Research pick: Remote learning prep - "Changes of assessment in remote learning: educators’ perceptions and findings"

Remote learning has been a growing area of education for many years, but in the early part of 2020 with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a sudden new pressure as schools and other educational establishments were forced to close their doors to pupils and students in an effort to slow the spread of the disease. This emergency situation taught us many lessons about how remote learning might be made more effective and how assessment of a student’s progress through the curriculum might be made.

Writing in the International Journal of Learning and Change, Anžela Jurāne-Brēmane Vidzeme of the University of Applied Sciences in Valmiera, Latvia, has considered the perceptions of educators on how assessment has changed in the wake of remote learning. At the time, the acute problem was to cancel face-to-face classes and ensure that students studied from home. Video conferencing, email, and social media replaced the conventional teaching tools and the student’s own home became their ad hoc classroom. It was recognized at the time, that little preparation had been made for such a scenario, despite decades of warnings about a coming pandemic, and educators and students alike had to learn to cope with the new situation rapidly. Many perhaps did not and with hindsight, it is obvious that the system could have and should have been more prepared for such a crisis.

Jurāne-Brēmane describes the situation that arose in education across the globe in the wake of the pandemic as “chaotic”. There were obvious gaps in the knowledge and skills of educators plucked from the classroom and lecture theatre and plunged into this new online realm. While youngsters may well have been very familiar with the digital world, often described as they are, as digital natives, many were ill-prepared for the inversion of the conventional educational system. At this point in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical that we fully learn the lessons from the obvious failures of government and educational systems to ensure that we are much better prepared for a similar eventuality when it arises.

The work of Jurāne-Brēmane sought the opinions of Latvian educators and offers some conclusions from that survey that may well help when the next crisis forces students out of the classroom and back online. Specifically, the guidance offered points to how best to approach assessment of student progress on their course given that the traditional methods, such as practical work and examinations might again become inaccessible. A key finding is that there is a need to emphasise the understanding of feedback in the training and professional development of educators.

Jurāne-Brēmane, A. (2022) ‘Changes of assessment in remote learning: educators’ perceptions and findings’, Int. J. Learning and Change.