Teachers vs. eLearning: Is it either/or?

With the pandemic (hopefully) at its peak, many regions are looking to the future and trying to discern what school will look like next year. There has been talk about whether this pandemic will be the kickstart that e-learning needs to become part of mainstream education. CBC posted an article regarding the forced opportunity that this pandemic has offered e-learning, both as a usable platform and as a time of critique for the platform by educators who would not otherwise use it.

This time of critique is, in my opinion, one of the major elements of e-learning's progress that has been lacking. E-learning has been promoted largely by private educational companies or private schools focused specifically on the platform. This has led to a number of claims regarding effectiveness of techniques and strategies that, while backed by statistics, questionable in their interpretation or based on a small scope of observations. Meanwhile, the backlash against larger public applications has been quick and severe in most cases; questions of larger effectiveness, the effects of socio-economic pressures, and the overall value of large-scale change have limited the usage of these technologies.

11 years ago, I was a young teacher who saw technology as a way to reach students. This was at a time when education tech was still unique enough that utilizing a projector, Microsoft Office products, and Youtube on a regular basis earned you "hip teacher" points and set you apart from the older teachers who insisted on pulling the squeaky cart with the VCR to class. I set up a homework blog on Wordpress for my students to check, and I answered emails after class hours. A couple years later, I moved to Moodle for all of my assignment submission and as a way for students to access resources after school. Many of the students had their own laptops in class, but not all, and they were not needed for class activities.

Five years ago, my principal asked me to pilot a collaborative-education model which involved renovating my classroom to include grouping-tables with their individual television and getting a class set of Chromebooks to utilize. We moved as much work as possible online, implemented Google Classroom for our junior high students and kept Moodle for our senior students, and refocused the curriculum to teach it primarily through group collaborative activities. We "flipped the classroom", implemented problem-based learning activities, had students teaching students - every one of the package of buzzwords were attempted.

Five years later, there are many of the elements of this form of learning that we've maintained. Students are online throughout the class time, and the usage of Google Class and Moodle have been consistent. We still utilize the mentioned learning strategies, but not all the time. My eleventh grade Ancient History class is completely flipped - I give little direct teaching, and most learning comes from student research and presentation. In a number of my language arts classes, the collaborative elements of peer-editing, shared work, online group document creation, and other activities available to students through Google Suite make up a large portion of the learning activities. This year, we have moved from standard spelling tests to using Vocabulary.com, which has been an efficient and effective move for our vocabulary learners (though its ability to teach spelling-specific skills is limited).

I personally cannot imagine teaching without e-learning being a part of my lessons. However, I have been able to critique e-learning in my personal use over the past 10 years. There are elements of it that I have kept such as the LMS's and digital submission expectations; however, I realized that marking online takes longer than marking paper submissions, so larger papers must be printed for marking as well. I really like flipped-classroom teaching, but it becomes less efficient when implemented with younger students. Group notation on Google Docs is a wonderful tool, but it demands awareness of group member dynamics and increased policing to ensure that it is being used responsibly. Collaborative learning is great, but assessments of the individual students are still needed to ensure that those less comfortable in group settings are still benefiting from this learning.

The idea that a set of technologies will completely change the entire scope of education is, in my opinion, a logical implausibility. E-learning is part of the future of education, but so are teacher-directed classrooms. Online testing is definitely going to play a larger role going forward, but so also will soft-skill assessments that need to be completed in person. E-learning is a great tool that can extend the abilities of teachers, bring new resources to students, and offer greater mobility and flexibility to all those involved. It can give many new, exciting opportunities to students and educators. However, it will have weaknesses. And these weaknesses are not fatal flaws, but they are what teachers need to overcome.

This is where teacher-focus needs to change, specifically in regard to online learning opportunities. Implementing hybrid (online and in-class) classrooms is an effective way to utilize online learning in a way that stretches beyond what you as an educator could easily achieve without it. You could always pull out the butcher paper and have a group of students get their crayons out and draw a plot outline of the novel you're reading; or, you could get them open Google Slides and have them make a slide show to the same outcome that they can present to the class or post in their online classroom as a more effective resource by including links to videos, graphics, or audio. With that being said, there will still be times where the butcher paper and crayons will be the most effective tool. My most used tool in my classroom is the small whiteboards I have at each table for groups to work on - low-tech, but very effective if used properly and consistently. All this to say, online learning platforms are great tools, but they still demand a teacher who is attuned to their students' needs and learning personalities to be effectively.

When I transitioned this year to fully-online learning, I was well prepared because much of my content and planning was already online. However, I've also realized how necessary my classroom time is to the overall effectiveness of my classes. I've had to use Zoom or create video tutorials to fill in learning gaps in the online curriculum. I've also benefited from having a previous understanding of my students from knowing them personally. I know their learning needs, tendencies, personalities, and have built rapport with many of their families; this allows me to know what activities will be more (or less) effective for specific students based on their needs and situation.

I know a lot of teachers are looking forward to getting back to the regular routine of classroom teaching. Truthfully, I am also looking forward to classroom teaching again. In many ways, it is the easiest, and most comfortable, method of teaching for most educators. However, the idea that this mean we shouldn't be using e-learning resources and skills that we are gaining expertise in once we return to the classroom is as flawed as the belief that e-learning will replace the teacher. Over the next weeks, I will be looking at many of the online resources being used during this time and discussing the ways that they can be used to improve the learning experience of students when we do return to our classrooms.