{"id":7476,"date":"2023-11-13T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T14:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/?p=7476"},"modified":"2023-11-08T12:08:07","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T18:08:07","slug":"recentering-digital-learning-around-students-and-their-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/es\/blog\/recentering-digital-learning-around-students-and-their-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Recentering Digital Learning Around Students and Their Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Every Learner Everywhere\u00ae and its partners meet with educators, we sometimes encounter the perspective that digital learning is synonymous with online courses or with a range of modalities that include hybrid, hy-flex, and flipped. Conversations about digital learning that define it as online courses also tend to focus on which tools to use.<\/p>\n

While teaching online and selecting tools are parts of digital learning, they aren\u2019t the essential characteristics for Every Learner and its partners. We believe institutions of higher education and the professionals working in them need to think more expansively about what digital learning is. That begins by recognizing that the most important word in the phrase digital learning<\/em> is learning <\/em>and that learning <\/em>is about the learner<\/em>, not the teacher, and not the institution.<\/p>\n

Every Learner and its partners advocate for conversations about digital learning that center the humanity of our students. We try to start conversations with big-picture questions about who students are, what our aspirations are for them, and what their own aspirations are for themselves. At Every Learner, our specific goal is equitable outcomes for Black, Latino, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first-generation students.<\/p>\n

In our work with institutions and individual faculty, we try to put questions about tools and modalities after questions about students and learning outcomes. Who are our students? What do they bring to the table? Is it that we want students to be able to think of their own original research questions? To be able to work in groups to develop a proposal together? To develop a creative expression of their ideas?<\/p>\n

Implementing digital learning before centering our students\u2019 humanity and considering questions like these won\u2019t be effective. In fact, it\u2019s likely to extend and amplify existing problems and inequities.<\/p>\n

Digital learning addresses barriers<\/h2>\n

Even when big-picture goals and specific learning outcomes are well defined, it may still be premature to select the digital tools if other barriers to learning have to be confronted.<\/p>\n

I often use the example of a hammer. Everyone should have this useful tool, right? But a hammer can be used to build or to vandalize. Even assuming good intentions, if the user isn\u2019t skilled, a hammer will inadvertently bend a lot of nails. The tool isn\u2019t the goal.<\/p>\n

Some approaches to digital learning are like distributing hammers to faculty and students who will run into potholes on the way to the building site or who don\u2019t all have access to the same blueprints when they get there. Similarly, digital learning is often hampered by outdated course design, teaching practices, assessments, support services, institutional policies, and professional development that don\u2019t authentically center students. The practices and policies higher ed relies on are frequently driven by the institution\u2019s needs instead of the students\u2019 or were created with a limited set of students in mind.<\/p>\n