Today’s topic of discussion in class was about Modality in Education. We talked about the different modes of instruction, which include:
- Synchronous Face to Face
- Synchronous online
- Blended synchronous
- Asynchronous
- Blended
Synchronous learning, if you are unsure of the term, is learning that is done live and at the same time. This can incorporate whole group time, breakout groups during class, and 1-1 connections.
Asynchronous learning is not learning at the same time. Examples of this include emails, backchannels such as Mattermost, learner blogs, and Trello.
We are currently experiencing different modes of learning in our EDCI 336 class by having 1 hour of synchronous class time on zoom, followed by 1 hour of synchronous decentralized pods, and then 1 hour of asynchronous learning.
I think it’s extremely important for classes and schools to offer student choice with different modalities of learning. This would accommodate for different students’ needs and accessibility problems. Ultimately, everyone should be included and schools should have flexible designs with learning modalities.
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash