Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ You want your students back in the classroom? Give them a good reason!

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This article makes me think about how hard it is to make a good case for in-person learning. "Ironically," writes Alexandra Mihai, "despite our expectations that students will happily rush back to campus, many of us noticed a different reality: low attendance levels and in some cases also low engagement." That's no surprise. If you're doing nothing that couldn't easily be done online, why go to the time and effort to travel to some (often uncomfortable) physical learning space? Mihai frames the argument for in-person learning in terms of the benefits of teacher presence and peer presence. But "Presence doesn't equal 'being in the classroom'." What matters is "make the classroom experience something they (students) don't want to miss." Sure, fine. But it's not clear we get better education as a result, at least to my mind.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 08:49 a.m.

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