Best Practices in Project-Based Learning: Online Instructional Technology Courses and Emergency Remote Teaching

Literature Review

At the time of this writing, there is a surge of emphasis in online learning due to the crisis precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, with initial projections that include over 250 universities moving to online instruction, and incredibly, over 1.3 billion students in K-12 institutions at home due to school closures (Quintana, 2020; UNESCO, 2020) . According to data at the end of April 2020, an estimated 25,798,790 students in 4,234 higher education institutions are affected by Covid-19 (Entangled Solutions, n.d.). Due to the projected severity of the crisis, many institutions are considering online options for the 2020 – 2021 academic year (Lederman, 2020). Known colloquially as emergency online teaching, this shift in emphasis to online instruction means that universities with significant technical programs must also shift online using this model, often with little prior readiness (McMurtrie, 2020). Such a shift often requires prioritizing core course components, such as content delivery, testing and grading, leaving little time for course innovations to improve course pedagogy. Many such differences in course design separate online instruction that is designed as “full course development” online learning experiences from experiences designed as a result of emergency teaching models (Hodges, Moore, Lockee, Trust, & Bond, 2020). A diverse reservoir of resources on emergency teaching practices can be found in “Keep Teaching: Resources for Higher Education,” made available to higher education institutions by the Professional Organization and Development (POD) network (POD, n.d.). However, a search in this database revealed only articles on project-based pedagogy, focused around lab-specific assignments (Biciccihi, 2020).