'We've got to continue to build it up, scale it up and improve it,' education minister says of COVID-19 distance learning plan

Education Minister Stephen Lecce and educators agree the learning environment amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has some students and educators engaging online is "distinct" from taking courses online, but that what happens now could shape policies or students' decisions to take online courses in the future.

The Progressive Conservative government has not been shy about its desire to have students experience online learning, with its controversial proposal to mandate high school students to take two online courses starting this fall. Now, as educators and students take on a new virtual reality with shuttered schools and boards work to fill gaps for students without access to technology, Lecce said Friday the two-course requirement, albeit with an opt-out option, remains the plan.

"There is a distinction between virtual learning and online learning, but the perspectives shared today are most definitely going to impact how we improve the delivery of education both in classes and most definitely using virtual environments," Lecce told QP Briefing on Friday.

"I think there’s many lessons learned and there’s many opportunities to strengthen the programming, but our position remains that it can be complementary," he said. "It’s something we’re continuing to think about, but in context of our program for September, the two online learning courses with the parental opt-out remains the plan today."

He added that the global "digital educational transformation" happening before COVID-19 could be fast-tracked as countries adopt more technology to support learning given the "difficulties" the pandemic has posed.

But he stressed that while the pandemic created an "immediate effort to ensure learning is done virtually," it's "distinct" from the pre-existing "structured" ability to take online courses.

Beyhan Farhadi, an English teacher for Grades 9–11 at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), and Leslie Wolfe, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation-Toronto, agreed, calling the current learning environment "emergency remote instruction."

They said it's difficult to say what the pandemic could mean for online learning or the use of digital tools post-COVID-19, but Farhadi suggested that some form of e-learning might be part of the new normal. She pointed to some places where schools have reopened but where people have to maintain physical distancing and wear masks.

"There’s a chance that it will be important to incorporate digital platforms into our face-to-face classrooms more often," she said, although adding that she doesn't think there will be a "mass shift where everybody’s going to be ready to teach and learn online."

Wolfe said the government has paid attention to the fact that students don't have equal access to technological tools and that she hopes officials will "take those kinds of lessons to heart as they move forward" with the requirement for students to take online courses.

She added that through remote learning, some might "develop opinions of their own about whether this is going to be an appropriate way for them to learn as they go forward."

Students or parents who thought they could benefit from online courses might change their minds, and vice-versa, Wolfe said.

"What won't change is that it will be appropriate for some and not appropriate for others," she said.

Lecce praised those in the education sector for the "quick pivot" during the pandemic to try to keep students learning.

"I’m the first to acknowledge the progress we’ve made in short order with the realization that there’s got to be a lot more there," he said. "We’ve got to continue to build it up, scale it up, and improve it as we go through this process and a guiding principle for me is feedback."

To that effect, Lecce noted he's been speaking with educators, school boards, parents, students and others over the past few weeks.

As for tracking outcomes, Lecce said the government would have a better sense of students' participation and uptake, including for educators in terms of professional development, after the current "teacher-led" program has been in place for at least a month. For the two weeks following March Break, the government launched a website with learning resources that families could use, but "teacher-led" work began April 6.

"We’ll get a better sense of uptake on a variety of the professional development programs, make sure that our educators are well positioned to teach online," said Lecce. "Likewise it will be very informative to understand the engagement taking place at the school board at the educator level with families."

A combination of quantitive and qualitative data will help the government and educators refine the current learning set-up, he said.

"I just want families to know we are going to challenge ourselves to do better and to be informed by feedback because we recognize that we’re in unchartered territory, but we have a duty and a moral obligation to students to make sure they have a strong educational experience," he said.

Wolfe said it would be difficult to track outcomes now and apply them to online learning, especially because not all students — including those with special needs and those without internet access — are engaging in virtual learning.

"And then the delivery method for the learning opportunities that are being made available right now that are online are so different from teacher-to-teacher, school-to-school and board-to-board, that I’m not sure you could gather metrics that would be meaningful," she said.

"The only meaningful metric at this point would be to gauge how many students are actually engaged in learning and that would be some sort of measurement of participation," said Wolfe, noting that "there’s no level playing field from which everybody is starting."

"If you want to gauge whether it will work or not, you look at well-planned, well-thought out e-learning programs, you don’t look at emergency remote learning as a model for gauging whether an extension of e-learning to all students will work," said Wolfe.

Farhadi agreed, saying tracking things like engagement could be done if everyone was using the same platform.

"I don’t think right now there’s much we can do to determine what engagement looks like, because we don’t know what those variables are and we don’t know what it means when students are not online versus when they are online," she said, adding that her elementary-aged kids are not engaging online with the materials from their teachers, but that she's working with them herself.

"The idea of orienting them to a teacher who’s doing great work, but is putting together a schedule for them, it doesn’t work with our household," Farhadi said. "The conceptualizing of just going online feels overwhelming to me given all the work I have to do."

She said while she doesn't see a way of tracking outcomes through numbers, one way would be to conduct "qualitative interviews" with families to determine how people's circumstances affected their online engagement.

Farhadi, who has conducted research on e-learning and the inequality associated with it and has taught online courses at the TDSB since 2010, said the transition to remote learning for her was smooth because she's been incorporating e-learning into her classes since the fall. While many of her colleagues are using the Google Classroom platform, she's been using Brightspace — software used across Ontario for online courses.

"When we transitioned, I was able to request ministry produced material to be uploaded into all of my classes which is impossible in Google Classroom," she said, adding that she used Brightspace in her classes because she wanted to prepare her students for the possibility of taking e-courses in the future.

But she noted that course engagement has dropped.

"I have most of my students logging in, but I have maybe about a third of my classes completing work," she said, noting that Brightspace allows her to see when a student has logged on and how long they spend on course material.

"I don’t force anything on them and my tone in my classes are just like, 'I really would love to see you to make sure you’re OK, and if you are OK, consider engaging with the work,'" she said.

Once a week she'll hold a one-hour class where she'll review assignment questions and answer students' questions — once that is done, sometimes the online interaction will include online games like Battleship "because it keeps them there."

For most educators, "they’re learning to fly the plane while it’s in flight and they are creating their own resources," said Wolfe.

While educators are doing the best to engage students in learning, much of that is dependent of a student's circumstances, she said, noting that some might be caring for younger siblings or be living in a home where one device is shared between several people.

"I would describe the current milieu in education as uneven or inequitable," Wolfe said.

Wolfe said she would have wanted the government to follow universities in implementing a pass-fail grading system rather than issuing marks, as Lecce announced on March 31.

"Moving towards a mark-based outcome at the end of the school year is problematic because students do not have equity of access to resources and supports," said Wolfe. "What I believe is going to happen is we are going to see a greater achievement gap between students with greater privilege and those who are challenged in relation to access to resources."

But Lecce said the government's guidance to the education sector is that "we really ought not be reducing students’ marks over this period of time, it’s to be used for learning and ultimately enhance marks where it was warranted, where a student has really demonstrated an improvement in content or doing additional work."

Wolfe also said while she understands the government is following recommendations from public health officials, it would be helpful for families and educators to know what the rest of the school year will look like.

"It’s very difficult for everybody not knowing what the government's plans are in relation to the reopening of schools this year," she said.

While students were initially scheduled to return to schools on May 4, Premier Doug Ford has said closures will be extended beyond that. Lecce said the government would make an announcement about this "early next week."

Photo Credit: Rene Johnston/Toronto Star