What's really going on

I am getting a lot of calls from people I know curious about how universities are switching to "online learning." The first thing I have to explain is what's really going on. So I figured I just do that here real quick like.

Online learning in "the biz" typically means creating a learning experience for a student that is mostly, but not necessarily completely self contained. Much if not all of the learning experience is designed and created in advance. Done well, the experience can leverage all kinds of tools to implement multiple pedagogies...one of the best being group project-based learning. You can have socratic learning like Harvard Business School Online which involves a big social aspect. Live sessions can be a part of online learning but typically they are limited.

Now let me contrast that with remote instruction. Remote instruction is designed specifically to replace in-person lectures, discussions, and sometimes labs. In higher ed the instruction is tied to the credit hour which has federal rules for faculty interaction and individual study.

So what's really happening right now is that universities are switching to remote instruction (and not online learning). That really means that schools are just using the "course shells" that are already existing in the school's LMS and they're replacing the in-person class time with virtual sessions on Zoom, Panopto, etc. On the surface it's not *that* big of a deal, but in reality it can be. How do you deal with the technology, accessibility, things like labs. Universities are scrambling to handle this.

The next wave of problems will come when the nonacademic systems are overwhelmed because they are not yet virtualized. Career services, the registrar, financial aid, library, etc. There are 20+ of these non-academic services that are going to be swamped.

And eventually schools will need to focus on traditional online learning. But that's not going to come in a wave right now. That will come later this summer when schools are thinking about fall 2020 and spring 2021.

And there are lots of other applications for remote instruction / online learning outside of higher ed. Nonprofits and corporations are also scrambling to figure out how to support the short term needs.

Our firm certainly has skills and expertise in these areas. But we only have so much in terms of resources. We're working through figuring out how we can best help. And, of course, if I can be of any assistance even if with just advice, feel free to reach out.