Three painful obstacles an organization needs to factor when moving to an online learning platform

For most of us, the pandemic’s onset meant a move to do more of our “work” online. This, of course, included schools and many other learning-forward organizations. Basically – if you had learning happening in your organization, you had to move some or all of it online. Of course, many organizations were offering learning online (either entirely or in blended environments) prior to the pandemic. Those organizations have doubtlessly applied valuable pre-pandemic insight to their current iteration of online learning. But since 2020, many more organizations – K-12 schools, businesses, creative start-ups, and post-secondary institutions – have taken the leap and moved to put many more of their courses or resources online in some way, shape, or form.?

Unfortunately, there can sometimes still be a lack of understanding about the science of learning (that is, cognitive science) in even the most progressive or academic of organizations. Or more often, an organization or school does understand cognitive science at a deep level in traditional F2F (face-to-face) environments, but lacks the expertise or resources to transfer that understanding into online learning environments. To make matters worse, in a quest to keep up with the times and add elements of online learning to its current menu of options, a school or organization can make it harder for people to actually learn what is needed or desired. Not addressing these obstacles with intention can lead learners to feel a hollow lack of humanity in the whole learning process.?

So, what gets in the way? In my experience, there are three main obstacles that schools and other organizations face when they move to online or blended learning environments.?

1 - Engagement

Engagement is an obstacle because online learning needs interactivity. While one might argue that all learning needs an element of engagement, it’s especially true for learning in online environments.?

What do I mean by engagement? I’ll start by saying what I don’t mean. Engagement in online learning is not the same as engagement in other online domains. Social media companies often define engagement in terms of likes, comments, shares, and clicks. This definition does not apply to online learning. In learning, engagement means interactivity and direct interaction – not entertainment or passive consumption. Sometimes there is overlap – for example, when an entertaining video might hook a learner into an engaging activity module – but in general, entertainment does not equal engagement.??

Instructors or teachers often immediately find that the activities they know how to do F2F do not transfer easily to an online learning environment. Or that they don’t transfer at all! Or they require so much reworking in order to transfer that it feels overwhelming. As a result, schools and organizations need to see learner engagement as an opportunity rather than an obstacle in order to successfully implement online learning platforms.?

What might be done synchronously in a F2F environment – for example, sharing an assigned reading or a piece of media with the person sitting next to you – will need to be thought about carefully when moving to an online platform. In a physical space, sharing an assigned reading might be incredibly engaging because of the myriad of nonverbal cues each learner relies on to communicate. But doing this same task online is quite likely to not be engaging at all. This is an example of an activity that might need to shift to an asynchronous option, or to be reworked with learning outcomes held close in mind. The same type of activity in two different spaces – one F2F, the other online – are not equally engaging due to the very real time and space affordances.?

Without effective engagement, learning becomes depersonalized. Everyone in the course feels like they are doing exactly the same thing as everyone else. Nothing feels special or connected. Without communication and feedback loops, the online learning environment quickly becomes sterile and static to the learners, and can feel largely irrelevant to their context, even if it’s a course they need to take or have great interest in.?

2 - Control?

Control is an obstacle because for online learning to be effective, learners need an element of agency (Clark & Mayer, 2016; Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012; Moreno et al., 2001). The amount of agency is dependent on many factors, but for teen and adult learners, its need is a non-negotiable. In F2F classrooms, teachers and instructors are used to controlling many elements of the learning environment. And in many cases, this is not only expected but beneficial. However, the same does not apply in online learning spaces because of the distributed nature of learning in asynchronous spaces.?

Pacing of content delivery or skills practice in an online environment is not the same as it might be in a F2F environment where an instructor can easily check to see what each learner is doing. The pace then, in an online space, might be faster or slower than what it would be in a F2F environment. In a F2F environment, the instructor is likely controlling access to either content, time (to practice or study), or pathway to learning goals – or all 3! In an online learning space, it is nearly impossible to control all of these, and so without some forethought, control inevitably becomes an obstacle. Often learners report that their instructors haven’t thought enough about the amount of content packed into an online or blended course. Cramming too much in, more than your learners can reasonably access in given time constraints, can feel like a burden to them.??

