Coronavirus Implications on Institutional Learning
Omomar Stefano
WRT102.R: Science & technology
Professor Derek Knapp
April 29th, 2020
Abstract
After the detection of the coronavirus in the province of Hubei, China late 2019, the outbreak, in a spun of one month, had spread into other countries globally, including the United States. As a result, on March 16, 2020, schools closed as a measure to ensure social distance across the different institutions. However, the drastic move by the government saw millions of learners affected not only in the United States but also globally. Students, as a result, have been forced to stay at home and wait on school reopening dates that are uncertain. Although, as this endeavor is observed, learning has largely been disrupted across the nation, and in efforts to mitigate the issue, e-learning has become the most promising solution. Nevertheless, while it offers potentials in salvaging learning, several factors pose challenging barriers in achieving the efforts. This research focuses on evaluating these challenges and analyzing the effectiveness of the intervention in delivering learners an opportunity to access an education.
Coronavirus Implications on Institutions
Introduction
March remains a month that will go down in historical records as fateful for students in the world, as numerous national schools were forced to shut down. The closure of learning institutions followed WHO’s March 12, declaration of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a global pandemic (Viner et al. 2020). The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization determined that by March 18, schools across the globe in 107 countries had closed, affecting over 800 million children and young school people (Viner et al. 2020). In the United States, learners across the country, in efforts to maintain the public health’s ‘social distancing’ intervention, were prompted to go home and stay there as the government deliberated on a suitable and effective measures to combat the pandemic. State governments affected the directive, with a scheduled reopening of educational institutions on April 7. However, as days passed, and infection cases increases, the hope for resuming normal learning decreased. As a result, calls for measures to be undertaken in promoting education delivery among the largely affected staying at home students were echoed, and mitigation plans were put in place to ensure that learning was engaged, with online learning as the primary intervention. Although mediation is a step in the right direction, many people wonder if online learning is as effective as classroom learning. This paper aims at evaluating the implications of coronavirus on education, through an analysis of e-learning’s effectiveness in promoting education in these uncertain times.
Purpose of the Research
The purpose of this particular research is to provide insight into the implications that coronavirus pandemic has on institutions and learning as e-learning is endorsed as a potential tool in mitigating the education gap inflicted. Also, it assesses the impact that e-learning poses on the facilitation of learning, especially on higher education. The research provides credible and substantial arguments on the topic, with adequate sourcing of information from various websites, journal articles, and library databases.
The compilation of the resources is based on recently published reviews and publications on the epidemiological characteristics, prevalence, and interventions of COVID-19 and the effects that arise from it on the social acquisition of education. With severe implications experienced by the economic sector in the United States, more so, in educational institutions, the identified resources will have their focus on responding to the pandemic’s inflictions in the field. Institutions being one of the areas that needed urgent response from the epidemic, the review shows how online classes and other programs aimed at relieving the effects arising from the prevalence. In recent years, learning has evolved to incorporate online and distant learning with people accessing coursework and doing exams online regardless of the geographical locations. The research has a higher relevance rate and revolves around the advocacy of online classes and shows the significance of some of the mitigation strategies being adopted.
Background of the Research
On December 29, 2019, cases of pneumonia of unknown cause were detected in Hubei province, China. On December 31, World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the outbreak as the coronavirus disease 2019 (2019), a virus caused by a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS.COV-2) (Yang et al. 2020). Since the disease did not have a known origin, a cure was challenging to develop; as a result, non-pharmaceutical measures were implemented as intervention strategies for curbing the spread. The measures included maintaining a community-wide social distancing policy (Cowling, 2020). Over a period of one month after its confirmation, the diseases had spread across different countries in the world, and on February 23, cases were reported in the United States. As the virus spread across the country, several measures were taken by the federal government to mitigate the rapid growth of the virus in the country. Severe measures such as school closures and lockdowns have been effected in the country as intervention strategies.
When schools closed on March 16, 2020, there were expectations that they would re-open by April 7, 2020. However, it has not been the case, since the disease has spread across the country, affecting millions of lives, with over 1 million confirmed cases and thousands of deaths. Efforts to ensure the safety of students in different institutions saw the adoption of homeschooling in facilitating learning. However, to parents, homeschooling is a shocking experience that has affected productivity and also the social and learning lives of children (Burgess and Sievertsen, 2020). As a result, learning is fast becoming an online-based activity, which is an untested and unprecedented intervention in the promotion of education currently.
