Education in a Multicultural Society

“Higher education, to do what they’ve been able to do in such a short amount of time, it’s amazing, but it’s still not online education,” Adair argues.

In a joint statement, the council’s members advocate that “online learning involves the careful and deliberate development and implementation of courses and programs that are designed to be offered online. High quality online courses and programs should be guided by instructional design and pedagogical practices specifically created for online education.”

The council aims to help distinguish “this quick pivot to put your stuff up on Zoom” from what carefully designed distance courses can achieve, Adair says, adding, “The fear is that fundamental misunderstanding of what online learning is and what it takes to do it well is going to work against future online efforts, and it will prejudice how student and parents think about online education, and could prejudice how legislatures and folks with other kinds of oversight positions look at online education.”