Likewise, an organization’s rigidity in the course content or materials can also get in the way of online or blended learning success. This inflexibility is an element of control. Instructors or organizations who try to use the same course as they did 5 years ago will quickly discover this control is an obstacle to their learners’ success. If you aren’t iterating and developing your course, you are getting in the way of learning.?

While I already mentioned that learning experiences don’t always neatly transfer to online environments due to engagement, the same is even more true for assessment methods. This results even more in learners feeling a lack of agency. “They will cheat if they do this assignment online!” is a common refrain heard from instructors who haven’t thought enough about control as an obstacle. If you find yourself thinking this when you move to an online learning environment, you might have an assessment method that is relying more on control rather than on assessing skills, concepts, and understandings. While of course there are exceptions to this and places where we might need to test this way, the majority of learning organizations do not need high-stakes exam conditions in an online learning platform to accurately assess learning outcomes.?

3 - Expectations

Expectations are an obstacle because many schools, instructors, organizations, and teachers approach an online learning platform with a dysfunctional belief that the platform will operate similarly to a F2F environment, but with more bells and whistles. These people are therefore expecting an online learning platform or LMS (learning management system) to act as a substitution or augmentation tool in their organization, rather than a tool that modifies and redefines learning (Puentedura, 2010).

Educators and trainers with these expectations quickly find themselves blaming the LMS for a poor online learning experience. “We don’t have the tools to do what we would normally do in our classrooms,” these instructors claim. An LMS does not and cannot replicate a F2F experience, period. Even using the most advanced telepresence or video conferencing tools will not allow you to replicate a F2F experience. VR (Virtual Reality) learning environments are getting close to allowing this, but they are still far from being accessible to most schools and learning organizations. If your organization is going to use an LMS as a learning platform – or some other kind of integrated solution – you will need to manage expectations about how online learning is different from F2F learning.?

Learners may not show up to an online learning experience the same way they would F2F, even when a video conference tool like Zoom is being used. Learners may not participate the same way they might in a F2F environment – some might participate more, and some might participate less. Some learners might do the bare minimum, whereas in a F2F environment they routinely did more than required. Or vice versa. This is largely because the online experience both removes and adds scaffolds. Instructors can plan and design for this nuance, but without managing expectations appropriately, it’s easy for learners to feel left behind.

Another common expectation that becomes a huge obstacle has to do with scale. When the world initially moved to increase online learning, there were big misconceptions around scale. “So many more learners can access it!” they claimed. Ivy League universities began putting large so-called “evergreen” courses online, via platforms like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity. These MOOCs had huge intakes of learners, but with low instructor contact. We now have nearly two decades of data and can see that some of the main reasons MOOCs failed was because of a mismatch of expectations (Deng et al., 2020). What learners expected was very different from what the platform could offer, and institutions were often not willing to adapt their courses to meet the expectations of learners.?

Intentional design and implementation planning around these three obstacles will be necessary to any organization or school looking to move learning into an online space. To be clear – I have seen these obstacles pop up in a range of organizations and contexts – from a K-12 school moving a handful of resources into an LMS to a corporation putting professional certifications online. It doesn’t matter if you are shifting one module, one course or your entire school to an online learning platform – or maybe you are aiming for a blended hybrid model — moving forward without planning for these obstacles may result in more costs (or more obstacles!) down the road.

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning, fourth edition. John Wiley & Sons.

Deng, R., Benckendorff, P., & Gannaway, D. (2020). Learner engagement in MOOCs: Scale development and validation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 51(1), 245-262.

France, P. (2021). Humanizing distance learning. (Vols. 1-0). Corwin, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071839102

Lindgren, R., & McDaniel, R. (2012). Transforming online learning through narrative and student agency. Educational Technology & Society, 15(4), 344. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3941&context=facultybib2010

Moreno, R., Mayer, R. E., Spires, H. A., & Lester, J. C. (2001). The case for social agency in computer-based teaching: Do students learn more deeply when they interact with animated pedagogical agents?. Cognition and instruction, 19(2), 177-213.

Puentedura, R. (2010). SAMR and TPCK: Intro to advanced practice. https://hippasus.com/resources/sweden2010/SAMR_TPCK_IntroToAdvancedPractice.pdf