Distance Education: A Huge COVID Bump

by David Nitkin | Categories: Technology Challenges | Tags: ,

The Issue

High school and college educators are finding themselves swimming upstream in unfamiliar waters. With little training and a patchwork of resources, they are being compelled by COVID-19 to make an abrupt transition from a conventional “bricks-and-mortar” face-to-face education system, to educating from a distance online. Some educators describe this as the biggest transformation in education in our lifetime. Questions that merit answers include how serious is the transformation, what does it mean for teachers and students, and what are the specific ethical implications.

Ethical and Moral Difficulties

Before COVID-19 struck, using data from CLDRA annual surveys, it appears that approximately 10 per cent of all course enrolments in Canadian credit programs at university and college level were in fully on-line courses. On-line enrolments overall had been increasing by about 10 per cent per annum, although there were significant variations between provinces. Without COVID-19, we likely could have expected growth to continue at a slow but steady rate over the next few years.

Governments’ reaction to the coronavirus has been to close schools and thrust distance education requirements upon teachers and administrators. Campuses were closed half-way through a semester and suddenly everyone was scrambling to move to emergency remote teaching. Many commentators have argued that this is not the same as on-line learning, although on-line learning in the sense of teaching through the internet is certainly a major component. 

What we can be sure of is that many instructors who have never been involved in on-line learning before have had a crash course in moving to emergency remote teaching.  Some have found it to be a disaster; others have taken to it like a duck to water. In most cases, some things will have worked and other things haven’t. Overall, a much greater proportion of instructors have been exposed now to on-line learning in one form or another, and that in itself is likely to be an important element of predicting where education goes next.

Distance education and on-line learning strategies both involve students working on computers or devices, but here are important differences between them:

Characteristic On-line or E-Learning Distance Education
Location Students can be together in the classroom with an instructor while working through their digital lessons and assessments Students work online at home while the teacher assigns work and checks in digitally
Interaction In-person interaction between teacher and students on a regular basis  No in-person interactions at all between teacher and students. 
Technology Used as a blended learning technique along with other teaching and learning strategies Relies on various digital forms of communication such as messaging apps, video calls, discussion boards, and a school’s Learning Management System (LMS)
Ideal application Works best for middle and high school teachers who want to provide different ways for their students to learn Works best with older students who have consistent technology access at home and are willing to work responsibly on their own
Teaching Intention Designed for use in combination with a variety of in-person teaching methods Designed  for delivering instruction solely online, not as a variation in teaching style

COVID-19 has resulted in colleges, universities and schools being shut all across the world. Globally, over 1.2 billion children are out of the classroom. The implications for public schools are discussed in other EthicScan blogs, namely Talking to Your Child about the Pandemic (May 3) and Screen Time and Home Schooling (Apr 29). The implications of COVID 19 for higher education institutions include:

  • Education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby in-person teaching has shifted to remote and digital platforms.
  • There has been a significant surge in usage of language apps, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools, and  online learning software.
  • Research suggests that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information, and take less time, meaning the changes coronavirus has wrought might be here to stay.
  • Successive waves of edu-tech innovation over the years have tended to promise far more than they delivered, which has bred skepticism.
  • High-tech edu-tech firms like BYJU (India), Tencent and Alibaba (both China) and ByteDance (Singapore) have rolled out one-stop, online on-line platforms for teachers and students that collectively each have millions of full-time subscribers.
  • Partnerships between school boards and public broadcasters have been created to offer local distance learning broadcasts, with separate channels focused on different ages and a range of digital options.
  • Media organizations such as the BBC are powering virtual learning with celebrities teaching some of the content.

With this sudden shift away from the classroom in many parts of the globe, some are wondering whether the adoption of on-line learning will continue to persist post-pandemic, and how such a shift will impact the worldwide education market. Even before COVID-19, there was already high growth and adoption in education technology, with global edu-tech investments reaching US$18.66 billion in 2019 and the overall market for online education projected to reach $350 billion by 2025. 

Some of the notable impacts according to education analysts and planners include:

  • As many as 180 million Chinese students – primary, secondary and tertiary – are homebound or unable to travel. In China, the spring semester was originally scheduled to begin mid-February but has since been postponed indefinitely.
  • Educational institutions in over twenty countries have switched to on-line education on a massive scale.
  • Canadian higher education is increasingly dependent on a steady flow of Chinese students, but the government has restricted travel from China, resulting in thousands of students who are still in limbo. See EthicScan blog University Authority- A Tale of Two Generations (Mar 28).
  • Some colleges and universities – and some parts of universities – are better prepared than others to deliver courses to stranded concerned students. While all universities use on-line learning management systems and videoconferencing technology to some degree, there typically are no mandatory standards for on-line education. 

Legal and Moral Dimensions

The coronavirus outbreak may well be the biggest crisis ever to hit international education.  How are the various education sector stakeholders responding to COVID-19?

