When I think of “online teaching and learning”, I think of a structured educational experience conducted primarily or entirely through digital platforms including lectures, discussions, assignments and assessments that are delivered digitally.
The format can be synchronous or asynchronous and it can be through LMS, video conferencing and interactive multimedia.

The difference between “Emergency Remote learning” vs. More traditional Online
teaching and learning formats.

The shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted for me the distinction between emergency remote teaching and traditional online teaching. The first characteristic of the emergency remote learning was the clear lack of preparation as a consequence of the requirement of a rapid response to maintain continuity during the crisis. The focus was on a quick deployment of remote instruction without the typical planning and support structures of traditional online courses. Another unexpected outcome was that lack of training was evident since instructors were forced to record themselves giving a lecture, and when we watched such videos, it was clear that the teacher was struggling to keep the instruction going using a platform they were clearly not familiar with.
In addition, there were not enough student engagement strategies and communication between instructor and students was poor.

On the other hand online teaching is about leveraging technology to facilitate educational outcomes in a flexible and accessible manner. It involves thoughtful instructional design, clear communication, and robust support mechanisms for students to engage with content and each other, regardless of physical location. Based on my background and experience, Cyber Schools are good examples of organized online education because they are built to provide instruction based on technology and teachers are trained to conduct lectures with strategies to promote the acquisition of knowledge and promote engagements during live sessions.

When I decided to switch my kids from the emergency online instruction the school district was providing to a cyber school, I could clearly experience first hand the difference between emergency remote learning vs. more traditional online teaching and learning formats.

“Due to the threat of COVID19” is a phrase that stopped me in my tracks, made me dizzy from the speed at which my eyes sought the date of this article and then just for a moment allowed me to indulge in the nostalgia of what many people I know call the Before Times. Emergency Remote teaching will never be the same as what students experienced in the spring of 2020. The content that was offered bears no resemblance to a well-planned intentional remote teaching curriculunm, with ALL due respect to anyone who taught through it. From the experience of the students in my home, teachers had little to no chance of success in the K-12 environment when they found themselves competing for the attention of students who suddenly had all the distractions of the internet at their fingertips on school-issued Chromebooks, the same students who weeks earlier might have had their personal cell phones confiscated if used in class. Online learning has emerged from it’s ‘lesser than’ status, become more mainstream and strengthened it’s core principles since COVID19. As many more educators have been exposed to online learning concepts either through continuing education or professional development, the word emergency can shift from the panic and danger connotation to the gentler arising from need.

Since I have not had the opportunity to teach online yet I will post from an online learner’s perspective. In my work life in Marketing Technology, I have had the opportunity to experience extremely high quality online learning. It’s rare these days for companies to spend money to send their staff offsite for classroom learning when a recorded webinar or a guided third party learning path may achieve the same objective without seriously impacting work schedules. Even our instructor-led classes are online. All my company’s required HR classes are extremely engaging and well-produced, with professional production quality and interactive experiences that reinforce learning for multiple types of learners. Evaluations are built into the process as well. So, for me, the definition of online learning is participating in well-planned and well-orchestrated digital learning experiences, either synchronously or asynchronously, that utilize the same pedagogical principles used in classroom teaching but bring with them all the added benefits of technology, breadth of resources and connectedness.

During the Covid-19 Pandemic both of my children switched to Emergency Remote Learning. Because I work from home, I had the opportunity to observe their online classes as well as hear about their experiences with remote learning from their perspectives. Unfortunately, the default delivery mechanism tended to be Zoom lectures, and both of my kids were bored and unengaged, as well as consumed with feelings of isolation. As was stated in the article, carefully planned online teaching processes were absent in what my children were experiencing. Teachers were just trying to get the job done and were struggling to simply operate Zoom, let alone fold in any online experiences that were not part of their original course design.

So, my experience and perspective about online learning has not necessarily changed – I have always known how expansive and effective it could be. What has changed since Covid-19 is my perspective on school readiness for operating in an online environment during an emergency. Covid has taught us that we cannot take the status quo for granted. Teachers should be designing their classroom courses to include varied delivery methods; they should already be integrating digital online experiences into classroom teaching. Connectedness is key for active learning, whether students are sitting in the same classroom or on a Zoom call. We need to learn from the past and be open to new ways of working in the future.

I believe this encompasses the main idea of this text. No one is all knowing, there is so much to learn, but you have to be open to it. Metacognition…

I would know nothing bc I did not actually learn it, I just memorized it.

This phrase provoked me…as an educator to want to find ways in which I can create hands on and engaging lessons for my students that deepen their understanding, so that students have this automatic and fluent retrieval of information. I think this shows their thorough understanding on an area.

just a great framework for thinking about why I’m teaching what I’m teaching

This was one of my responses as well. I understand strictly grading on if students follow a method taught to get an answer like in math courses, however students may have alternative methods to solving different problems or have varying answers to situations, so how can there always be a clear right answer? and should there be? I feel as though this limits creativity and deeper level learning as students only focus on getting it right compared to truly understanding and being able to use that method in other contexts.

The organizational structure of note taking or graphic organizers, if correctly designed might help with this!

One could argue that experts are actually expert LEARNERS because of their ability to remember core concepts (big ideas), organize knowledge accordingly (into identifiable patterns), recognize when their knowledge and understanding are incomplete (metacognition), and locate and learn missing knowledge and understanding.

This is the call-to-action of this chapter.

This is the core concept of this chapter.

Is this what we mean by “life-time learner”?

This process of “self monitoring” would be worth tracking. The current “students monitoring their progress” goal of my school district is much shallower.

If we value innovation, then we must rethink most curricula.

What are the condition-action pairs in my curriculum? How can I teach this differently?

How do we assess inert versus active knowledge?

Heavy emphasis on math and language skills provided people born in the early twentieth century with an excellent education that equipped them for life, even if they only attended school up to eighth grade. What have we lost by introducing so many additional topics of study in lower grades?

Question: Is this a “Fish is fish” problem? When students know formulas but not principles, do they actually know the content?

Question: How can teachers teach students to see the forest AND the trees, or the big picture and the concepts that are component parts of it?

is neglected