Online Learning: What We Know and What We Don't Know

Introduction

The field of online teaching and learning has been growing steadily since 2000 (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018), and explosively during the COVID-19 pandemic (Johnson, Veletsianos, & Seaman, 2020: Parker, 2021; Harangi-Rákos et al., 2022). While there will certainly be substantial retrenchment with the abatement of the pandemic, the long-term trajectory of growth of online learning will likely have been much accelerated (McKenzie, 2021; Ulum, 2022).

Online learning and teaching in higher education is a very broad and rapidly changing field. It is therefore difficult for experts, let alone specialists and practitioners to understand the state of the field. The COVID pandemic necessitated emergency measures in learning and teaching. The disruption caused by the pandemic has now catalyzed a ‘stock-taking’ of higher education. Efforts to create some stability in higher education learning and teaching must be informed by an up-to-date assessment of the current state. It is an opportune time to explore the field of online learning to identify weakness, and opportunities and formulate a strategy for contending with ongoing challenges.

This article reviews what we know about online teaching and learning, what we don’t know (especially the more applied aspects of how to make online teaching more effective), and strategic opportunities for improvement by faculty and universities that are often overlooked or underutilized. It also provides a matrix of competing strengths and challenges.