New uses of online learning

Those who have been involved in online and hybrid learning for a while are accustomed to common types of implementation modes, which include online schools, hybrid schools, and supplemental online courses. These basic modalities serve a variety of use cases including credit recovery, increasing course options for students in rural areas, new school options for students who have not been successful in—or not enjoyed—conventional schools, and so on.
 
Recent years have seen some new developments in types of online learning. Some are more closely linked to the online learning “classic” modes than others. One instance, detailed below, is actually a lack of digital learning in a situation that seems to call for it. While most of these are familiar to our readers to some extent, it’s not clear that the general expansion has been fully recognized or that the people and organizations involved see themselves as part of the digital learning community; for example, we see few or no DLAC proposals related to these. It’s worth a quick review, so let’s dive in.
 
Continuity of instruction at the school/district level
We’ve previously called these eLearning Days, and even wrote about them several years ago in our eLearning Days Scan of Policy and Guidance.  And of course, the COVID-19 pandemic produced the most obvious example (for better or worse). Although the pandemic has receded, the use of remote learning to provide continued instruction during school closures seems to be more common (or perhaps there is media and/or my own confirmation bias). For example, districts in Pittsburgh and Baltimore shifted to remote learning during a recent heat wave.
 
Although this could be confirmation bias and such cases have existed for a long time, it’s also plausible that short-term remote learning has become increasingly common post-pandemic, because schools have more of the infrastructure (computers, Internet access for students, etc.) in place, and most teachers have some experience with remote instruction.
 
But it’s still an open question as to whether any districts are implementing eLearning Days really well. It’s incredibly hard to pivot to remote instruction and extend online teaching and learning to all students across a school or district on short notice. Further, it’s not clear that the cost of technology and training produces a solid ROI when implementing short-term remote learning. Some sources are suggesting that using online learning to continue instruction in this way has not been successful, but these are mostly anecdotal and they seem to be comparing the remote instruction to a hypothetical situation in which the natural disaster or other disruption simply didn’t happen.
 
I suspect someone has studied this, but I haven’t heard much. This would be a good session at DLAC if anyone has insights!
 
Teacher shortages
The second emerging use case is in addressing teacher shortages. This isn’t an entirely new use, as our state virtual school colleagues have served small and rural schools, in particular, using online courses to alleviate teacher and course subject shortages for many years. But the scale, and the instructional methods, appear to be changing.
 
The scale seems different now because there are at least two companies that appear to be using remote teachers to address teaching shortages as their primary business. They are both private companies, so I don’t have a sense of their size, but they appear to have a significant presence.
 
The instructional approach seems different because these companies—and some other instances of schools addressing teacher shortages—appear to be primarily using synchronous remote instruction, in at least some cases having a live teacher instructing, over video, a physical classroom with a professional adult providing oversight to the students in the room. This is very different than the use of a primarily asynchronous online course to address teacher shortages for many reasons, including that students in an asynchronous class are rarely all in a room together (or online together for that matter).
 
Notably, such remote teaching does not appear to be often used by or run by the established online programs in traditional school districts. Even more than elearning days, this seems like a new and growing use case.
 
The curious case of missing online learning: four-day weeks
According to one source about 850 districts across the US have gone to four-day school weeks. Most of these are small, rural districts, some with declining enrollments, The shift to four-day weeks has been driven by a goal of reducing costs, and as an inducement for hiring new teachers, or for retaining existing teachers.
 
Four-day school weeks are becoming increasingly common, particularly in rural areas in some states such as Colorado, in which almost three-quarters of all districts are on reduced-day schedules. (Note however that these are generally low-enrollment districts so the percentage of students on reduced day schedules is far lower.)
 
If there was ever a situation that seemed to call for an investment in remote learning, the four-day school week would seem to be a prime candidate. The fifth (non-school) day is predictable and recurring. There’s plenty of time to plan and train and invest in technology. A lack of Internet access could be a barrier given the rural nature of many of these districts, but when I’ve poked around asking about four-day districts interest in having an online day, I’ve not heard a lack of Internet access raised as a primary concern.
 
If four-day districts were showing comparable results to five-day districts, there wouldn’t be a reason to invest in online learning to make up instruction. But the available research seems to suggest a negative effect on learning outcomes, although that effect may be small.
 
It seems weird to invite someone to DLAC or to this blog to explain why they’re not using online instruction, but if anyone has ideas please let us know!

Disciplinary online instruction
There’s one last use case that is complex enough to call for its own post: shifting students to online instruction for disciplinary reasons. Stay tuned as we delve into this topic in a couple of weeks!

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