Schools and Learning
Schools provide students with a learning environment in which they can grow their social and knowledge skills. Hence, attending classroom learning is the most profound and appealing public policy adopted in the focus of established, socially responsible, and knowledgeable individuals (Burges & Sievertsen, 2020). Going to school is a fun experience for children, and also a means through which they improve their social skills and awareness. Additionally, economically attending school promotes the development of a child’s abilities (Burges & Sievertsen, 2020). In a class, learners engage with others socially, and through sharing acquired knowledge, students can build their competences and understand different contexts and concepts taught (Podschuweit, Bernholt, & Maja Bruckman, 2016). Therefore, it can be noted that through teaching in schools, students acquire essential social and knowledge skills, thus promoting and improving their abilities and understanding.
However, while the closure of schools affects students by denying them opportunities to develop and improve their skills, the situation is seemingly an inevitable occurrence. The implications are projected to cause significant disruptions for learners, particularly those in vulnerable populations. Such students include those from deprived backgrounds, whose primary source of educational resources is within a school environment (Arvisais, Martineau, & Charland, 2020). Additionally, children and young people with difficulties in learning are expected to experience severe challenges as a result of prolonged disruptions in the education provided in a school setting. The school environment is an important element in facilitating and improving learning outcomes among many students. They are bound to face some trying times as the Coronavirus rampages across the United States, affecting the provision of classroom learning (Arvisais, Martineau, & Charland, 2020). Nevertheless, as learning interventions are chained towards filling the gap prompted by the pandemic, there is a need for assessing the needs of students across the United States to ensure that the measures are suitable and accessible by the affected populations.
E-Learning
E-learning involves the use of technological elements, such as the internet, computers, and other digital devices to access educational instruction. With schools forced to shut down their operations, many children and young people are expected to acquire and continue learning through digitized forms. And e-learning has been targeted as the most suitable and effective approach in achieving the minimization of disruptions and ensuring the flow of instruction during the period (Lierberman, 2020). The intervention is expected to provide a temporary solution across all levels of education, including higher education students. However, regardless of the potentials that the strategy holds in facilitating learning across a diverse population of students, certain gaps pose a significant challenge.
Measures to curb the diseases ‘spread saw many institutions forego closures, that disrupted learning not only in the United States but also globally, and the higher education institutions were no exception. College and university students, as well as their instructors, have resulted in shifting the access and delivery of learning through digitized approaches incorporated in e-learning (Sahu, 2020). While online learning in the field is not a new context, many students, especially young people, preferred the campus-based mode of learning. Interacting on a physical level with teachers and other students promoted the aspects of social presence among students, thus, improving the influence and positivity in active learning (Raturi, 2019).
Nevertheless, since e-learning is a new reality that students and instructors have to deal with, the mode is significantly applied, with instructors preparing and planning their lesson plans aimed at delivering effective learning to students (Sahu, 2020). Even though instructors in higher education receive training on the use of technology in providing education, either as a primary form of delivery or an add on or alternative to face-face active learning, some are challenged by lack of contemporary skills in working through the utilization of the online form (Raturi, 2019; Sahu, 2020). Therefore, regardless of the transition positive intent on promoting the safety of students and teachers, many factors are hindering the process.
Although e-learning has been equipped in higher education in the United States, remote learning offers significant challenges to the acquisition of the instruction. Among the challenges are inadequate technological training among faculty members and the unavailability of required computing devices among students (Olwell, & Friedman, 2020). E-learning requires institutions, teachers, and students alike to have access to resources such as computers and the internet, to facilitate effective delivery and access to instruction (Sahu, 2020). Institutions with limited budgets lack the capability of purchasing the immense technological resources required in the facilitation of online learning. Also, as many people in the United States, expected to stay and work from home, computing equipment, and computers are in increased demand, at home, thus affecting the access to devices that facilitate e-learning among students. Other students are financially capped in accessing the necessary devices and resources such as laptops, smartphones, and internet access (Olwell, & Friedman, 2020). As a result of these shortcomings, students incapable of accessing the resources, are bound to face potential challenges in acquiring learning through the proposed intervention approaches. Consequently, online classes inhibit social interaction among students, hence, affecting the abilities to improve on their social qualifications as well as in performing academically (Sahu, 2020). Therefore, lacking social engagements among them significantly causes setbacks to their learning.
