Photo by Pxhere

At the time of writing, the Coronavirus pandemic is taking hold in many countries across the globe, and predictably, one of the many actions people are taking is social distancing. In extreme cases, where governments are locking down countries, schools, colleges and universities are closing. As the pandemic gathers pace, this is likely to become the norm.

It appears then that face-to-face education, at least in the short term, is going to be imposed due to the infection risks. As teachers come to terms with what this means, many will turn to tried and trusted methods of education that involve distancing. I say tried and trusted, because distance education in all its evolving forms has been with us for more than a century; it has a long and illustrious history. I earned my first degree in psychology largely by studying at a distance – at the British Open University. Many others have achieved similar awards at a distance.

When once distance learning courses were frowned upon and considered to be inferior to traditional campus based degrees, in recent years this opinion has been completely overturned. There is a growing body of research that shows there is no significant difference between learning outcomes achieved at a distance against those achieved in class. One meta-study database (established in 2004) shows that online learning (when done effectively) is at least as effective, if not more effective than traditional courses. As early as 2001, Thomas Russell’s No Significant Difference studies gave a first indication of the effectiveness of distance and online learning methods.

So how can schools, colleges and universities adapt quickly to provide online learning opportunities to their students when in lock-down? Here are four useful tips and ideas:

1. Get advice from your in-house specialists. Learning technologists, educational technologists, e-learning and online specialist academics and those involved in research into distance education can all offer great ideas about how to set up distance education programmes.

2. Use what is already available. Plenty of Creative Commons licensed content and Open Educational Resource material is already available on the Web. It’s been there for a while and will continue to grow as educators from across the globe freely share their content for others to use. It’s not hard to post hyperlinks to your main website.

3. Share ideas using social media and other online discussion forums. In times of crisis, educators should put their differences to one side, be generous in their sharing, and pull together in the same direction.

4. Keep the dialogue going with your students. Don’t simply expect them to learn by throwing content at them. Use any means possible, whether video, audio or text to support them, respond to their questions, and encourage them to continue learning.

If you have any more useful tips and ideas that can help educators to continue to support learning at a distance, please share them in the comments box below.

Keep safe and healthy, and keep your distance.

#CoronaVirus, classes and communication by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.