8 minute read
Online schooling
Online schooling a must have
• Online learning is taking place on an unprecedented scale this year and the eCitizen Education 360 Project is monitoring progress.
• Educators were not prepared for prolonged school suspensions, says Project Coordinator and Principal
Investigator Prof Nancy Law of the University of Hong Kong.
• She talks about the urgent need to strengthen strategies. • 今年全港大規模使用網上學習， 可謂前 所未見。 • 香港大學教育學院羅陸慧英教授認為教 育工作者並未預料到學校會長時間停課。 • 她跟讀者探討了當只能使用電子教學時， 教育工作者首要加強使用電子教學的能 力以及制定相應策略。
Professor Nancy Law monitors the ways in which adaption to online education is taking place. “E-learning only played a minor role in Hong Kong schools before the pandemic,” she points out. Her study of the effect of class suspensions was underway as the first swift adjustments were being made. She appreciates efforts to sustain learning, but she also recognizes the steep learning curve that has to be climbed. “In February 2020, a few pioneering schools used Zoom for interactive, real-time lessons.” Those schools made headline news, but a few months later, Zoom had become a norm.
It is remarkable in the circumstances that Prof Law’s ongoing study [see eCitizen Education 360 Project, page 8] revealed that stakeholders had no particular concern over students’ long-term development. “I would interpret this as evidence of students’ learning through work submitted to their teachers for grading. It also indicates that the efforts made by schools, teachers and parents paid off.”
Maintaining contact
However, going to school involves real-time face-toface interaction with teachers and other students. This element was largely missing from online learning this year and student-centred interactive learning needs to be addressed, says Prof Law, as well as results.
“Schooling is more than academic learning and teaching. It is also a socialisation process.” A lot of students in her study said they missed the opportunity to socialize with
In terms of competence [in online learning] there are huge differences between and within schools.
peers and teachers. They also missed the chance for the “casual negotiation of meaning,” an element that face-toface lessons makes possible when clarification is needed but which is difficult in the context of online learning.
“Teachers also reported difficulty accurately assessing students’ learning outcomes,” Prof Law continues. “When conducting a lesson face-to-face, teachers regularly check students’ facial expressions to gauge understanding. They walk around the classroom to check on progress or ask questions.” When such feedback is hidden behind computer screens, assessment is much more difficult.
Subjects requiring hands-on or essentially creative engagement revealed more complications. “A teacher at one of the surveyed schools walked the extra mile by posting individual science activity kits to students.” Many teachers of the visual arts and music changed their curriculum entirely to accommodate the online learning mode, she reports. “Engaging students in creative or inquiry-oriented online learning without the materials or hands-on guidance is no easy endeavour.”
Trying to narrow divides
Adverse effects of online learning revealed in Prof Law’s study were partly connected to socioeconomic disparities. Nevertheless, “The digital competence divide is not entirely due to socioeconomic divides,” Prof Law advises. Whether students already had opportunities to use digital technology at school before the pandemic contributed much to their digital competence level.
Data collected before the pandemic already revealed serious digital inequalities across Hong Kong’s student population, in terms of both access and competence. Where the latter is concerned, “There are huge differences between and within schools,” Prof Law says. “A very small percentage of students do not have access to the internet at all at home but around 10%, higher for primary compared to secondary students, could only use smartphones for online learning.” Access to devices with larger screens, including desktop computers, laptops or tablets was an important contributing factor to the level of digital competence students could achieve.
Prof Law confirms that there are problems with the way in which government measures have addressed disparities and not all needy students have good access. “Unlike textbook subsidies, for which over 200,000 students applied and received last year, digital devices were not subsidized unless schools had enrolled needy students via the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scheme prior to the pandemic.” Furthermore, subsidies (see BYOD box page 9) are means-tested, and some needy students do not meet the criteria. Schools may make decisions based on the characteristics of their own students.
Educators could also consider how digital literacy skills could be developed by incorporating them in the teaching of different subject areas and topics. Having a tablet or a laptop does not automatically translate to better learning. Students have to know how to use them well and safely too.
At a time when only a small minority of students from needy families is benefitting from subsidies, much more needs to be done. Asked what real action might be taken immediately, Prof Law says that many schools will attempt to mitigate the widened achievement gap by providing remedial and supplementary teaching and assessing the impact on students’ learning outcomes. She recommends three major areas for change.
