WSU online learning experts stress communication and simplicity as schools respond to pandemic

For teachers, students and families struggling to make the most of a new approach to learning, good advice is just down the road.

The most important message from administrators at Washington State’s Global Campus, where they’ve been doing distance learning for almost three decades: Communication is critical to developing a strong curriculum.

They also have some discouraging news for parents who expect a rapid and seamless transition to distance learning in the face of school closures forced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Typically, it takes three months or longer to develop an online course, said David Cillay, chancellor of the Global Campus, which has been doing distance learning since 1992 – long before anyone heard of the term – and has a worldwide enrollment of 3,400.

“Faculty work with designers, animators and a team of designers who envision what their online course would look like,” Cillay said.

But teachers and school districts had days, not months, to adjust.

With no warning of the pandemic, educators faced a rather heavy lift to adapt every course to an online format in real time for a student body that doesn’t have the same level of access to laptops, connectivity and technical skills.

Moreover, said Jennifer Thigpen, a history professor at WSU’s Global Campus, a single laptop won’t go very far in a family of five.

“I’m a firm believer that kids get a first-rate education online, but environments are different,” Thigpen said. “There are some things that you can do face-to-face that you can’t do online.”

But for families with laptops and connectivity, “You don’t have to make concessions in terms of the rigor or quality” of the course,” Thigpen said.

A good teacher will find ways to take advantage of technology, Thigpen said. For example, instead of quick back-and-forth conversation, students in an English class could be given a question that requires a more in-depth reply.

For teachers and parents, the most important thing is to keep things simple, said Thigpen, who has a child in Moscow schools.

“Listening in to the parents, their kids are being asked to use Zoom or Google classroom” and other platforms,” Thigpen said. “We think of student as digital natives, but they are scrambling too.”