Silver linings for learning in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic

The past few years have tested the resolve and the resilience of education systems, as well as our own skills and competencies as educators. The COVID-19 pandemic which led to widespread closures of education systems globally left more than a billion children and youth out of school, and with educators and education systems ill-equipped and unsure about how to continue teaching and supporting learning. Reports of the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic posed, and our efforts with mitigating its effects which are only just emerging, reveal startling findings (see JISC, 2022-23).

While this has been a traumatic time for all of us, adversity or a challenge as we know, is also a powerful source for inspiration, innovation and enterprise. For example, when it became clear that conventional education systems could not possibly be deployed in remote and sparsely populated regions of countries such as Australia, the idea of a School of the Air was born (Ashton, 1978; Lopes, O’Donoghue, & O’Neill, 2011). Similarly, when it was obvious, as was the case in South Africa, that the disenfranchised and the incarcerated also needed access to educational opportunity, the University of South Africa stepped up to play a critical role (Welsh, 1975). And when a Labor government in the United Kingdom felt that the adults and the masses also needed to be upskilled so that they too could become productive members of society, it established the Open University of the United Kingdom to address that specific need and challenge (Perry, 1976; Weibren, 2015). These are only a few examples of our ingenuity and enterprise when faced with challenges, many of which remained, got broadened and transformed into mainstream processes.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented us with a similar opportunity, in serving as an incubator for innovation. When governments around the world, imposed limits on the physical movements of people to contain the spread of the virus, schools and colleges had to quickly improvise in order to continue providing their services. Educational institutions globally adopted an emergency response―such as one would see in the event of a natural disaster or calamity. This response got labelled as Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT), (see Hodges, et.al., 2020). A typical emergency response in the case of natural disasters such as floods, fires or earthquakes is a temporary measure and one that comes to an end when some degree of normalcy of conditions on the ground is achieved. No judgement is made on its rigor or robustness, and no comparison is made with more stable and permanent forms of service provision. But this was not the case with ERT, as despite being proposed as a temporary solution, it did get compared, and rather unfairly, with other forms of teaching and learning, especially online and distance education.

As an example, in the article “Emergency remote teaching in Nepali higher education institutions during COVID-19”, researchers Raj Baral, Laxman Bhatta, and Som Nath Ghimire report on their investigation of Nepali University students’ and teachers’ perceptions, and their experiences of ERT. This small-scale study demonstrates the power and potential for learning of online and distance education, especially in the event of a major crisis or disruption to core business models. While also exposing weaknesses in the resilience of Nepali education systems for a significant disruption to their core business model, it asks how has it been possible for entire education systems to be shut down only because of our inability to physically move from one place to another, and what ought to be done so that we are better prepared, not just for the worst, but also for the best of times.

This has been one of the many silver linings of our experience of the COVID-19 pandemic which has served as a useful incubator for experimentation with new educational technologies and their applications in both developed and developing contexts (see https://silverliningforlearning.org/), (Dede, Zhao, Mishra, & Bonk, 2021). Without this imperative, it is arguable that few would have ventured out and away from conventional educational practices, or taken the risks they took to continue to be of service. Another silver lining of this experience is our realization that online and distance education draws upon the same core educational principles, as suggested in the article “Universal design in online education: A systematic review” by Mohan Yang, Mohammad Shams Ud Duha, Breanne Kirsch, Noah Glaser, Helen Crompton, and Tian Luo. This systematic review of three major models of design principles is timely, and for several reasons. Foremost it demonstrates, that fundamentally all models of design principles―and there are more than these three (Merrill, 2002), are a lot more alike than not. It also reveals that one set of principles, or even one theoretical perspective that might be popular at a particular time, is not better than the other. From behaviorism to constructivism, there is a role in human learning and cognition for all theoretical perspectives. Then there is also the realization that online and distance learning, despite being a significantly different model from the campus-based experience, does not need the invention of another set of design principles. What we know about human learning and cognition works just as well for online and distance education, as it does for any other kind of educational experience. Simply put, we do not need to reinvent the wheel for online and distance learning.

A further silver lining of our experience with the pandemic is the realization that at the heart of all educational design models has to be learning engagement. We can all agree that learning engagement is a desirable goal of learning under all circumstances, and it manifests itself in a range of ways as learners interact and engage with each other and participate in their learning experience. Learning engagement refers to the time and effort learners devote to their learning activities and experiences and it comprises, behavioral, cognitive and emotional parameters. Learning engagement is the one uncontested principle of human learning―in fact it is suggested that learning engagement is a strong predictor of learning outcomes.

The relationship between learning engagement and learning outcomes is the focus of the article “The relationship between learning engagement and learning outcomes in online learning in higher education: A meta-analysis study” by Min Young Doo and Jungwon Kim. This article presents a meta-analysis of the relationship between learning engagement and learning outcomes specifically in online learning in higher education. Effect sizes from these studies spanning over a decade reveal a small to medium effect. However, this is not to suggest that learning engagement is not a reliable or a weak predictor of learning outcomes and their achievement. What I think these effect sizes are suggesting is that the relationship between learning engagement and learning outcomes is dependent upon how learning engagement is designed, developed and executed in the teaching and learning transaction. This is especially important in the context of online and distance learning where the learning and teaching transaction is technologically mediated rather than in person.

The dynamics of learners’ engagement or disengagement with their online learning experience is further explored in the article “The effectiveness of nudging key learning resources to support online engagement in higher education courses” by Alice Brown, Jill Lawrence, Megan Axelsen, Petrea Redmond, Joanna Turner, Suzanne Maloney and Linda Galligan. In this article, these investigators explore the effectiveness of nudging in increasing learning engagement in online learning, especially in the higher education context. As our access to data of learning analytics improves with increasing adoption of technology in the educational space, it is becoming a lot easier to identify who needs a nudge, and when to provide it, which is what these researchers did. It is arguable that if learning engagement is not designed as part of the student learning experience and not carefully orchestrated, chances are that students are unlikely to engage, regardless of any kind of nudging. Learning engagement must be a key focus of the design of the student learning experience, in order to make the expectations of learning engagement very clear to the student. Gathering analytics on this kind of proactively designed engagement activity will have a lot more powerful implications for the design of productive learning experiences and the achievement of intended learning outcomes.

There is plenty of very specific advice and guidelines on how this instructional goal can be achieved in the article “Universal design in online education: A systematic review” by Mohan Yang, Mohammad Shams Ud Duha, Breanne Kirsch, Noah Glaser, Helen Crompton, and Tian Luo. One great example of learning engagement design is presented in the article “Longitudinal changes of student engagement in social annotation” by Lijia Lin, Shan Li, Xiaoshan Huang, and Fu Chen. In this study these authors explored the use of a social annotation tool called Perusall to study students’ annotation behaviors, and as a result their learning engagement. This comprised a measure of their behavioral engagement (i.e., attendance, participation, and conduct), emotional engagement (i.e., reactions to peers, teachers, and schools), cognitive engagement (i.e., invested effort for comprehension), and social engagement (i.e., social interactions in academic contexts). Analytics of this kind is a lot more useful not only in the design of such instructional tools and strategies but also in the design of more engaging and productive learning experiences for students.

One of the arguments in favor of the campus-based teaching experience is that it is best able to support learning engagement with learning activities that have to be carried out in situ―in laboratories, workshops and other clinical settings with access to large, complex and expensive instruments―and which in some cases can be hazardous as well. The pandemic however put an end to that kind of argumentation with no option but to deploy creativity in the adoption of online technologies in the conduct of these so-called difficult bits of the learning and teaching transaction. One such difficult bit is laboratory-based learning and teaching activities. In the article “Online physics laboratory course: United Kingdom Professional Standards Framework perspective from Walailak University, Thailand”, investigators Punsiri Dam-O, Yaowarat Sirisathitkul, Thammarong Eadkhong, Suthon Srivaro, Chitnarong Sirisathitkul and Sorasak Danworaphong describe the design, development and implementation of a physics laboratory course in response to the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The silver lining for learning from this experience is that simply moving online what was being done in situ before is not going to work so well―and that a rethink and reimagination of how a laboratory-based learning activity would work online was required. The experience of these practitioners revealed not only the weaknesses in the veracity of existing modus operandi, especially in the event of a major disruption, but the power of leveraging the affordances of technology for promoting flexibility and building resilience in education systems.

Another example of such innovation and creativity is presented in the article “Leveraging technology for animal anatomy practicals” by Suresh Krishnasamy and Edward Narayan. This article reports on an attempt by these researchers to adopt the use of a cloud-based learning platform to address the challenges posed by COVID-19 to the teaching of animal anatomy practicals. The silver lining in this experience is not only the realization that effective learning outcomes can be achieved with technology mediated instruction, but also that there could be lessons in it for similar areas such as animal physiology, medical endocrinology, and veterinary science courses which have been generally averse to any form of technology mediation in its teaching and learning transactions.

The role of the human tutor and teacher in the promotion of learning engagement cannot be neglected. The tutor/teacher has a crucial role to play in the orchestration of learning engagement. The article “Understanding the role of online teaching assistants in student engagement” by Sara Tuiloma and Charles Graham shows us how this might work, and especially in circumstances where the learning and teaching transaction is technology mediated. The silver lining for learning in this piece of research is not simply the role and potential of online teaching assistants for learning engagement, but what kind of preparation and professional development teaching assistants need to be effective and efficient in this role. The same can be said in relation to the role of teachers and academic team leaders, as is suggested in the article “Developing a distance-based doctoral supervisory model: Inquiry over disrupted trajectories”, by Grace Yue Qi, Gillian Skyrme, and Cynthia White. In this article, these researchers report on their experience with keeping doctoral students engaged with their learning experience in the face of disruptions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The silver lining for learning in this experience is not so much the agency of both the doctoral students and their supervisors, but more importantly what the education institutions ought to be doing to support and strengthen this kind of agency with the goal of supporting mobility―or indeed immobility as these authors suggest, in the post-pandemic era.

In sum, it is worth reminding ourselves that the promotion of learning engagement is not simply about being learner or student centered―as is often suggested that it should be―it is being about a lot more than that. Of course, learning engagement requires being learner or student centered―that is uncontested. The learner/student is always the target of any educational transaction, even it is a straightforward lecture―so we are learner or student centered always. What is more useful to think about―is being learning centered, as being learning centered is about paying attention to students’ learning experience. Learning engagement is an outcome of being learning centered. When students’ expectations for learning engagement are made clear to them by careful design of the learning activities that they must carry out as an integral part of their learning experience, learning engagement is not only optimized but assured. Enjoy!