Changing and adapting
First, schools should enhance their capacity for blended, or mixed-mode learning. For younger children in particular, and for certain subjects, Prof Law advises a combination of digital and non-digital home learning. “This can include both written and craft work that can be uploaded to a learning management system for feedback from teachers and students.”
Second, there needs to be more appropriate professional development, both for designing student-centred interactive online learning and authentic assessment. “This is actually a key priority reported by the schools too. We believe that individual schools should draw upon each other’s positive experiences to improve their own planning and implementation,” Prof Law continues.
Third, partnerships are needed between schools and community organizations to provide support for the specific needs of students from low-income families. “This would include offering devices on loan, providing parent education and ensuring good digital literacy education for students.”
Despite the problems students are facing, Prof Law concludes on an upbeat note, saying that there will be positive outcomes for online teaching learning skills in the post-pandemic era. “A definite gain that all stakeholders agree on is an improvement in the digital skills of both teachers and students. It is reassuring to see that the whole education community has now invested more attention and effort on promoting learning with the aid of technology.”
This interview with Professor Nancy Law of the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong follows up the release of findings from the first part of her team’s study of the effect of class suspensions on learning, the eCitizen Education 360 project. * The project consists of six parts on six themes. Further findings will be released over the coming months.
eCitizen Education 360 Project
All Hong Kong schools were invited and 53 took part. Respondents included 1,279 primary school pupils from P3 upwards, 5,050 secondary school students, about 1,200 teachers and 1,300 parents. About 50% of the secondary schools and 40% of primary schools indicated that they did not have a Bring Your Own Device policy (see opposite page).
Participation
78% government aided schools 12% government schools 8% direct subsidy schools
2% private or special schools
Findings
Teachers and students reported improved digital skills. Mastery of complex concepts and skills became harder in purely online learning. Teachers in BYOD schools were more confident because they used online learning before class suspensions and had better technical support.
They were also more confident about teaching online than others.
Schools with good online learning management systems as well as BYOD could offer more help to students during class suspensions. Students at schools that had not implemented BYOD tended to be more distracted by entertainment on devices.
Response from families of lower socioeconomic status
Difficulties caused by insufficient digital devices and poor network access.
Lower expectations among parents about performance in post school suspension exams.
Less improvement in digital competence during school suspensions both by students and parents.
Tendency for parents to be less involved in children’s learning. Up to 20% of students reported slow or unstable connections at home that were inadequate for online learning.
Parents more likely to report inability to provide internet connection and/or digital devices adequate for children’s online learning.
Recommendations
Urgent need to develop and strengthen e-learning capacity.
Imminent need to prepare for mixed-mode teaching and learning. Training in online learning needed for teachers and students.
Better communication with parents and support when needed.
More funding for good internet access and devices for all students.
More details
360-cms.ecitizen.hk/uploads/press_conference_20200720-complete_2390a14537.pdf
Findings of the first part of the study were released in July 2020 and of the second part in August 2020. More details ecitizen.hk/360
BYOD
All government schools have been encouraged to implement a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy and operate a WiFi campus since 2015/2016.
Only a minority of schools had implemented or were formulating measures relating to BYOD by 2017-2018.
Assistance for buying computers in the form of Community Care Fund government subsidies is currently available only to a minority of needy primary and secondary students.
About 190 primary and secondary schools applied for assistance in 2018/19.
The number of schools grew to 270 in the 2019/20 school year.
However, according to official figures:
The number of student beneficiaries in 2018/19 was only 13,856.
The total number of students in all Hong Kong schools was 710,143 in 2019/2020.
Beneficiaries of the assistance scheme as a proportion of the total is only 1.95%.
But the poverty rate among Hong Kong’s children before intervention in 2020 was 23.3%.
Recent surveys say:
40% of children from grassroots families do not have a computer at home according to Society for Community Organization
80% of low-income families in Hong Kong cannot afford computers for children’s home e-learning and 20% have no WiFi either according to the Alliance for Children Development Rights
Source
• news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1546804-20200830.htm • scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3100441/coronavirusfour-five-needy-hong-kong-families-cant-afford
Read more
• edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/primary-secondary/applicable-to-primary-secondary/it-in-edu/BYOD/byod_index.html • info.gov.hk/gia/general/202004/22/P2020042200479.htm • edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/primary-secondary/applicable-to-primary-secondary/it-in-edu/ITE-CCF/ccf_index.html • edb.gov.hk/en/about-edb/publications-stat/figures/index.html • info.gov.hk/gia/general/201912/13/P2019121300605.htm
