Papua, one of Indonesia’s most rural provinces, struggled with online learning during the COVID-19 crisis. Interestingly, it may just be the right moment to invest in Papua’s education technology.
Community-run centres in regional and remote Australia are having positive impacts on students who were historically under-represented at university and at high risk of dropping out.
One parent of a child with physical disabilities said their child preferred online learning because ‘his physical disabilities aren’t a barrier to inclusion … ’
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If you think the ‘digital natives’ have better online search skills than their parents, you’d be wrong. But simply telling students what to do isn’t the best way to improve their skills.
T.J. Thomson, Queensland University of Technology; Glen Thomas, Queensland University of Technology, and Lesley Irvine, Queensland University of Technology
We live in a world of spoken, visual and written communication, but the third mode continues to dominate teaching and assessment in university communication courses.
A study of Australian students affected by COVID restrictions found the more adaptable ones had more confidence about online learning and made greater progress. So how can this skill be taught?
Pre-pandemic research about courses offered online and in-person found students took online courses selectively and strategically.
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Some promoters of educational technology see COVID-19 as a ‘tech reckoning’ for professors who refused to accept progress. But before the pandemic, many students also preferred in-person classes.
In a time of COVID-19 uncertainty, adopting hybrid learning for children will only stress students and teachers further.
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Sue Thomson, Australian Council for Educational Research
The evidence clearly shows one-on-one tutoring improves disadvantaged students’ skills. An Australian pilot program has now shown the benefits of online tutoring that supports students in their homes.
Online learning during the pandemic gives students more autonomy. For high-achieving students, especially those in academically mixed classes, that’s an advantage, whereas others might struggle.
Demand for professional development has grown but the pandemic has forced it online. Decades of evidence from online education tells us how to ensure professional development remains effective.
People living outside our big cities face many obstacles to going to university, but the innovations during lockdowns have opened a door to permanently improving their access and experience of study.
Muhammad Zuhdi, Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta and Stephen Dobson, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Just because students are given the freedom to learn, it does not mean they will.
While the loss of contact learning time can be quantified, it’s more difficult to quantify the effect of school closures on learning outcomes.
A worker cut fabric panels from a material stack at a textile factory in Cape Town. Young South Africans aren’t being given the skills they need.
Dwayne Senior/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The pandemic has heightened existing weaknesses in South Africa’s skills training regime.
Instead of asking how universities might benefit from shifting courses online permanently, we ought to ask how students might suffer from fewer opportunities for lived experience and practice.
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We ought to worry that the pandemic has made it even easier to reduce teaching to disseminating knowledge.
Research from Alberta points to the burden parents have faced with home learning. Here, a youth passes Bloor Collegiate Institute in Toronto, May 27, 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
The pandemic education shock has raised five critical issues that demonstrate how student learning and achievement and social well-being are far from mutually exclusive.
Deputy Associate Dean (Academic), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, School of Education, The University of Queensland