As school districts grapple with how best to accelerate learning after the pandemic, they’re finding mixed reviews at best when it comes to asynchronous learning. In conversations with district and business leaders, I’ve realized there are three antiquated notions that are holding back the transformation of school systems and leaving workforce opportunities on the table. Here are three things educators and business leaders need to understand (and maybe policymakers, too).
Asynchronous does not always have to be synonymous with online.
Washington state is currently considering a bill that would allow for 20% of instruction to be offered asynchronously. During testimony given in opposition to the proposal, the main argument was that online learning has failed several students. This is true: The emergency remote learning that occurred during the pandemic is not the same as high-quality online instruction that engages students. Additionally, whenever asynchronous is discussed, it’s always in the context of being online. Asynchronous simply refers to two or more objective events not existing or happening at the same time. This means the time could also be used for project-based learning among the community.
Learning can happen outside classroom walls.
For more than a decade, personalized learning advocates have described the way teachers move from the “sage on the stage to guide on the side.” Many educators believe in this, but it is hard to do in practice. Allowing students to use time during the day to learn among other leaders is the ultimate way to give students autonomy over their work and allow them to start exploring opportunities within the workforce that they would like to pursue for a career.
Iowa Big is putting this theory into practice and has created an environment where students earn a variety of credits and “important 21st-century skills” by working on projects they care about. That might include conducting research, giving community presentations, and writing professional correspondence.
Establishing such a program requires community leaders to come together to identify what they want out of schools and determine where students aren’t receiving what they need. Iowa leaders identified the following:
• Passion: Start by tapping into a student’s interests and use that as a powerful learning tool. Passionate people are successful people.
• Projects: They recognized that almost all work in school is “fake,” meaning it didn’t have much, if any, direct impact beyond the classroom or a grade. They wanted kids engaged in solving real-world problems and seeing how content actually lives in the real world.
• Community: They wanted kids to be strongly networked in the community and to see all of the great people and wonderful opportunities that exist in the corridor. They recognized that students need lots of “teachers” and could learn so much and contribute so much by being out in the community.
Students’ learning progress can be tracked outside of school walls.
One of the biggest barriers to using asynchronous learning in the context of workforce opportunities is having a system that can track the learning back to meeting state standards. With the technology that exists, and the workforce being more fluid than ever, this is the time for business leaders to consider projects for students to work on. These are meaningful projects that can then be tied to state standards.
The opportunities to learn outside the classroom are endless and provide engaging content for students. It’s time to stop thinking that high-quality asynchronous learning is a student sitting in front of a computer for hours on end. Instead, we should think of it as a learning pathway that uses technology to allow for more outside, real-world learning and potential employees for industry partners.
Susan Gentz is a partner at K20Connect, and an education policy expert working to inspire innovation in education.