A Year On: Why Online Learning is More Painful Than Initially Thought
From the rapid increase of screen time to the decrease in well being, a year on, we should be able to paint a clear yet painful picture of online learning (or remote learning). No doubt, efforts to mitigate the impact caused by the closure of educational institutions (from pre-schools to universities) have been tremendous. But at the macro level, we are perhaps witnessing the most apparent “heightened hatred” towards online learning in decades. If we “listen” carefully, educators and students alike are now showing their frustrations (if not anger) of not being able to teach or learn “normally”. More than 365 days have passed, are we still trying to hide from the fact that we are not doing enough for online learning to flex its wonders?
The Fallacy of “New Normal”
They say it’s ‘new normal,’ but they don’t mean it ~ Ben Kritz
The “New Normal” buzzword was tossed around quite rampantly and casually during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to kind of convince ourselves that we need to learn to live with the virus and lead a “new way” of living. It was pretty convincing at first, but gradually things aren’t that “new” after all. In the education sector, for example, old “measures” are coated with the “new normal” branding, hoping to show that things are moving on well. In fact, a lot of policies remains unchanged.
Educators are doing their very best to teach although it means they need to learn new skills fast. Some just couldn’t keep up and are satisfied with doing the bare minimum. Learning contents are also flooding various platforms and more ed-tech tools are being introduced to address diverse problems in online learning. Despite all these, if we look closely, we’ll realise that the system simply is not prepared to move this fast and the “old ways” are just too comfortable to be changed or removed.
One good example would be how teachers are expected to cope with unnecessary manual reporting (from student attendance to listing of teaching activities done) that could have been replaced with a better mechanism (e.g. learning analytics within the learning management system) in light of this “new normal”. There’s also the old way of doing scheduling with 3–5 hours of screen time daily. And then there’s still the obsession with summative assessments as the hallmark of education, but the coordination seems to differ at various administrative levels.
The system is also not ready to cope with the demand of better infrastructure. A year on, issues of connectivity, network speed, accessibility particularly in rural and remote areas are still prevalent. Those without access to the Internet put their hope and faith on teachers who are willing to go the extra mile (literally) and rise to the occasion to assist them. Some are just “left unattended to” and be part of the “drop-out” statistics . If the “new normal” is to be embraced, then these issues should be given priority.
The notable “new normal” would probably be the routine of staring at the screen for long hours, doing most of the tasks physically alone at home and talking to oneself more than usual. For students, it’s getting easier to skip classes, to cheat, and even pretend that they understood when they did not (just to save themselves from the torture of staring at the screen even longer). Many are voicing out about online learning mainly because they value in-person teaching for their holistic development (Scott et al., 2021) and online learning was supposed to be “temporary”. After all, most experts would agree that hybrid or blended learning is in fact the future of education.
The Craze of “New Technologies”
Educational technology has never been intended to replace in-person learning. It’s best when it supplements it ~ Brian Galvin
A year on, online learning seems to be shadowed by the constant craze of “new technologies” as the enabler of the “new normal” in education. Tools after tools are introduced to allow educators to ease their burden in producing learning content or ensure effective delivery of online classes.
But as pointed out by Dhawan (2020), there is a lack of standards for quality, quality control, development of e-resources, and e-content delivery. A lot of time and cost is involved but the coordination was not well-executed. It even sparks huge debate among parents as to how online learning should be implemented. Our own research has also pointed how teachers despite having pedagogical knowledge and skills in integrating technology, they struggle to cope with the expectations from the administrative departments.
Students, on the other hand, are showered with tools that most of them are unfamiliar with especially those in schools. The disparity between urban and rural school students is not to be taken lightly, if indeed “online learning” is here to stay.
The Absence of “New Empathy”
Empathy is overrated. Empathy is full of assumptions, presumptions, and biases. I can be empathetic and still maintain a power imbalance. Trust is the new empathy~Despina Papadopoulos
A year on, the word “empathy” is widely used to correlate with well-being. We are constantly told to empathize more as everyone is struggling during this pandemic. But I like how Despina raised the notion that ‘Empathy is one-sided — trust is transactional”. He reiterated that “trust is earned by one person from another, and that relationship demands agency, freedom, reason, emotion, and, of course, time”. It seems like though the call to empathize educators and students is louder than ever, they were not given enough “trust”.
This absence of trust can be seen at many levels. School teachers, for example, are susceptible to the perception that they are “not teaching enough”, or university lecturers are being labelled as “lazy” for teaching only an hour online (from the usual 3-hour in-person session). Students have to cope with different sets of rules and expectations so that they are marked as “trustable”.
These trust issues are hurting online learning in a way that everything conducted online seems receptive to fraud or academic dishonesty. It adds unnecessary pressures and stress to an already difficult time (Moawad, 2020).
The Painful Truth
Yes, there are silver linings as well, but they are getting thinner as we enter the second full year of online learning. Thankfully, more educators are willing to help each other and parents are getting more involved than before. While we do see some positive effects of online learning, most of these benefits are rather temporary.
The situation may not get easier as we hope for, but we are getting stronger and more resilient. In the case of online learning, educators didn’t fail, students didn’t fail, the current “system” is just not coping fast enough, perhaps too comfortable in its newly-found diversion of the “new normal”.
Painful, painful indeed.
Further Readings
Chuah, K. M., & Mohamad, F. S. (2020). Emergency Remote Teaching Scenarios, Struggles and Soundboxes: A Case Study on Malaysian Teachers. IxD&A, 46, 13–28. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348352195_Emergency_Remote_Teaching_Scenarios_Struggles_and_Soundboxes_A_Case_Study_on_Malaysian_Teachers
Dhawan, S. (2020). Online learning: A panacea in the time of COVID-19 crisis. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 49(1), 5–22. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0047239520934018
Moawad, R. A. (2020). Online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and academic stress in university students. Revista Românească pentru Educaţie Multidimensională, 12(1 Sup2), 100–107. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=859384
Papadopoulos, D. (2018). Trust is the new empathy. https://qz.com/1205045/trust-is-the-new-empathy/
Scott, S. R., Rivera, K. M., Rushing, E., Manczak, E. M., Rozek, C. S., & Doom, J. R. (2021). “I Hate This”: A Qualitative Analysis of Adolescents’ Self-Reported Challenges During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(2), 262–269. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33288454/
