Learning in the Light: Five Lessons from the Onlining of Irish Higher Education

Introduction

Speaking from Washington DC on the morning of Thursday 12th March 2020 the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Leo Varadkar, announced that all schools and higher education campuses across Ireland were to close at 6:00pm. This news was not totally unexpected, but the short notice caught many people by surprise and resulted in a flurry of activity within and across Irish educational institutions. The campus and school lockdown quickly evolved to other sectors with the Government introducing new regulations requiring all bars, restaurants and shops to close. At the time of writing, Ireland remains in a tight lockdown situation until current restrictions are reviewed on May 18th, 2020. However, there is every indication that social distancing requirements will continue for the foreseeable future and seriously impact the start of the new academic year.

When Dublin City University (DCU) hosted the ICDE World Conference on Online Learning back in November 2019 no one amongst the 800+ delegates from over 80 countries could have predicted the great onlining of Irish higher education in the weeks and now months since the Taoiseach’s announcement. The pivot to rapidly teach online has forced us to think around corners and fast-track the future (Brown, 2020). While history teaches us to be wary about making speculative claims about the future it is highly probable that online education will never be the same again (Brown, Costello & Nic Giolla Mhichil, 2020). In 2012, the New York Times declared it was the “Year of the MOOC” (Pappano, 2012) and now 2020 is likely to be known as the year when online education helped us to keep teaching and keep learning. With the benefit of hindsight there is a prophetic quality that rings remarkably true to this extract from Learning in the Light, a poem written by Réaltán Ní Leannáin for last year’s World Conference:

“We no longer stop learning when the darkness gathers,

Those old webs have crumbled in this era of light.

In an age of information, learning squats tight in our grasp, within reach of all.”

On the whole the Irish response to emergency teaching online in the face of darkness and incredibly challenging circumstances has been remarkably positive and relatively successful. The period from March 2020 to May 2020 can be described in three phases:

(i) get online quickly,

(ii) get organised to develop appropriate alternative assessments, and

(iii) get thinking about future scenarios and next steps.

While the Irish story of our response to the Covid-19 pandemic is still being written the unprecedented pivot to online learning will be etched forever into the history of higher education (Brown, 2020). As we pause, look to the future and enter a new stage, however, what lessons can we learn from the experience so far? Although the following reflections drawing on the experiences of the team in the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) do not claim to be a definitive or representative account of how Ireland has responded to the Covid-19 global pandemic, we hope they contribute to useful learnings and conversations as we move forward.   

Technology matters

The first lesson is that technology matters. If you do not have access to technology, then emergency remote teaching online is somewhat problematic. While at risk of sounding technocentric a related observation is that specific technology platforms for online learning also matter as the pedagogical affordances of some systems are not as easy or intuitive to use as others. This point was particularly apparent in the context of synchronous delivery for higher education where differences in the levels of integration and functional richness were evident across platforms and institutions. Irrespective of the maturity of institutional infrastructure for full online teaching, access to technology to keep learning was also inhibited by differences in the level of Internet access across Ireland, with rural regions most affected. Coupled with differences in institutional capacity to respond to the Covid-19 crisis, the experience brought to the fore important structural inequities. This observation is partly triangulated by some of the findings of the Irish National Digital Experience (INDEx) Survey, which was implemented in the final quarter of 2019, with the results published in May 2020, where students at universities reported highest ratings for their institution’s overall digital provision (National Forum, 2020). 

Language matters

A second lesson is that the language used to describe the response to a crisis matters. Although understandable given the difficult circumstances, most of the discourse around the move to online teaching was inherently framed by or imbued with deficit language. Put more simply, terms such as ‘remote learning’, ‘learning in isolation’ and even the concept of ‘social distancing’ imply that physical proximity is crucial to good teaching and learning. By default campus-based learning remains positioned in our discourse as 'best' and the ‘gold standard’ of higher education. This inherent assumption is not supported by the research literature and there is a risk that as the crisis evolves such deficit language will contribute to a backlash against ‘online learning’ as people naively treat it as a single monolith delivery mode. As we know that good teaching is not dependent on delivery mode, then if the Covid-19 experience is to have a positive legacy it will be important to differentiate so-called emergency remote teaching from the design of effective online education, informed by contemporary theory and research. 

Theory matters

Following on from this point, the third lesson is that emergency remote teaching has resulted in greater reliance on synchronous forms of delivery, which has arguably done a disservice to both the flexibility and pedagogical affordances of asynchronous models of online education. Indeed, metaphorically speaking there is a danger:

This approach reinforces old 19th Century models of teaching on 21st Century networks by delivery large chunks of information down a digital diameter pipe to relatively passive learners (Brown, Costello & Nic Giolla Mhichil).

Looking to the future, if we are to avoid the old 'pump, pump, dump' model of teaching and truly harness the benefits of the unprecedented onlining of Irish higher education, then we need to address the disconnect between research, theory and practice. The lesson is that the new generation of online educators, and those in roles designed to support digital forms of teaching, still have much to gain from revisiting or engaging with for the first time well established theories, such as ‘Transactional Distance’, ‘Equivalency Interactions Theorem’ and the ‘Community of Inquiry Framework’. Although it might better resonate with some people to say that pedagogy matters, the important point is that not all pedagogical theories fit or apply as well as others to teaching online. As a recent NIDL report providing a synthesis of the contemporary literature illustrates, teaching online is different from merely blending campus-based learning (Ní Shé, et. el, 2019).

