Online Teachers and the Perfect Scream

You know you’ve seen it: a TikTok user, identified only by the username makeshift.macaroni, posted a video of herself playing the ukulele. She’s a music teacher, she explains, and she’s composed a tune embodying her emotions making the transition to online learning. The heartfelt result has been shared millions of times on multiple media, perhaps because it’s so relatable, to teachers and non-teachers alike:

@makeshift.macaroni ##ukulele ##uke ##originalsong ##teachersoftiktok ##tiktokteacher ##smallgestures
♬ original sound - makeshift.macaroni

Seriously, though, one of my final face-to-face conversations before lockdown involved this issue. A friend asked my thoughts about schools and universities converting to online and distance learning for the remainder of the semester. I expressed my doubts. Throughout my teaching career, I explained, I actively drug my heels over online learning, because I believed the relational aspect of teaching mattered. It’s difficult to build trust over the wires.

Several years ago, I reviewed the book Teaching Lab Science Courses Online, by Linda and Peter Jeschofnig. The authors eagerly embraced online learning as valuable for teaching physical sciences, and made a persuasive case that online teaching is possible, something I’d previously doubted. But they buried an important moment: they cite a survey indicating that students believe they learned better, retained more, and felt closer to their teachers online.

Sounds great, right? Except the Jeschofnigs overlook one important point: the pollsters conducted this survey after the students completed the course. Perhaps students who finished their online studies felt closer. Perhaps they internalized the sciences more deeply. But the cited survey doesn’t quote how many students actually completed the course. If completion is a prerequisite for inclusion in the numbers, that data point probably matters.

Through the years, I read several similar claims, that students who finish online learning benefit from the independence and flexibility. This includes a string of white papers from the MacArthur Foundation, one of which I used as a textbook one semester. Golly gee, students really gain when permitted to control their pace, acclimate themselves privately, and conduct learning without teachers looming. But they all quote students who finished the course.

Repeatedly, I struggled to find information about which students actually finish courses. Two answers made the difference. One, an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote: “Online Courses Could Widen Achievement Gap Among Students.” (Issue of March 8th, 2013, apparently no longer archived online.) Online courses basically benefit students who need minimal supervision, those who already know how to “do school.”

Second, the book College (Un)Bound, by Jeffrey Selingo, gushes lavishly over a famous online course taught at Stanford University in 2011. This course gained international notoriety when 160,000 students enrolled. Except, Selingo admits, buried amid a long paragraph, barely one student in eight actually finished the course. The completion rate is dismally low, but the amortized value made this famous course cost-effective for instructors.

Who, then, completes courses? According to the Chronicle, students who would’ve probably completed classroom courses with minimal assistance anyway. Students whose background and experience include a prior dedication to learning. This privileges students who are primarily White, primarily well-off, and primarily women. Such students benefit from long-distance mentorship because, overall, they need less guidance anyway.

While praising the pedagogical benefits of online learning, the Jeschofnigs casually mention the prior investment needed to advance an online science course. Students need to buy starter science kits which, at the high school level, run around $250, though they wrote that in 2010; it’s probably more now. That means students need families able to casually part with $250, besides the cost of Internet connection, which isn’t exactly Kleenex. The Jeschofnigs’ amazing online course already excludes the poor.

The current embrace of online learning is probably necessary, given the COVID crisis. But in order to sustain it long-term, schools will need to invest in making sure students’ outcome isn’t dependent on parents’ wealth. This will mean making sure all students have equal access to technology, not limited to computers, capable of doing what the course requires, and Internet bandwidth sufficient for keeping up. These cannot be luxuries for the wealthy.

Schools will also have to invest in teacher training. I don’t know why makeshift.macaroni screamed wordlessly into the void, but I have my suspicions: because her training has focused on spotting the students having the greatest difficulty keeping up, identifying their problems, and providing the guidance they need. That will be much harder to do online, when she can’t see her students working. We must aim for a teaching environment where that scream is no longer necessary.