ACCESS Contemporary Issues in Education · 2020 · 49 citations · 2 references
EducationEducational TechnologyHigher EducationE-learningOnline Higher EducationOnline TeachingDistance LearningOnline InstructionOnline LearningVirtual ClassroomsOnline Learning EnvironmentsOnline Pedagogy
Universities were slow to adopt online teaching, but the COVID‑19 crisis forced a rapid, largely unprepared shift that challenged the conventional belief that face‑to‑face learning is superior and highlighted the need for radical transformation of in‑person education. The study aims to investigate and develop online learning solutions that could transform higher education by moving beyond traditional classroom‑reverse engineered technologies. Researchers at the University of Illinois conduct experimental development and testing of online learning platforms, deliberately abandoning existing educational technologies to create more effective digital learning environments.
Universities and colleges have dragged their feet making the move to online teaching and learning. Suddenly, with this COVID-19 crisis, everyone had to move online. Few universities or colleges are prepared for such a rapid shift. Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom remains - the gold-standard for learning is traditional face-to-face, while online is second-best. But perhaps, even without COVID-19, in-person learning is ripe for radical transformation. At the University of Illinois, we’ve been researching this transformation, and developing and testing online learning solutions. Simply put, online can be completely different, and with the right tools, potentially much superior to in-person teaching. To reap the benefits of online learning, we need to abandon the current generation educational technologies—systems and processes that mostly do little more than reverse-engineer traditional classrooms.
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