Assessment matters

Fourthly, the Covid-19 response required considerable time to be devoted to designing alternative assessments. These discussions helped to give rise to important guiding principles and in some cases nudged those who teach towards more creative and innovative approaches to assessment by leveraging the pedagogical affordances of new digital technology. However, the need to replace traditional exams also illustrated tensions between how students, educators, policy-makers, politicians and the wider public view the role and purpose of Assessment. These tensions underscored the political nature of Assessment, which was even more apparent in high-profile discussions concerning the Leaving Certificate.

At the higher education level, the focus on alternative online assessments also raised understandable concerns about plagiarism, academic integrity and contract cheating. Based on the types of questions raised during webinars and the comments posted through social media, not all of these concerns were well anchored in the research literature. As Bretag et al (2018) write, cheating is a symptom, not a problem. More importantly, to date there has been little or no wider public debate about the validity and longer-term status of the traditional exam based on the Covid-19 response. It remains to be seen whether Assessment will return after the crisis to more non digital practices. Looking to the future, the question is whether the Irish onlining experience will help to fundamentally disrupt traditional types of assessment and even kill off the hand-written exam paper.

Culture matters

Finally, institutional mission and organizational culture appeared to influence both the capacity and nature of the response. Although based on largely anecdotal evidence, institutions such as DCU that had strategically invested over recent years in promoting new models of digital education, including MOOCs, appeared to more smoothly pivot to online education with less disruption to teaching and learning. This observation raises the concept of ‘Digital Capital’ where some institutions appeared to have more latent capacity or resilience to effectively respond to the crisis. Notably, the aforementioned Irish National Digital Experience (INDEx) Survey found that 70% of staff who teach in higher education had never taught in a live online environment (National Forum, 2020).

Although speculative, in the case of DCU there is reason to believe that a long history of online distance education, aligned with an institutional mission which promotes flexible access to higher education as a core value, were contributing factors in the successful pivot to teaching online. This history and mission when combined with institutional leadership, organizational structures, a strong culture of learning innovation, and technical infrastructure all contributed to a high level of Digital Capital. Another important factor drawing on the theory of Connectivism that should not be underestimated in the development of this Digital Capital is the NIDL’s active engagement in professional networks and strong partnerships with leading online providers such as FutureLearn and Arizona State University (ASU). In a similar vein, at a national level there is evidence to suggest from the INDEx survey that previously funded Government projects and ongoing collaborative work ‘…also did much to underpin Ireland’s robust response to the unexpected move to online learning’ (National Forum, 2020, p.100). 

Final remarks

The Covid-19 crisis has been hugely disruptive to the Irish education sector. Despite the disruption, the National response has revealed a great deal of character, commitment and resilience from educators to keep teaching, as well as willingness and perseverance on the part of students to keep learning. The big question is whether this disruption will have a positive legacy with online education contributing to fundamental transformations to teaching, learning and assessment. Will Ireland have the courage to go beyond taming digital technology through relatively conventional practices to more fully exploiting the disruptive potential of online education to help build human capital, increase our relatively low rate of participation in lifelong learning and realize the vision of the National Skills Strategy 2025 (Department of Education and Skills, 2016) to be renowned at home, and aboard, as a place where the talent of our people thrives?

References

Bretag, T., Harper, R., Burton, M., Ellis, C., Newton, P., Saddiqui, S., Rozenberg, P & van Haeringen, K. (2018). Contract cheating: A survey of Australian university students, Studies in Higher Education. doi:10.1080/03075079.2018.1462788

Brown, M. (2020). The new digital university: Reflections on a week that changed Irish higher education.https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/new-digital-university-reflections-week-changed-irish-mark-brown/

Brown, M., Costello, E., & Nic Giolla Mhichil, M. (2020). The good, the bad and the ugly of teaching online. Available at  https://www.icde.org/icde-blog

Department of Education and Skills. (2016). Ireland’s National Skills Strategy 2025. Available at https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Policy-Reports/pub_national_skills_strategy_2025.pdf

National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2020a). Irish National Digital Experience (INDEx) Survey: Findings from students and staff who teach in higher education. May 7th. Available at https://www.teachingandlearning.ie/publication/irish-national-digital-experience-index-survey-findings-from-students-and-staff-who-teach-in-higher-education/

National Institute for Digital Learning (2020). Schools out: Diary on an incredible week that changed Irish education. NIDL blog post, 20th March, Available at https://nidl.blog/2020/03/20/schools-out-diary-on-an-incredible-week-that-changed-irish-education/

Ní Shé, C., Farrell, O., Brunton, J., Costello, E., Donlon, E., Trevaskis, S., Eccles, S. (2019). Teaching online is different: critical perspectives from the literature. Dublin: Dublin City University. Doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3479402

Pappano, L. (2012) ‘The year of the MOOC’, New York Times, 2 November 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/massive?open?online?courses?are?multiplying?at?a?rapid?pace.html?_r=0