01
Apr
2020

Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning

categories: distance learning, distributive learning, e-learning, educational technology, instructional technology, teaching

The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning

by Charles Hodges, Stephanie Moore, Barb Lockee, Torrey Trust and Aaron Bond Published: Friday, March 27, 2020

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning

Moving instruction online can enable the flexibility of teaching and learning anywhere, anytime, but the speed with which this move to online instruction is expected to happen is unprecedented and staggering.

“Online learning” will become a politicized term that can take on any number of meanings depending on the argument someone wants to advance.

Online learning carries a stigma of being lower quality than face-to-face learning, despite research showing otherwise. These hurried moves online by so many institutions at once could seal the perception of online learning as a weak option

Researchers in educational technology, specifically in the subdiscipline of online and distance learning, have carefully defined terms over the years to distinguish between the highly variable design solutions that have been developed and implemented: distance learning, distributed learning, blended learning, online learning, mobile learning, and others. Yet an understanding of the important differences has mostly not diffused beyond the insular world of educational technology and instructional design researchers and professionals.

Online learning design options (moderating variables)

  • Modality
    • Fully online
    • Blended (over 50% online)
    • Blended (25–50% online)
    • Web-enabled F2F

    Pacing

    • Self-paced (open entry, open exit)
    • Class-paced
    • Class-paced with some self-paced

    Student-Instructor Ratio

    • < 35 to 1
    • 36–99 to 1
    • 100–999 to 1
    • > 1,000 to 1

    Pedagogy

    • Expository
    • Practice
    • Exploratory
    • Collaborative

    Role of Online Assessments

    • Determine if student is ready for new content
    • Tell system how to support the student (adaptive instruction)
    • Provide student or teacher with information about learning state
    • Input to grade
    • Identify students at risk of failure
  • Instructor Role Online
    • Active instruction online
    • Small presence online
    • None

    Student Role Online

    • Listen or read
    • Complete problems or answer questions
    • Explore simulation and resources
    • Collaborate with peers

    Online Communication Synchrony

    • Asynchronous only
    • Synchronous only
    • Some blend of both

    Source of Feedback

    • Automated
    • Teacher
    • Peers
Source: Content adapted from Barbara Means, Marianne Bakia, and Robert Murphy, Learning Online: What Research Tells Us about Whether, When and How (New York: Routledge, 2014).
Typical planning, preparation, and development time for a fully online university course is six to nine months before the course is delivered. Faculty are usually more comfortable teaching online by the second or third iteration of their online courses.
In contrast to experiences that are planned from the beginning and designed to be online, emergency remote teaching (ERT) is a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances. It involves the use of fully remote teaching solutions for instruction or education that would otherwise be delivered face-to-face or as blended or hybrid courses and that will return to that format once the crisis or emergency has abated.
A full-course development project can take months when done properly. The need to “just get it online” is in direct contradiction to the time and effort normally dedicated to developing a quality course. Online courses created in this way should not be mistaken for long-term solutions but accepted as a temporary solution to an immediate problem.

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More on online learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+learning

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