I got online this morning and googled "online education research during covid". The gratifying result was an instant display of links to a trove of information on the subject. The first link was a whole list of scholarly articles on the topic which included quickly digested abstracts. It was immediately apparent that educational researchers around the world did quickly mobilize knowledge about online teaching and learning and make it available to policy makers and educational institutions.
It was also clear that the public school system in the U.S. is likely to be far behind those in many other countries to take advantage of the rapid development of knowledge and practices. As we have seen in regard to the response of the country's health system to the challenge of the pandemic, the lack of a coherent national education strategy will further emphasize deficiencies and inequities, and the nation's paralytic political apparatus shows little inclination to set a rational course to reform.
In spite of the way things look at the moment, I am still optimistic about the potential for a radical shift in consciousness as we face such a broad array of health and environmental challenges. Sometimes it takes a disaster to get things going in the right direction.
(The Sunday NY Times has an excellent piece on Remote Learning, how it is succeeding and failing around the country.)