As institutions focus on e-learning, in promoting healthy transitions and prevention of coronavirus’ spread and growth of its contagion, various implications are experienced. As identified previously in the paper, there are several benefits of incorporating online learning in the current situation. The approach ensures the safety of students and teachers, improves limiting the spread of the disease and ensures students access learning, as they contribute to the mitigation process (Sahu, 2020). However, the challenges are increasingly causing doubts and questioning of the approaches efficiency and effectiveness in promoting learning. In science studies, students are often required to carry out practical hands-on lab experiments (Flaherty, 2020).
Through direct contact and engagement with an experiment, learners understand and build their abilities in the area of study. Also, a laboratory environment provides students with a tool through which they can develop and improve and reinforce their lecture instruction and learning skills (Faulcorner, & Gruss, 2018). In the environment, students make records from observations and deduce their reasoning in the development of hypotheses (Faulcorner, & Gruss, 2018). Additionally, hands-on laboratory experience offers students opportunities in developing practical instrumentation skills as well as awareness in the observation of safety. When students engage with other students socially in the lab, they develop skills in fostering teamwork, communicating, managing time, and resolving conflicts (Faulconer, & Gruss, 2018).
Therefore, with the introduction of the online learning mode as an approach in ensuring learning and promoting health safety, has varying implications on effectively achieving success in scientific courses. Furthermore, schools provide laboratories with all the necessary equipment, and while students are expected to study from home, access to these facilitates, and equipment is limited. Using internet-based software and websites to access virtual laboratories denies students the opportunity to engage fully with the experiments carried out. There is always beauty in observing color changes in various experiments and micro-organisms under the microscope than reading about them and watching online videos on them.
Coronavirus has significantly caused severe consequences not only on the political and economic aspects of the United States but also in education. As online learning gains grip among students, several important curricula, and learning improvement techniques, such as evaluations and assessments, have been canceled in different institutions (Sahu, 2020). School closure, as such, affects not only the learning and teaching activities among students but also key assessments and exams, which have resulted in cancelation or postponing. The move implies that internal evaluations might be of little or no importance in education; however, they play a significant role in the facilitation of information acquisition and determining a student’s progress as well as their weak and strong areas (Burgess, & Sievertsen, 2020).
As the prevalence of the disease grows, the future implications on other important exams hold potentials of severely affecting them and crippling their utilization across the year. As a result, while students acquire learning on digitized platforms, they might be prompted into losing an impressive time of study and inability to test their knowledge and skills through assessments and exams entirely. However, students in some regions such as Norway stand a chance of gaining from the pandemic, with the government having announced that 10th-grade students, should the pandemic persist will be awarded high school degrees (Burgess, & Sievertsen, 2020). This will significantly benefit the student’s careers by graduating with a degree regardless of having not received tests for assessing their qualifications.
Conclusion
Interventions aimed at reducing the spread of coronavirus have seen schools close, and many students end up at home. Therefore, as students across the United States struggle to acquire the essentials of education, within the increasingly dangerous environment posed by the coronavirus, strategies to ensure effective learning is accessed have been developed. State governments and the federal government are making contributions towards the emancipation of the e-learning project among different levels of educational institutions. However, even though the plan has significant benefits in ensuring learning in the student population, it is challenged by several drawbacks. For instance, students in higher education might not have adequate resources to facilitate the incorporation of the strategy, and some institutions do not have adequate budgets to support the implementation of technological resources required in meeting the needs of e-learning. Also, students in science-based courses do not have access to laboratories for carrying out practical experiments. As a result, as e-learning aims at facilitating the education of the affected populations, these challenges pose barriers to this endeavor. Therefore, the government and other relevant authorities need to look into the problem and implement significant and effective measures to address the issues.
References
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