This month, I've been investigating the ways in which online learning has "disrupted" the education industry. Considering the wide variety of different types of online schooling environments, the effects are also incredibly diverse. In some cases, online schooling has provided the opportunity to learn languages, gain recovery credits, or take advanced courses where none were offered before. For students who have difficulties attending a physical school, for any number of reasons, the massive increase in online learning provides more choice, quality and camaraderie among peers than ever before.
However, the rapid increase of the field has also led to inconsistencies in quality and results. Research from the National Education Policy Standard (Miron and Urschel, June 2012) indicates that a large number of students in online schooling programs are not being educated up to state and federal standards. In the past six years since this report, various companies have addressed cries for more interactivity between students, higher qualifications required for instructors and more opportunities for hands-on and real-time experiences. There is still a need for more research on the subject, particularly research that can be published quickly enough to impact decisions in this rapidly growing field!
Through a SAMR Lens
The SAMR model developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura provides an interesting perspective on how the online schooling trend is changing the way that students learn. SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition) asks educators to examine how their technology is being used from pedagogical, functional, and mental perspectives. The purpose is to help teachers recognize how much the technology is truly transforming their lessons, or if it's simply "digitizing the status quo" (Meier, 2016).
Depending on the actual activities that teachers are asking students to do through online schooling, the educational environment -- although fully digital -- might still seem more like a substitution rather than an innovation or disruption. If students are reading articles and viewing images through an online portal without functional web-tools or augmenters, it doesn't fundamentally change the way in which they are learning. However, if students are able to collaborate through asynchronous communication to summarize knowledge through a multimedia presentation, it provides an entirely new redefinition of the educational activity using technology. To improve our online schools and the way students learn, we should encourage educators to truly transform their lessons with technology. Easier said than done -- which is why professional development and teacher education are so vital!
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