Yesterday the CBC posted this article.
Toronto
Ontario mandated e-learning to expand course options. Some worry it’s being used to boost marks
Most popular courses are those required to graduate or electives often used in university applications: data
Six years after e-learning became a mandatory requirement to get an Ontario high school diploma, students don’t appear to be taking online school to diversify their course selection as the province had intended, according to a CBC News analysis of provincial enrolment data.
When Ontario announced the requirement in 2019, it touted the change as an “opportunity” for students to take electives not offered at their school and gain digital literacy skills.
Now, an analysis of provincial e-learning data by CBC News has found that the most popular courses taken online were those required to graduate or electives typically used for university applications.
The numbers speak to concerns that some students, teachers and education experts have raised about the e-learning system, namely that it could be used to game the system for better marks, at a time when students need higher grades than ever before to get into university.
To continue reading, visit https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-high-school-e-learning-9.7139226
The basic premise of the article is promoting the myth that online learning is easier than face-to-face learning. Unfortunately, the author of this “news” piece chose to include (1) a scholar who is well known as being critical of e-learning, (2) a student, (3) an educational consultant with no background in K-12 e-learning at all, and (4) another student. As you might expect, given this line-up, the piece is quite negative towards e-learning in Ontario.
The reality is that e-learning is neither easier nor more difficult than in-person learning. There are far too many variables beyond the medium of delivery that need to be considered. Some subject areas (and even some topics within a specific subject area) are more suited to asynchronous instruction, while there are other subjects and topics that are better suited for synchronous instruction. Similarly, there are just some teachers who are easier than other teachers – any educator can just think about their colleagues and they know who the kids believe is an easy A. Additionally, there are just some courses in the curriculum that are known as being easier than other courses, and in some cases those courses are actually required for graduation (as opposed to lesser elective courses).
The author also neglects many of the factors that make learning online more effective than in-person instruction. Ask any teacher how much time in a 60-minute class they actually spend on the content and how much time they spend on administrative tasks and classroom management. In a largely independent, asynchronous e-learning system, there are no classroom management issues that would distract the student or occupy the teacher’s time. The e-learning environment also removes the social pressure that often hinders learning in the classroom (e.g., students not wanting to participate because they’ll be perceived as the class nerd or seen as stupid or dumb if their participation is incorrect). For many rural schools, there is often only a single teacher who teaches each course. For a student who might have some kind of conflict with that teacher, there isn’t an option to simply take the course from another teacher (as there generally is in an urban or suburban school). For these students, taking an e-learning course to avoid a teacher who could possibly be an impediment to their learning would be a prudent choice.
There are also intangibles that can hinder in-person learning that the e-learning environment can often address. Shortly after the pandemic, I recall interviewing a young African American high school student who lived in a rural area, and she reported to me that because she had a “White-sounding” name, and her e-learning environment was primarily asynchronous, it was the first time during her K-12 education career where she did not feel discriminated against because of the colour of her skin. Whether the discrimination was overt or unintentional, it was an impediment to her learning – and that impediment was not present in the e-learning setting. Another example is the student who is bullied in the in-person environment, who, when they are in an e-learning setting, they tend to perform better – not because e-learning provides a superior instructional environment, but because the impediment to their learning (i.e., a fear of being in school because they are being bullied) has been removed.
As quoted above, the author indicated that:
an analysis of provincial e-learning data by CBC News has found that the most popular courses taken online were those required to graduate or electives typically used for university applications.
South of the border, the most enrolled online course in the United States is Algebra I. Almost every state in the United States requires this course for graduation. Algebra I is also known as the most failed course in the United States. As such, it is unsurprising that many online enrollments in this required course are from students who have failed the course at least once in the brick-and-mortar classroom (and the percentage of students taking the online course after having failed Algebra I more than once in the classroom would shock you).
Student performance in any environment is based on many factors, and to suggest the medium is the sole factor in the difficulty of a course is flawed thinking and demonstrates a lack of understanding of the context and nuance of K-12 education.
The article ends with a quote from the scholar, who says:
“I can understand the perspective of a student who’s playing the game because what is presented to them is a game.”
But that is also true for in-person students. When I was a high school student in Newfoundland and Labrador, students had to take two science courses in order to graduate. It was well known that the two biology courses were the easier courses, while the two physics courses and the two chemistry courses were the more difficult ones. In my own school, it was also well known that of the two teachers who taught biology, if you were lucky enough to have one of them, your year was going to be a VERY easy A, whereas if you got the other biology teacher, he was going to be a lot pickier. It was the same way in social studies, where in order to graduate from high school, you were required to complete one world studies course – and it was commonly accepted that world geography was much easier than world history. University admissions didn’t care if you took biology and world geography or if you took physics and world history. Admissions were based on your overall average, so if you wanted a better average, you took biology and world geography (as an aside, I personally took world history, physics, and chemistry). There was no distance learning available when I was a high school student, yet I still knew what the game was and how I should be playing it.
The bottom line is that there isn’t a person out there who has experienced the K-12 system where they didn’t know which teachers were easier graders and which teachers were harder markers, as well as which courses were an easy A and which courses you really had to work at. The only difference e-learning introduces is that the pool of teachers and courses has increased beyond the confines of a single brick-and-mortar school.