Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

When hundreds of spring and summer undergraduate courses were abruptly moved from onsite to online delivery in the wake of COVID-19, several faculty and students nationwide reacted with panic and uncertainty. Currently, instructors are busy preparing for the 2020-2021 academic year where several students will continue taking courses online. At my institution, fall academic courses will be primarily virtual (along with several others across the nation), with some in-person and hybrid instruction for performance-based, clinical, and laboratory courses, and some students living on campus.

With careful planning, universities and colleges do not have to sacrifice quality instruction during remote learning.

Although colleges and universities face many unknowns in the upcoming semester, one thing is certain: Online learning is here to stay, regardless of whether your institution is planning to reopen campuses or not.

From a second wave of COVID-19 to sweeping protests across the nation, there is a growing list of unpredictable factors that can uproot a school year. It is critical that higher education institutions have the capacity to make smooth transitions to online learning at a moment’s notice.

Amid talk of pandemics and economics, it may seem like a comparatively minor discussion to have: the difference between remote learning and online learning. 

But, with COVID-19 forcing schools around the nation to move their classrooms online and more and more scrutiny leveled at the sustainability of doing so, it’s a conversation that education experts increasingly insist should happen. Making the distinction, some say, could shape the future of online learning for years to come. 

A growing number of colleges and universities are announcing the cancellation of face-to-face teaching for what remains of the academic year, and continuing instead through online teaching. Given the technology available, this need not be especially problematic. But in practice, it is, and in many cases means the 2020 academic year is lost.

Things didn’t have to end like this: Learning online is not impossible, but will be difficult unless we start looking at things differently. Why is it a problem for teaching to continue through the internet? 

First year students at UK universities will be imminently beginning some kind of an on-campus experience this year. It will be unlike anything they, or staff working in HEI,s have ever experienced.

Many anticipate that we may have only a month or so to help them bed in before a second wave causes furthers local or national lockdowns, so it’s imperative we get this first engagement right. I propose there are five areas we have to work on immediately to help freshers feel they have become part of our learning communities, before reversion to online learning becomes highly likely. If all of us Cassandras are wrong (and we must hope so!), this is still good practice for welcoming students whose 2020 pre-HE learning experiences are likely to have been grim.

This blog was kindly contributed by Dr David LeFevre, Director of the EdTech Lab at Imperial College and the founder of higher education platform company Insendi, part of Study Group.

Last month a subtle warning shot was shot across the bows of universities still struggling to manage the disruption caused by Covid-19. When the Minister responsible for higher education announced that UK students would be charged full tuition fees for online study, she added a caveat – the assumption of quality. If students ‘feel that the quality isn’t there’ she said, ‘there are processes that they can follow’ to seek redress’.

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically upended traditional schooling and made remote learning the “new normal.” Teachers are scrambling to offer some form of continuing education using virtual technologies, with the recognition that traditional approaches to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and grading must be altered. While it might be more expedient to present online lessons, electronic worksheets, and resource packets, we propose that the learn-at-home circumstance offers an opportunity to present students with more engaging and meaningful learning experiences. More specifically, we recommend providing students with assignments and tasks that challenge them to find information from various sources, critically appraise what they find, and use what they learn to address interesting issues and genuine problems.

As schools settle into more sustained use of online learning tools, attention needs to be paid to teachers’ development and resource needs as well as their students’, writes Patrick Roach

It now seems like a lifetime ago that the majority of children and young people’s learning took place at school. The speed and scale of the Coronavirus crisis meant that virtually overnight living rooms, kitchens, sheds and bedrooms have been repurposed as places of both learning and teaching.

For the majority of schools this has meant a sudden and abrupt shift to delivering the majority of learning online. For some schools this will have been easier than others.

As educators, we often hear about the importance of teaching critical thinking skills to our students. What we hear about less, however, are the most effective techniques for teaching those skills …