The failure of distance learning presents an opportunity to better engage parents
The failure of distance learning presents an opportunity to better engage parents
The failure of distance learning presents an opportunity to better engage parents
By Jason Osborne & Michael Stebbins
August 04, 2020
Summary
With notable exceptions, distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a failure in the United States.
We certainly need to improve distance learning in public schools, but we should also take this opportunity to enhance parents' ability to complement distance and in-school learning at home as well.
Rather than just improving on the ability of teachers to effectively reach children through distance learning, we see opportunity to provide children, parents, and teachers with the ability to explore effective distance education together using tools that exist today.
These tools include citizen science programs and app-based games designed to engage students and parents simultaneously and provide moments of structure to the chaos that distance learning has heaved upon them.
Students who participated in this opportunity were immersed in authentic scientific data collection and contributed 5,947 scientifically significant findings to the field of paleontology while learning about fossils and how science happens in the real world.
Parent feedback on the program showed increased excitement when students were at home and parents became involved with their students' learning.
Other educational platforms that use app-based games to engage students and parents in learning together have been hugely successful.
There is still a need for strong programs to evaluate the effectiveness of most of the tens of thousands of educational app-based games to ensure that children are learning the material as they get better at playing educational games.
That should not stop government and philanthropies from investing in the development of additional app-based games that follow state level educational curricula and building up the tools necessary for distance learning and complementing traditional classroom learning through app based-games.
We are not arguing that applying traditional classroom lessons to distance learning should not be vigorously pursued and vastly improved.
Reference
Stebbins, M., & Osborne, J. (2020, August 04). The failure of distance learning presents an opportunity to better engage parents. Retrieved August 07, 2020, from https://thehill.com/opinion/education/510407-the-failure-of-distance-learning-presents-an-opportunity-to-better-engage