For my issue brief, I was originally planning on discussing the shortcomings of online education and the need to distance ourselves from the idea when it is not absolutely necessary. However, upon reflecting on the events of this past week, I have realized that online learning in some fashion is a part of our future and can be used in a positive manner to connect different types of students to a learning environment depending on their particular situation. The reasons that online learning has the opposition that it does today is that not enough time has been put into the effort to ensure that the content and quality of a course is equitable for all students involved. As a result, I have switched the direction of my issue towards addressing the ways in which our institutions can work to deliver online education equitably across demographics and learning styles. Though this is an issue that has been present since the introduction of online instruction, the current issues stemming from the sudden shift to online learning platforms as a result of COVID-19 provides strong exigence and motivation for a much-needed discussion in this issue brief.
To keep the issue more consolidated I am going to focus on discussing the issue in the context of public universities. I think the best audience with which to approach this issue would be the state government of Pennsylvania. These officials have the power to instruct and provide information to their public universities and colleges in order to educate them on the use of technology in a learning environment. Through the proposed policy instrument of capacity building, they could create programs for university officials to pass on to their faculty and staff to educate them on technology within the context of college-level coursework. I hope that by not dictating the issue towards individual colleges, and rather speaking to the entire state of Pennsylvania, public universities will all have an equitable approach to online instruction that does not differ depending on the university you attend.
The state government of Pennsylvania is a good target audience as they can make the most impact on universities. It’d be good to make the learning style uniform for all universities in a state, but I feel that it would be complicated as some classes are run differently because of the professors’ teaching style. Therefore, the quality might heavily drop.
This issue is definitely becoming much more prominent in light of the current situation, since, like you said, online learning transformed from an often-overlooked and under-explored option to an educational necessity overnight. It’s a great idea to explore how the state government could impose standards for higher education to follow to make sure that instructors and students are well-prepared and on the same page when it comes to incorporating technology in college classrooms.
I agree that online learning is something that may slowly be becoming our future. Yes, perhaps there needs to be more focus on the success for everyone when it comes to that kind of learning. I feel like you have a really strong argument and proposal.
The benefits and drawbacks to Online Education are currently being debated by educators, students, and many more. This could not be a more timely issue. I agree that the state government of Pennsylvania is the perfect audience for this issue. Capacity building could be an incredibly successful instrument for learning. This week, we saw that many professors need instruction on how to use online resources, which they were thrown into using.
It’s cool that you shifted your viewpoint. I too think that online learning can be VERY useful if used well and part of the silver lining to our currently global situation is that we can expand this avenue and find new ways to use online learning to it’s best extent. Having Penn State as your target audience is a good place to start!