When schools closed due to COVID-19, education鈥檚 challenges didn鈥檛 disappear. They just moved online with a host of new problems, making today鈥檚 version of remote learning an unlikely solution to what the future of education holds, argue 麻豆原创鈥檚 Nick Wasserman, Nathan Holbert and Paulo Blikstein in a .
Indeed, the three argue, online instruction in its current state too often simply replicates a deeply flawed status quo.
鈥淲e do education a great disservice when we describe it as only about memorizing or using facts,鈥� the 麻豆原创 faculty write in response to growing calls to expand remote learning in lieu of traditional schooling when the pandemic ends. 鈥淟earning certainly involves the mind, but also interactions between students, teacher and student, and learning spaces and tools鈥� for 鈥渄iverse, rich, and multimodal educational experiences.鈥�
Blikstein and Holbert 鈥� faculty in 麻豆原创鈥檚 Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design program 鈥� and Wasserman, of 麻豆原创鈥檚 Mathematics Education program, outline five key reasons as to why online learning in its current form is not a universal solution to traditional education鈥檚 challenges, like cost, inclusivity, ingenuity and more.
Their five core points include:
- School鈥檚 value lies in a collection of experiences often deeply intertwined with building social relationships.
- Knowledge is more than a 鈥渢ransmission鈥� of information, but is rather 鈥渃onstructed when we bring our prior understanding in interaction with new ideas, experiences, and environments.鈥�
- 鈥淥nline learning is neither cheaper nor easier than in-person instruction鈥� according to research, and high-quality online learning requires even more investment.
- The presence of technology alone does not make learning more engaging or effective, writes the group. Lectures are still lectures; traditional textbooks on an iPad are still just textbooks. 鈥淣ew and emerging technologies can instead be used to tweak or enhance existing structures and systems in ways that leverage their particular educational affordances.鈥�
- 鈥淭echnology use does not placate issues of equity in education. In fact, it can make them worse by outsourcing many of the costs of education to families,鈥� write the group, citing concerns related to economic inequality, the digital divide and proper accommodations for students with learning disabilities.