Posted on Tue 16 Jun 2020 at 12:17 by
Jeffrey Thompson G'day All (in my best Australian accent). I have been feeling very thoughtful recently, please do read the below:
COVID 19, who would have thought the mutation of a single molecule round the other side of the world has changed learning at every level, virtually overnight. Universities and schools are necessarily redesigning their education and learning to provide for students of all ages to operate at home. While this proposes enormous practical issues, it also examines some of our cultural and academic opinions about what learning can and should resemble. There may be longer-term policy implications if we can reflect appropriately on the lessons to be discovered from the educational world’s reply to the pandemic.
The nature of that answer has varied across the educational sector. University campuses are empty as teaching and assessment have moved online.
The first notable change that we have seen then is that the place-based nature of learning has been tested. although too early to gauge the success of online, distance or remote education, necessity has undoubtedly been the mother of invention and produced a new range of online resources.
The effort that academics have put into this work over the last few weeks should not be undervalued: typically rewriting education and learning materials is something that takes months and follows precise planning.
Has it been successful? Several providers are addressing this in different ways, with some developing online tests and assessments.
More basically than where people study and how they are judged, we might turn to the question of precisely what learning is. What is education for? What is essential in education? And how then should it be organised? There is data that as well as setting necessary subject-based work for learners at home, the best institutions are also examining broader aspects of education and thinking about how students build relationships.
This provides a fun challenge to the false dichotomy between a knowledge-based curriculum and what is frequently termed progressive education.
The skill of the teacher is in determining how best to sequence studying to build knowledge and understanding, but at the same time creating this within an atmosphere that nourishes the acquisition of abilities and the growth of strong beliefs and relationships. This is why the best educators have forever drawn on a variety of tools, from experiments to repeated skills improvement, through discussion and debate, to didactic education from the front. This last method is the one that is easiest to replicate online, but it is clearly not enough for education in its widest sense, neither does it necessarily meet the needs of all learners. Moving learning out of the normal area is forcing us to think about what is essential in education.
Perhaps it will take a pandemic to improve our focus. Maybe imposed lockdown will help us to create a new standard in which students don’t have to fit into a classroom for hours a day. There’s also a chance that we’ll join in a new public discussion about the significance and meaning of education. At times like this, we have to be optimistic.
Hope that provokes a few thoughts, remember your school reps ARE STILL HERE for you, please do come forward with any concerns or even praise!
Check out our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Wolves-SU-School-Reps-114731500245853/
As always please feel free to contact me at jeffrey.thompson@wlv.ac.uk
And keep an eye on the universities COVID 19 page: https://www.wlv.ac.uk/news-and-events/coronavirus/
To end, a dad joke :-)
I used to work in a shoe recycling shop. It was sole destroying.
Take care and stay safe