In her excellent memoir Rethinking Normal, Katie Rain Hill describes her experience with online learning:
I’d click on one tab, and a bunch of modules for that subject would pop up. I’d click on ‘Section One,’ and there would be a recorded lecture or PBS documentary or article to read with some notes on the bottom. The next link would contain examples of questions and answers. The next link: more examples. The next link: a multiple-choice quiz. I’d have thirty timed minutes to take the quiz. ‘Congratulations! You got 100 out of 100.’ Move on to section two. It felt like the sections never ended.
This description rings true with many examples of online classrooms I have worked with in the past. Even though the concept of online education is considered innovative, it can simply be a replica of the “stand and deliver” type of instruction that dominated traditional classrooms for decades.
Continue reading “How online education can find a path forward”