Furthermore, the importance of hands-on, experiential learning has led to innovations such as virtual field trips and virtual labs 9. Synchronous online conferencing systems, such as Zoom and Google Meet, have allowed experts from anywhere in the world to join online classrooms 8 and have allowed presentations to be recorded for individual learners to watch at a time most convenient for them. The year 2020 has also seen increased availability and adoption of electronic resources and activities that can now be integrated into online learning experiences. For example, school buses have been used to provide mobile hotspots, and class packets have been sent by mail and instructional presentations aired on local public broadcasting stations. However, creative solutions have emerged to provide students and families with the facilities and resources needed to engage in and successfully complete coursework 7. Here, extensive problems remain, including the lack of Internet connectivity in some locations, especially rural ones, and the competing needs among family members for the use of home technology. Such early educational innovations laid the groundwork for contemporary virtual learning, which itself incorporates a variety of instructional approaches and combinations of delivery modes.įast forward to 2020, and various further educational innovations have occurred to make the universal adoption of remote learning a possibility. In other words, they considered what choices about the planning and implementation of the learning experience can lead to student success. These predecessors to contemporary online education leveraged key principles of instructional design - the systematic process of applying psychological principles of human learning to the creation of effective instructional solutions - to consider which methods (and their corresponding learning environments) would effectively engage students to attain the targeted learning outcomes. A personalized system of instruction was designed on the premise that initial engagement with content could be done independently, then discussed and applied in the social context of a classroom. Occasional class meetings were held to discuss concepts, answer questions and provide opportunities for social interaction. Then, in the 1960s, Fred Keller developed a personalized system of instruction 6, in which students first read assigned course materials on their own, followed by one-on-one assessment sessions with a tutor, gaining permission to move ahead only after demonstrating mastery of the instructional material. Skinner’s notions formed the first formalized representations of programmed learning, or ‘designed’ learning experiences. Skinner 5, who proposed using technology to walk individual learners through carefully designed sequences of instruction with immediate feedback indicating the accuracy of their response. Mechanical (and then later electronic) teaching machines have provided individualized learning programmes since the 1950s and the work of B. The use of varied delivery modes does, in fact, have a long history in education. ![]() In either case, instructors just had to figure out how to make it work, considering the affordances and constraints of the specific learning environment to create learning experiences that were feasible and effective. ![]() In other cases, instruction was offered using a combination of remote delivery and face-to-face: that is, students can attend online or in person (referred to as the HyFlex model 4). (The term ‘emergency remote teaching’ was coined in the early stages of the pandemic to describe the temporary nature of this transition 3.) In some cases, instruction shifted online, then returned to the physical classroom, and then shifted back online due to further surges in the rate of infection. However, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has required educators and students across all levels of education to adapt quickly to virtual courses. Online education has traditionally been viewed as an alternative pathway, one that is particularly well suited to adult learners seeking higher education opportunities.
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