Recommended Solutions to K-12 E-Learning Challenges

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Overview:

It’s important for e-learning designers to understand the challenges K-12 students face in e-learning environments. By understanding challenges, e-learning designers can design e-learning experiences that help mitigate them, so learners and instructors can focus on what matters most. Additionally, when e-learning designers understand the challenges students face in online environments, they can integrate safeguards into the e-learning design so that instructors can have a greater impact on students’ learning experiences, which can lead to greater retention, course completion, and success (Carpen, K., & Hobson, M., n.d.).

Some Challenges K-12 Students Face in E-Learning Environments:

Learning in an e-learning environment has many benefits for K-12 students. However, e-learning also comes with challenges for students. For one, students have fewer opportunities to engage in structured play with their peers. In a traditional school setting, students can go to recess, where they can go outside and play with their peers, have lunch, where they can socialize over a meal, or play educational games with their classmates during downtime between classes and assignments. In an e-learning environment, those opportunities are fewer. As a result, students may feel more isolated in e-learning environments than in traditional school settings. According to a blog post from Penn State College of the Liberal Arts, “playing with other children can increase a child’s self-confidence and increase their academic achievement as a result” (2017). Therefore, the isolation students feel in e-learning can have devastating consequences for their academic success and mental well-being.

In addition to feeling isolated, K-12 students may also feel an increase in stress and anxiety that they wouldn’t feel in a traditional school setting. According to Emotional Intelligence in the Online Environment, this stress may be caused by blurred boundaries between home and school spaces, increased opportunities to procrastinate, and academic pressure, all of which are associated with poor concentration, technical glitches, and isolation (Carpen, K., & Hobson, M., n.d.). For example, there may be students who are still trying to get used to e-learning environments and may be struggling to keep up, which in turn causes stress and gives them anxiety. Another example would be if a student got easily distracted by cat videos on the internet, the neighbor mowing their lawn outside their window, or their younger siblings playing loudly in the next-door room. These types of distractions can cause the student to lose focus or procrastinate, leading them to miss due dates and causing stress and anxiety.

Learning challenges are also presented to K-12 students in e-learning environments. Just like in traditional classroom settings, learning needs to be accessible to all students. Students with disabilities may face particular learning challenges in e-learning environments. Non-verbal students may need specific technology to fully participate in the learning experience, or students who struggle with auditory or visual processing may not be able to fully internalize instructions without close guidance (KQED, 2020).

Another challenge students face in e-learning environments is a lack of supervision. Teachers in a traditional classroom setting can more easily attend to each student and provide assistance when needed. However, this becomes difficult for teachers to do in online class environments. Therefore, to be properly supervised during their learning, students may need their parents' support. This is especially true for students with disabilities who struggle with executive functioning (KQED, 2020). These students may need their parents and guardians’ help with navigating the online environment and technology. This is also true of the non-disabled student population. This challenge can be exacerbated by the fact that some parents are unavailable to supervise their child’s learning because of work or other pressing matters.

Lastly, K-12 students may struggle with self-regulation in e-learning environments, which can challenge their academic success. Particularly in online e-learning environments, K-12 students may find it difficult to feel motivated. Motivation falls under the umbrella of emotional intelligence. Possible factors and causes that may explain students' lack of motivation include valuing, self-efficacy, attribution, and negative emotional states. If students do not understand the value of a learning experience, they may not feel motivated to engage in learning. Moreover, if students feel like they cannot, for whatever reason, complete a task, their intrinsic motivation diminishes, and they will not engage in learning. Lastly, if students are in a negative state of mind- maybe they are depressed, angry, or fearful- they will not feel motivated to engage in the e-learning experience. (Carpen, K., & Hobson, M., n.d.).

Evidence-Based Solutions

Instructors can use evidence-based solutions to address the challenges K-12 students face in online learning environments. The challenges students face are socially, emotionally, externally, and learning-based. An evidence-based approach to combating students' feelings of isolation in e-learning environments is to incorporate collaboration into the instructional design of e-learning. Collaborative learning, according to Ghodsi, M. S., & Laal, M., is “an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product” (2012). They also cite the many benefits of collaborative learning, including higher achievement and productivity, improved psychological health, and greater social competence and self-esteem. As K-12 students spend less time engaging in structured play than they do in a traditional classroom setting, incorporating collaborative learning in an e-learning environment will help offset the loss of social skills. Collaborative learning can be incorporated into e-learning by providing learners with opportunities to work together on group projects and assignments in breakout rooms, through cloud-based shared documents, and via supervised group chats.

Not only can collaborative learning help students who report feeling isolated, it can also be beneficial to students who report feeling stressed, anxious, or unmotivated. Benefits of Collaborative Learning states, “When students work together, the learning process becomes interesting and fun despite the repetitive nature of the learning process (Panitz, T., 1999)” (Ghodsi, M. S., & Laal, M ,2012). This means that collaboration helps students feel motivated, and it reduces stress and anxiety.

Other challenges K-12 students face in e-learning environments are accessibility challenges. There may be students who have specific learning disabilities, auditory processing disorders, visual impairments, etc. The best way to ensure that learning experiences are accessible to all students is to adhere to Universal Design of Learning (UDL) principles. Adhering to UDL principles ensures that the learning experience provides multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression, optimizing the e-learning experience for all learners. When an instructor provides multiple means of engagement in an e-learning environment, they may allow students to choose their own learning activities or incorporate students' interests into the content. This can foster a student’s motivation and emotional engagement. When an instructor provides multiple means of representation in an e-learning environment, they ensure that learning content is presented in multiple formats. This accommodates different disabilities students may have, students’ different learning styles, and their personal preferences. When an instructor provides multiple means of expression, they allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in a variety of ways, one that best fits the student. For both summative and formative assessments, students will be able to demonstrate what they know through projects, essays, or presentations. Learning should be accessible to all students, and incorporating UDL principles into the instructional design of e-learning experiences for K-12 students can help eliminate accessibility challenges.

Lastly, K-12 students in e-learning environments face challenges regarding supervision. Whether the student has a disability or not, supervision is important in both in-person traditional settings and online e-learning environments. One evidence-based solution to overcome this challenge is to incorporate student-centered learning into the instructional design of the learning experience. According to Green, C. & Harrington, C., “student-centered learning will look like students and teachers working together to choose a path for learning that works best for each individual learner” (2020). They also note that student-centered design has four main characteristics including the “continuous monitoring of student needs (Harrington & DeBruler, 2019)” (Green, C. & Harrington, C., 2020). While instructors may not be able to hover over students in e-learning environments, student-centered learning helps students in a way that does not require a teacher standing directly near them.

Summary

Students who learn in an e-learning environment face unique challenges that they may not encounter in traditional classroom settings. Students have reported feeling isolated, that their stress and anxiety levels have spiked, students with disabilities face accessibility challenges, there seems to be a lack of supervision, and students have reported feeling unmotivated to continue with their online courses. Fortunately, there are evidence-based solutions to these challenges that instructors can implement to optimize the learning and learning experience for their learners. Collaborative learning, UDL, and student-centered learning can be used to mitigate these challenges, ensuring learners learn and thrive in e-learning environments rather than face a mountain of challenges.