Future of Online Education

 

Jonathan Tran, PharmD 

PGY1 Community-Based Pharmacy Resident 

Safeway/University of Maryland

The advent of online education programs first came in the 1990’s but has been more prevalent over the past 10 years. Upon its arrival, enthusiasm was widespread as many thought the virtual classroom would revolutionize the educational experience by increasing access, flexibility, efficiency, and innovation for educators and students.¹

Trouble on the Horizon

Since its adoption, different models of online education, such as live online seminars, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and hybrid classrooms, have been formed. However, despite all the benefits they provide, several recurring limitations continue to plague the delivery of online education for pharmacy students.

What has been the biggest issue with online education and how do we solve it? The difficulties with it are numerous and affect each student uniquely.

·       Difficulty Transitioning: Transitioning from an in-person classroom to an online platform presents many additional challenges for students due to the lack of a controlled environment. Reports show that while some students benefit from online education, less proficient students that were previously struggling in the classroom setting are less likely to succeed virtually.² For these students, they were more likely to be affected by the increased distractions and limited instructor oversight in uncontrolled learning environments.

·       Technology Requirements: The necessity of having a computer and stable internet connection for online learning may serve as greater hindrance for lower-income students than others. At times, it may be more difficult for them to gain access to technology than to attend a live class.

·       Absence of Hard Skills Training: Because students are not in a physical learning environment, there are limitations on the types of skills that can be taught online. While online methods can be used in some instances, there are certain hard skills that require more hands-on instruction for mastery. These are primarily complex physical activities that involve a higher level of technical ability, such as checking blood pressure, administering immunizations, or performing sterile compounding.

·        Access to Instructor: For MOOCs, learning modules, and prerecorded lectures, students do not usually have immediate access to instructors. The lack of direct access during the learning process can impede the progress of students when they have questions that would normally be quickly addressed. Once this initial learning breakdown occurs, it can also affect learning material taught later in the lecture that builds upon the initial concept.

·       Need for Accountability: The lack of direct oversight from instructors places more responsibility on students to take ownership of their own education. Aside from students needing to have high self-motivation and discipline to finish the course, it’s also very difficult to prevent cheating for online assessments without the use of testing security software such as ExamSoft or online proctoring. This heightened responsibility can hinder the overall learning ability for pharmacy school students.

Developing the Future of Education

Despite being around for more than a decade, there are still several areas for growth in virtual learning. In order to improve online learning experiences, many educators are attempting to revolutionize the field with new ideas and teaching methods.

·        Personal Engagement: Many educators believe that increasing a students’ personal engagement during the learning experience will help students learn new material more efficiently. According to Dr. George Greenbury, one method to do this is to adjust online education so that it closer emulates a one-on-one teaching environment.³ This helps increase the engagement as learning experiences would be more hands-on for graduate students. Alternatively, Dr. Aaron Barth has proposed the idea of using story-based learning more within online teaching models. With stories, students are be able to develop empathy which in turn creates personal meaning and engagement for the student.⁴

·       Empowerment: According to Dr. Sugata Mitra, learners must first be empowered to learn. His model of empowerment is similar to the idea of a flipped classroom but focuses more on technology. To diversify and tailor learning experiences for each student, he suggests that educators embrace all forms of technology as tools for learning rather than treating them as distractions.⁵

·       Innovation: There is a need to modernize the current standard of teaching so that it’s better adapted for education on a virtual platform. Through continued innovations, new types of online platforms will be developed to improve the integration of education and virtual learning. One example, called Massive Adaptive Interactive Texts (MAITs), was developed by Dr. Niema Moshiri and has helped revolutionized MOOCs and flipped classroom models for teaching.⁶ Rather than having simple MOOCs, MAITs adds automation to the traditional lecture model of MOOCs. The automation helps identify any learning breakdowns while the lesson is taught to the students and adapts its lesson plan according to the learner’s needs. In addition to addressing knowledge gaps of students efficiently, the platform helps convert generic learning modules into adaptive lesson plans that can simulate one-on-one learning experiences with a teacher. With the innovations such as these, it would be possible to one day have all online teaching be done through automated adaptive texts powered by artificial intelligence.

We are still in the early phases of online education. However, now that COVID-19 has driven several pharmacy schools to make their courses virtual, professors must adapt to the new frontier. Regardless of anyone’s feelings towards it, virtual learning is here and will only keep growing over the years.

References:

1.       Lips, D. How Online Learning Is Revolutionizing K-12 Education and Benefiting Students. The Heritage Foundation. https://www.heritage.org/technology/report/how-online-learning-revolutionizing-k-12-education-and-benefiting-students. Published January 12, 2010. Accessed August 30, 2020.

2.       Dynarski, S. Online Schooling: Who Is Harmed and Who Is Helped?. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/research/who-should-take-online-courses/. Published October 26, 2017. Accessed September 1, 2020.

3.       Greenbury, G. Schools Without Classrooms: The Potential of Online Education. TEDx Talks. https://www.ted.com/talks/george_greenbury_schools_without_classrooms_the_potential_of_online_education_and_how_to_fulfil_it/up-next. Published June 2019. Accessed Sept 7, 2020.

4.       Barth, A. Why E-Learning is Killing Education – TEDx Talks. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwSOeRcX9NI. Published March 19, 2020. Accessed September 8, 2020.

5.       Mitra, S. The Future of learning – TEDx Talks. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGF3kjgCaMQ. Published Nov 12, 2018. Accessed September 10, 2020.

6.       Moshiri, N. The Era of Online Education – TEDx Talks. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JKgUoY9pTg. Published June 14, 2017. Accessed September 8, 2020.