The New Normal: Challenges and Opportunities in Virtual and Asynchronous Learning
I saw the phrase “the new normal” applied to online and asynchronous learning in an educational post recently. It gave me pause to reflect. Certainly, in response to a pandemic, online and hybrid learning have become essential. The implementation of best practices in teaching is vital in this new environment. So, what is the new normal? Have best practices changed? Are there new practices that should require our immediate attention? Are our best practices still paramount but require adjustment to a new and morphing environment? This becomes the question of the hour. What is essential for effective teaching and learning in our evolving environment?
In some ways, we might argue that nothing is changed. The best practices are after all “best.” We must actively engage students. We must access the most effective tools at our disposal to address student learning modalities. We must assess and gather formative data to inform our decisions and modify our instruction. We must seek to identify student interests, strengths, and needs to plan effective instruction. In short, extraordinarily little has changed in what we need to do. These have always been our priorities. They still are our priorities.
What has changed are the environmental conditions in which we address these priorities. These conditions provide both hurdles and opportunities for educators. We must employ more visual media in our instruction. This challenges our traditional textual and verbal approach to content delivery. This also provides the unique opportunity to address visual and auditory media to enhance content delivery and student learning. We cannot group students at physical tables and use traditional strategies for student-to-student interaction. We can use new grouping technology to flexibly group students; technology that is not dependent on physical space or the concomitant time allocations associated with the transition to different groupings. Our grouping preferences can either be almost instantaneous with the proper preparation and technological understanding, or our grouping practices can be limited by our access and understanding of the virtual platform. Challenge and opportunity are the tensions that define the new normal.
So, let us examine those challenges and opportunities. Harvard University states at their “Teach Remotely” website that the basics remain the same. “Content, pedagogy and assessment.” Planning and consideration of these three factors remain unchanged and must be addressed either in a virtual or physical environment. What has changed are the delivery systems. Some will limit in-person contact and some will facilitate new ways of content delivery and interaction.
Again, from the Harvard University site, you will be able to increase learner engagement in an online environment by
Identifying learners' questions about the material
Using polls and other interactive technologies to get a sense of students' experience, comprehension, and reactions ("reading the room")
Inviting specific students' answers (cold calling)
Opening the floor to a general discussion of questions
Having students engage in small "buzz group" conversations via breakout rooms.
Creating opportunities for synchronous or asynchronous student collaboration via tools like Google Docs, Miro, etc.
Traditional use of engagement strategies is necessarily limited to a physical space, yet online learning provides opportunities for new and robust ways of engaging students.
Stanford University provides the following suggestions that will improve best practice concerning student engagement.
Divide a larger class into small groups of four to six, like a study group, that students can depend on for supportive networking or mentoring, including help in identifying resources or clarifying key points of a class assignment
Set up problem-solving forums or discussion boards and assign students or student teams to monitor and support direct questions.
A learning community works better when a variety of activities and experiences is offered. Online courses can be more enjoyable and effective when students can brainstorm and work through concepts and assignments with one or two or more fellow students. Of course, some students work and learn best on their own. Building in options and opportunities for students to work together and individually is highly recommended.
Sometimes there is nothing better than a real-time interactive brainstorming and sharing discussion; at other times, the requirement to think, plan, write, and reflect is what makes learning most effective for an individual. The variety of activities now possible online makes it easy to create many types of effective learning environments.
Prepare discussion posts that invite responses, questions, discussions, and reflections.
These are a few of the considerations suggested by Stanford. Consideration of student-student and teacher-student interactions are critical in providing an effective learning environment. The online classroom provides unique and effective settings for allowing students to work in pairs and small groups. Students can easily use multiple modes of communication such as chat, discussions, presentations, and brainstorming. The elegance of this is that requires little transition time in a virtual setting to employ these strategies once the students have been properly introduced to them.
To begin addressing student-student interactions, consider some of the following techniques.
Think-pair-share: This strategy requires students to think individually about a posed question or problem, talk to their peers about it, and then report their findings to the whole group. Chat rooms and discussion groups are easily organized in virtual settings to facilitate this.