  • Families are investing unprecedented money to equip themselves and their school-age children with computers, tablets, smart phones and other home devices.
  • Teachers who have been tardy or loathe to adopt digital technologies are facing the call from parents, administrators and students to enhance their teaching skill sets.
  • Students are voicing unhappiness with the quality of their new digital education, especially those who require labs, co-op programs, and professional skills training to graduate.
  • There is a wide variation among institutions and even between individual courses in how digitized they are. To make this worse, not all staff are familiar with (or feel positive about) distance or blended learning.
  • Students do not always welcome digital education, and research exists that shows they are less likely to drop out when taught using “traditional” face-to-face methods. 
  • The most successful edu-tech companies would seem only to pay lip service to mass adoption. Instead, their energies are firmly directed at the more remunerative game of (overinflated) start-up funding and selling.
  • The stocks of listed companies linked to distance education, on-line games, digital medical services, and remote working have soared in recent weeks. 
  • So-called “developing countries” (including large, rural regions in the booming Indian and Chinese economies) can benefit greatly from distance education as it can help overcome emergencies and address chronic teacher shortages. 

On-line learning and distance learning are both viable and effective teaching strategies. However, they each have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages for both teachers and students:

Characteristic On-line or E-Learning Distance Education
Student Engagement An excellent way to increase student engagement when used as part of a blended learning (a variety of instructional resources and teaching methods) technique Can continue without disruption even in events like snow days or the COVID-19 pandemic
Customization Using on-line learning tools makes it easier for you to differentiate and customize instruction Provides greater flexibility for students to work at their own pace and review work as needed
Flexibility Teachers have more flexibility and control for differentiating lessons — without having to put in extra time during evenings and weekends Students can access course material at the times that work best for them, which is important for those who may have irregular work schedules
Enhance Teaching Planning Many digital curriculum tools provide ready-to-use lesson plans, instructional materials, and grade assessments, thus saving teacher time  A clear advantage when teachers are in a pinch with unexpected school closures for unknown durations
Access to Technology Relies on students having access to technology in school on a regular basis Not feasible if students don’t have access at home to devices (computers, tablets, smart phones) or the Internet
Limitations If students don’t have regular access to computers or other devices during school, it will be tough to truly implement on-line learning It is difficult to keep tabs on whether students are actually working
Screen time Using it start-to-finish for daily classes will definitely cause problems with increased screen time Can result in even more screen time for your students. However, unlike online learning, teachers have fewer options for reducing screen time since all communication with students is digital!
Cheating Cheating is a major problem because students often take advantage of technology to make cheating easier Distance learning can make cheating even easier than with online learning

At the end of the day, educational consultants say that on-line learning and distance learning each have a place in education. One could be better than the other depending on the needs of the teacher and his or her students.

Conclusion

While the impacts of COVID-19 on business are well documented, education is also facing its largest disruption in recent memory. Institutions around the world are responding to travel bans and quarantines with a shift to on-line learning. The crisis may trigger an on-line boom for education – or at least make teachers more resilient and possibly ready to cope with the next emergency. 

The current landscape of global digital education suggests COVID-19 may result in more robust capabilities in regions with enough resources, connectivity and infrastructure. However, it also is likely to expose chronic deficiencies in less prepared and less well-endowed communities, exacerbating pre-existing divides.

Once the current crisis passes, however, will things go “back to normal”? Or will we see a sustained increase in the mainstream adoption of online learning? The answer is not at all obvious. Take Canada, for example. Even if we assume the COVID-19 emergency will lead to some permanent change in how more digitally-prepared Canadian universities relate to Chinese students, it is unclear what the change will look like. Will we see more on-line courses and a growing market for Western-style distance education in Asia? Is this what the Chinese students (even the tech-savvy ones) really want? Is this what the Chinese economy needs? 

Alternatively, perhaps, the crisis might lead to a more robust response system. Universities might develop the ability to move on-line quickly when they need to and go back to normal once things “blow over”, in a world where global emergencies look increasingly like the norm.

Further Resources

Applied Education Systems – What’s the Difference Between Online Learning and Distance Learning?
https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/online-learning-vs-distance-learning

The Conversation – Coronavirus quarantine could spark an online learning boom:
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-quarantine-could-spark-an-online-learning-boom-132180

EthicScan COVID-19 Blog – Screen Time and Home Schooling:
http://ethicscan.ca/blog/2020/04/29/screen-time-and-home-schooling/

EthicScan COVID-19 Blog – Talking To Your Child About The Pandemic
http://ethicscan.ca/blog/2020/05/03/talking-to-your-child-about-pandemic/

Online Distance Learning and Education Resources – Online enrolments after Covid-19: a prediction, part 1:
https://www.tonybates.ca/2020/04/15/online-enrolments-after-covid-19-a-prediction-part-1/

CBC News – Frustrated parents in Ontario pivot from official distance-learning program amid COVID-19:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/parents-opt-out-distance-learning-1.5548215

World Economic Forum – The COVID-19 pandemic has changed education forever:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning/

HMC Architects – Distance Learning in the Time of COVID-19:
https://hmcarchitects.com/news/distance-learning-in-the-time-of-covid-19/

People for Education – Tracking Canada’s education systems’ response to COVID-19
https://peopleforeducation.ca/our-work/tracking-canadas-education-systems-response-to-covid-19/

David Nitkin
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