Abstract:
Closed campuses, working remotely, and physical distancing have changed the way we work, teach, learn, shop, attend conferences, and interact with family and friends. But the Covid-19 pandemic has not changed what we know about creating high-end online education. Two decades of research has shown that online education often fails to fulfill its promise, and the emergency shift to remote instruction has, for many, justified their distrust and dislike of online learning. Low interactivity remains a widely recognized short-coming of current online offerings. Low interactivity results, in part, from many faculty not feeling comfortable being themselves online. The long-advocated for era of authentic assessments is needed now more than ever. Finally, greater support is needed for both underrepresented students and for faculty to move beyond basic online instruction to create a strong continuum of care between the teaching and learning environment and the student support infrastructure. For those who have been long-term champions of online education, it has never been more important to confront the three biggest challenges that continue to haunt online education – interactivity, authenticity, and support. Only by confronting these challenges squarely can instructors, educational developers, and their institutions take huge steps towards better online instruction in the midst of a pandemic and make widespread, high-quality online education permanently part of the “new normal.”
This article argues that social constructivism is best seen as a descriptive theory of learning. By contrast, communal constructivism should be viewed as a pedagogic theory designed to identify effective and procedurally acceptable ways of using co-operative working to promote good learning. It is argued that the use of ICT has no necessary connection with this pedagogy, and can as easily be used to support practices based upon quite different philosophies and values. However, it is clear that researching an ICT-based approach to communal constructivism is likely to be a very productive strategy, and that this research has in part already begun.