Concept tests: Using response technology, students respond to multiple-choice questions and the results are posted for further discussion. All students respond and the responses are anonymously reported. The responses, including the correct response, are then examined and discussed by students who explicate their own thinking and ideas. Such things are easily accomplished in Google Classroom quick polls or Google Doc opinion surveys give you rich responses from which to assess and engage students in the content.
Cooperative learning techniques such as jigsaws can increase engagement and student-student interaction. Students independently master a predetermined set of content assigned by the teacher. These content area students are organized into groups of students with different sets of related content to master. The different expert group students then report out to the general group and thoroughly examine the overall import and implications of the assigned content in relationship to the other students’ responses in the general group. This can be done physically or virtually.
The important thing to ponder is that learning and engagement are active. They will not occur if a student is asked to passively watch a video, take notes from PowerPoint slides, or listen to lectures in the content area. The student must do something. This is the unchanging requirement. Student-student and teacher-student interactions can occur in physical or virtual environments. One need only access the correct tools to make that happen.
Another important non-negotiable criterion for effective teaching is asking the right questions. “Dynamic instruction hinges on asking the right kinds of questions. It also involves directing students’ activities in ways that engage them and make them purposeful.” (Forlini, Williams, Brinkman. 2016. Class Acts. Lavender Hills Press: Bronxville, NY).
Educators in online coursework must examine their questioning and tasks to ensure that they require all students to respond and all students to actively engage with the content to develop a response. This is not dependent on physical or remote learning environments. This is dependent on educators thoughtfully applying content and pedagogy to design questions and tasks that promote active student response and interaction with the content. Digital technology provides both opportunities and challenges to do so. Again, one must learn to use the digital tools that facilitate student-student and teacher-student interactions. Once those are mastered, questions and tasks should be carefully planned to ensure active engagement at varying levels of depth and complexity.
Finally, consider your personal interactions with students. As an evaluator, I have witnessed many interesting ways of starting an online class session. Some classes begin with a splash screen that has an auditory school bell, then immediately goes into a roll call and content discussion. Other classrooms begin with the teacher visible prior to the presentation. As students log in, the teacher greets them, asks questions about their day or family, and provides an inviting, personal start to the period. Make your openings deliberate and inviting. Convey positivity. Do so during and at the close of classroom sessions. Virtual learning does not require emotional distance. It does require planning to create connections and relationships.
Consider your backdrop, appearance, and eye contact. While we cannot look students in the eye, we can create and position our cameras, body, and lighting to maximize the perception of eye-to-eye contact. When you are addressing the students, does the visual presentation appear as if you are looking at them? If you are looking to the side at a second screen, the visual connotation can communicate detachment and lack of caring. Do everything you can to maximize personal contact and an atmosphere of inviting a student to learn.
What does your backdrop look like? Is it your kitchen with knives and utensils hanging on the wall? Scary! Is it a representation of a virtual classroom? Better! Does it reflect the content of the day? Nice! Interpersonal skills and communication matter more in a virtual setting because the many visual and personal cues we receive from in-person interaction are missing. Carefully consider the affective aspects of your classroom to optimize for an inviting and caring environment.
I hope I have illustrated that virtual, asynchronous, and in-person learning all require certain universal non-negotiables to be observed. Students must be actively engaged in the content. That does not change in any of the environments in which we instruct. Student-student and teacher-student interactions must be carefully considered and be a large part of instructional planning. Thoughtful questioning and tasks designed to promote engagement and interaction with the content are essential. Presentation matters. A presentation in front of a chalkboard is infinitely worse in a virtual setting. Use the strengths of the platform’s visual and auditory capacity to maximize student interest. Interpersonal considerations are essential and creating an inviting environment always matters, virtually or physically.
Digital formatting provides both obstacles and opportunities to enhance student learning. We need to consider what obstacles exist that we need to address while simultaneously looking at the opportunities provided to enhance learning. Both exist in our new reality. We can maximize our effectiveness, continue to improve our practice and provide students optimal opportunities to learn with thoughtful application and understanding of what is best for our students. Virtual and asynchronous learning is here to stay. This genie is out of the bottle. We have no choice but to embrace and look for the opportunities provided by it to maximize student learning. It is our new normal.