We are in the front lines of remote learning research methods; despite the recency, remote learning has had a stigma around it that it is much less effective than typical learning. Remote learning is seen as the “sparknotes version” of real, in classroom learning. Often people would joke that they had just gotten into the University of Phoenix, the catch was that this program was purely online and “not a real university.” In lieu of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were forced to go home early around the time of spring break. Hushed rumours that we were going to get pre-recorded lectures on Moodle and some classes would meet on skype scattered around campus. And here we are, enrolled in online education.
At this time the issue was finding a way for the students to get any sort of dialogue with the professors to facilitate learning. Some classes became asynchronous, where we could click to listen to less than ten minute lectures and make sure we submitted our assignments by 11:59 pm. Other classes met through zoom, as discussion based classes, in which there were less outside the classroom assignments, but we encountered the issue of different time zones. Finals week came around, everyone submitted their final essays, projects, or exams, and school was forgotten for many. Most did not think much of the spring or online learning, rightfully so, we were amongst a pandemic, of which we were under prepared. Nevertheless, students retained the information they could, and for the most part grade point averages increased. However, nobody would say that the quality of education increased and that is the reason for the better scores. This could be due in large part to academic dishonesty or easier coursework that is completion based. Better scores and less comprehension is not a combination educators would like to see, or even students for that matter. This leads to the problem that developed and became apparent throughout the spring, summer, and now the fall with classes back in session. Our problem with remote learning is that, as of right now, online learning is inferior to traditional learning in almost every way, if not every way. We are battling a less engaging environment where motivation, participation, and technological dependencies make learning a hollow facsimile of what it was before COVID.
One challenge to solving this is the digital divide that has developed between educators and students and put us in this position in the first place. As we type, there is a clear divide between those that grew up on skype and facetime, versus those who did not. We are not advocating for any way to raise children but just stating the fact that there is an easily understandable divide. Many current college students understand what they need to do technically. They can improve connection, or reboot their system or wifi when an issue arises. But remote learning is much more than just fixing a technical system, there are significant sociological issues that play a large part in remote learning. For example, in a survey of college leaders, a majority agreed with the statement that “students need more discipline to succeed in an online course than in a face-to-face course” (Allen & Seaman, 2005). On top of this, remote learning requires better time management, responsibility, and motivation (Bork & Rucks-Ahidiana, 2013; Public Agenda, 2013). Today’s and tomorrow’s students understand where they can hold their phone so it still seems like they are paying attention to the lecture. Humans innately look for the path with the least resistance, and the younger generation that grew up with these tools as toys will exploit that. In remote learning, assessments are often carried online whereby instructors are limited to proxy supervision of learners making it impossible to regulate and control cheating (Arkorful & Abaidoo, 2015). A base level of technical literacy must be required for the basic online learning reform. Any solution must be implementable at the individual level, regardless of technical competence. That solution must be adaptable to each level of education; for example, an effective method of teaching and learning calculus may not be the most effective for teaching 1st grade.
Right now, the education world’s best method of teaching and learning is through the traditional classroom style: lectures, labs, quizzes, exams, and mountains of homework. Show up for lecture, listen to the professor, participate, go back to the library, do practice problems, check with the professor in office hours. It works when it is possible to do it in person, but we obviously cannot do that right now. In theory, everything should work just as effectively through zoom; we have our virtual classroom space, we can see and hear the professors, they can have office hours, we have break out rooms for group work, so everything should work. Except it has not. Adedoyin explains this as these processes being without proper planning, design and development of online instructional programs due to the pandemic (2020). We have attempted the imitation of the traditional classroom in online learning and are proven daily that it is less impactful than it was in person. We have to divorce ourselves from the idea of a traditional classroom to put ourselves in a position for success on the digital education front.
Understanding the current state of remote learning requires the acceptance that this is a socio-technical issue and requires a socio-technical solution. Remote learning requires the consideration of values within it; some of these being psychological, socio-economic, and the individual’s role within the family dynamic. We agree with Adedoyin with the statement that “online learning elements are technology driven and dependent on internet facilities, educational institutions can collaborate with telecommunication industries to either subsidize the cost of internet subscriptions or provide free browsing data to the students and instructors as part of their corporate social responsibilities” (2020). Remote learning is not a thing, but a process and our solution needs to value this more than anything else. Our solution is restructuring the classroom experience to value interactions more than individual work. Some of the most effective ways to learn are highly social activities. There are people who are thriving, academically, during this strange time, but people value the social interactions of the traditional classroom and that is what makes the difference. The social interactions that occur alleviate the stresses of learning and alter the outlook of the student. It is no longer the student versus calculus, it is the student in calculus versus the other students in calculus. The collective feeling of the traditional classroom can be utilized without being in the classroom by restructuring the educational system. This project will further analyze the social, political, technical, and economic facets of restructuring online learning, specifically as a process.
The switch to remote learning has obviously affected the students’ ability to learn and understand newer material. However, this is not the only factor when discussing the switch to remote learning. Socially, students are less engaged and feel separated from the learning process they once knew. As we haven learned in our studies, engineering is highly political. As we dive into the political aspect behind remote learning, we want to make note of the impact the school board along with the administration of Lafayette has on altering the students’ learning experience. Past this, the technical availability of zoom and google meets are easily accessible, but does the technological advantage of some have a substantial impact on the quality of their education. As are all things, any substantial change at a college level requires the necessary economic factors to make this possible. Economically, we want to show the impact of COVID-19 and what the changes we are suggesting will have on Lafayette College financially.
As Lafayette College is currently online and potentially online in the future semesters, we have followed commonalities seen through our studies. Each of our three team members has seen the effects of remote learning first hand as we are current senior students fully immersed in remote learning. After having six months or more of remote learning experience, we have taken note of what classroom styles have worked and what have not. Although each learning experience is individual to the student we chose to emphasize the importance of a quote from the Lafayette administration to the professors, “Teaching conditions are student learning conditions.” To us, this signifies the importance of an online learning environment that fosters learning for all students. As we worked in contact with the Center for Integration of Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship (CITLS) at Lafayette, we developed the current student’s perspective of the remote learning environment at Lafayette. What we hope to accomplish throughout our development project is to gain respect from Lafayette College on the issue of remote learning, support the CITLS mission to improve the student’s experience, develop our Ideal Online Classroom, and further improve our online learning experience and that of future students.