I LOVED IT! If there is one good thing to come from this life changing pandemic, it would be that I was force to study how we learn. I was forced to question pedagogy and teaching/learning best practices. On my adventure, I encountered Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, who is a professor at Harvard University Extension School.

Tokuhama-Espinosa published an editorial piece in Nature's Science of Learning community. You can access Part 1 of her writing linked here. Here are a few takeaways from this resource:

• Online teaching/learning is ONE modality and teacher and group self-efficacy is key to a successful online learning environment (Hattie & Clark, 2018; McCarty, 2018).
• "There is an inverse curve in educational levels and adaptation to what we know about modern learning; early childhood educators generally appear to embrace novelty, while university professors are often the most adverse to change." (referring to Tagg, 2012)
• "Attitude, even more than aptitude, plays an important role in learning outcomes." (referring to Artlet, et al., 2003; Côté, 2000)
• Online learning (including virtual classrooms) can be challenging for teachers who want to make use of novel materials available online. This leads to a form of overload appropriately called "analysis paralysis."
• Use online discussions!
• Use the small-group work features available on Zoom, etc. to facilitate learning. This happens much faster than moving desks around in a classroom setting.
• "Teacher-student relationships are highly influential in supporting student learning outcomes." (referring to Hattie & Anderman, 2013)
• The rate of social contagion experienced by the group increases dramatically in an online learning environment because everyone can see others’ faces, compared to in-class learning where desks are structured in rows.
• There is a phenomena in online learning called disinhibition effect, which is when an online learning environment creates a level of “protection” so that learners are more willing to share ideas and engage with each other online because they feel protected by not being in a physically shared space (Salter, et al., 2017).
• There is an incredibly strong body of evidence that supports the idea that Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are NOT effective.
• "People make decisions based on fear faster than on any other emotion (Bechara, et al., 2000)."
• Simple, regular updates go a long way for lowering the angst of people who must implement the system. A highly stressed person does not learn, so lowering the stress level of the group by attending to each individual is vital to getting a new system up and running, quickly and efficiently.
• Use of teacher-to-teacher or student-to-student explanations are often better than those from technical experts who might know software but who have never taught or learned in a virtual classroom before.