What’s Next for Remote Learning? – Inside Higher Ed
Colleges spent millions of dollars facilitating the pivot from face-to-face to remote instruction last spring. Administrators who oversee online learning don’t want that investment to go to waste.
Given the skepticism voiced by many students, administrators who oversee online learning share a surprisingly sunny outlook on how well their institution handled the pivot to remote learning this spring, according to new survey data.
The Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) report, published today, is the fifth in a series of annual surveys on online learning conducted by Quality Matters and Eduventures. This report, however, focuses specifically on the pivot to remote teaching that occurred this past spring. The report includes responses from 308 chief online officers at two- and four-year public, private nonprofit and for-profit institutions.
Numerous recent surveys on the spring semester have reflected student dissatisfaction with the remote learning they experienced. But 78 percent of online leaders surveyed in the CHLOE report said the pivot to remote instruction at their institution was completely or largely successful in keeping students academically on track.
It didn’t come easily, though: 19 percent described the steps to carry out the pivot as “smooth and straightforward,” while 44 percent considered them “somewhat difficult” and 36 percent “very challenging.”