Remote Learning

Colin Beckingham | Feb 10, 2021

As Ontario gently and gingerly tries to restart the engine of the economy and the schools open for business one of the questions likely to be asked will relate to the effectiveness of remote learning.

My own experience with remote learning was as a student and later volunteer community teaching assistant for the machine learning online courses offered by the MOOC Coursera about 8 years ago. At the time the concept was new; we were learning as we went along. As a CTA I saw the range of abilities from totally independent successful students to those who needed frequent prompting and finally were not happy until they were given the answers for no work. Clearly for some students who had the independence of thought, prior preparation and sense of individual responsibility the path to success was clear; and in this case many of the students were mature enough to benefit enormously.

It is no wonder that younger students will have a harder time coping.

They are still exploring their place in the world and community, launching experiments and making mistakes. The guidance, and in many cases presence, of teachers is essential; they demonstrate by their example and behaviour the goal of individual worth and responsibility.

The "forest for the trees" effect suggests that those closest to a problem are the least able to assess the value of their contribution. In this way teachers are the least able to evaluate their efforts during the lockdown and letter writers to the local newspaper are least able to evaluate the worth of their opinion. Those best able to assess both are the fair, impartial and unbiased readers of the newspaper who, in their mature and solid consideration, in the aggregate may either declare their viewpoint or adjust their behaviour accordingly.

For me as a non-parent, my connection to the public school system is a matter of hearsay and rumour. During the lockdowns the activities of the teaching profession have been like a closed box. No doubt they were active doing something, but what? As the lockdown fog clears, perhaps one of the issues to arise will be better communications with the outside world from the dark recesses of education.

Colin Beckingham