  

Internet-based learning offers a flexible, somewhat individualized educational experience that can align with the needs, aptitudes, and time that different learners need to achieve mastery. However, it also requires enormous self-discipline and motivation. 

---

[1] Carroll, John B. (1963) "A Model of School Learning." Teachers College record (1970), vol. 64, pp. 1-9.

COVID-19 was a failed natural experiment in online schooling

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
 [permission to reproduce if authorship is acknowledged]

Natural experiments are observational studies of the impact of an event conducted during and afterward, focussing on differences among groups. They differ markedly from true experiments in which individuals are randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group is exposed to some treatment (a new drug, for example) and the control group is not.

Coincidentally, one of the most famous natural experiments was conducted after a cholera epidemic by John Snow (famous at least among epidemiologists). Water to a region in London was supplied by two different companies. During the cholera epidemic of 1849, the two companies supplied their water from the same polluted region of the Thames, producing similar death rates.  By the time cholera returned in 1853, one of the companies had changed its source of water, creating the condition for a natural experiment. Snow mapped the outbreaks of cholera in 1853 and traced its recurrence to the water supplied by the company still obtaining it from the polluted region of the Thames.

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a natural experiment in online learning, though not exactly like the cholera epidemic in London. Online learning during COVID-19 has had a markedly different impact on different populations. Statistics Canada data show that the burdens of access to equipment, technology and support fall heaviest upon lower income households. These households have a disproportionate share of students who will have the greatest difficulty making up lost earning time, compounding the existing inequalities.

Students in homes that were relatively well-equipped with a computer and decent bandwidth were able to access the educational material. Obviously that material, and the support teachers were providing, were not available to students in homes with no or little equipment or internet access.

No one considered the online experiences as a substitute for face-to-face instruction or contact between students and teachers. However, one of the unintended but real consequences of online learning was to exacerbate the inequalities that face-to-face schooling tries to eliminate.

Even in homes with equipment and internet there was competition between parents who needed the equipment and bandwidth for working at home and their children who needed them for school. Families with the luxury of time were better able to monitor and assist their children. The differences among all students intensified.  Of course, these were not the only differences in the environments in which students were expected to learn online. Many students do not have a quiet space at home and/or parents who can help them when they struggle with a task. There are students who are on their own because their parents must work outside the home.

Teachers struggled. Many had little or no experience with online learning, video-conferencing equipment, and the content management systems that school boards made available but for which little training was available. Ever resourceful, many resorted to other online resources for help and one another for support. But most teachers were on their own in terms of what and how they planned for, and made use of, online ‘learning.’

There are lessons to be learned from the natural experiment in online learning. It is obvious, the introduction of any new practice or technology requires significant planning. Of course, no one anticipated the abrupt shift to online communication (I resist calling it learning). Those contemplating further use of internet technologies must have a plan for doing so. The COVID-19 online experience makes me wonder if Ontario will rethink requiring mandatory online coursework for secondary students.

It is important to ensure that the conditions for using the technology are favourable. Inequalities in equipment and bandwidth are not acceptable conditions. Requiring teachers to figure things out for themselves is unacceptable. They need preparation for using any new practice or technology.

Teachers should not be preparing on their own. Most teacher unions have sub-sets of teachers organized by grade level or subject. These are often called professional specialist groups or something similar. The membership of these groups is often leaders in the sub-specialty. These groups should work with teachers who have significant experience working with technology and distributed learning to prepare the material that will be used if there is a return to online learning.

If online learning continues, adjustment would be required to the traditional relationship between teachers and students, one that is presently based upon a single teacher working with a group of students (usually grouped by age) based on grade level or subject. This arrangement places enormous pressure on teachers working in conventional face-to-face environments. Online environments increase the pressure exponentially. Online learning (and face-to-face learning) would likely be enhanced if teachers were encouraged to collaborate with one another and have collective responsibility for groups of students. Online learning as it is presently practiced places unreasonable demands upon teachers and poses major challenges that could affect long-term student development.

COVID-19 is likely to recur in the fall and perhaps after. There are steps that can be taken to improve on the largely negative experience. There were many admirable efforts to address inequalities in access by providing computers and free or relatively inexpensive internet. But significant inequalities remain that must be diminished. That will be costly at any time, but they will be an additional burden in the aftermath of the huge expenditures that governments have made during the first wave of COVID-19.

The cost of improving the online experience of students, teachers, and families will need to be weighed against rescheduling schooling to make up the learning time lost by closing schools.  Closing schools during what is likely to be another COVID-19 wave (declaring them ‘unplanned school holidays’) might be preferable on several grounds. Rescheduling schooling as often happens in climates where schools are closed because of weather is much less costly than gearing up for more and improved online learning.

Because it will be difficult to ‘gear up’ before another wave occurs, the inequalities produced by the first wave of COVID-19 are very likely to persist and, thus, be worsened by resorting to the use of internet technologies to address school closures. Rescheduling face-to-face instruction is likely to be more favourable from an educational standpoint because it would not aggravate educational inequalities to the same extent as the hodgepodge that was characteristic of the response to the first COVID-19 wave.   

I belong to the “plan for the worst and hope for the best” school of public policy. I hope there is not a second wave of COVID-19. However, planning for school closures in the event of a second wave of COVID-19 is preferable to repeating the failed natural experiment in online learning during COVID’s first wave that has worsened the educational inequalities that schooling tries to eliminate.