A Teacher Reflects on the Opportunities — and Limitations — of Online Learning

When students and teachers shifted to remote learning in 2020 (with many still learning and teaching fully online or only partly in the classroom), the opportunities for personalized learning provided by online platforms like CK-12 became clearer than ever. Yet, in a time when many students are still feeling isolated and unmotivated, human relationships remain abundantly important when it comes to learning.

We recently sat down with Eleanor Knobil, a high school math and science teacher at Lake Lure Classical Academy in North Carolina to talk about her experiences teaching in a hybrid scenario during COVID-19 and why her vision of what education might look like moving forward involves a blend of online and in-person instruction.

Knobil, a CK-12 certified educator and a regular CK-12 user before the pandemic, continues to leverage CK-12 lessons and adaptive practice during hybrid learning. She finds the immediate feedback students get from adaptive practice to be especially useful: “The adaptive practice is definitely a big help; as opposed to an assignment they have to turn in to me, and having to check it and give it back to them, it’s something they can get immediate feedback on to know whether they are understanding the concept or not.”

Knobil also finds CK-12 helpful when it comes to personalizing instruction for her students, who have a range of needs within one classroom (most of her students are back to in person learning); she supports students at varying levels in terms of both content and pacing and also teaches students with formal accommodations.

CK-12’s online lessons and practice are especially useful in Knobil’s physics class, in which she is managing differentiated groups of students in the same class period. “For my physics class, I have an honors section that’s scheduled at the same time as the main section. I teach them all together, but then I’ll meet with the honors students separately in the same classroom. Juggling that can definitely be interesting!” CK-12’s adaptive practice resources allow Knobil to provide feedback to the main section of her class while simultaneously providing instruction to another section.

But even with the support Knobil finds in CK-12, she still believes the human element is crucial when it comes to student success. She’s come away from a tough year firm in her conviction that an online learning platform like CK-12 has the potential to be an equalizing force, meeting each student where they are in their personal learning journey. Yet, she says, “I think people have increased their comfort level with online platforms but also realized the in-person really does have a lot of value.”

She explains, “ Even though people probably still see classrooms as one-size-fits-all, there are actually a lot of individual interactions that happen over the course of a day in the classroom.” Knobil continues, “When that [teacher] interaction is cut out, a lot can happen. It’s like in a biome, if you take one element out, and you don’t know exactly how that’s going to affect everything else.”

As we wrap up our conversation, Knobil pauses to reflect on what the past year has taught her about the relationship between teachers and technology. As a longterm proponent of platforms like CK-12, she is excited about increased comfort levels (from teachers, parents, and students alike) around technology. But, in the end, there is no replacement for teachers themselves, who are a critical part of the learning equation.

“I think overall in education as a whole, COVID will accelerate the implementation of technology,” Knobil says. “It may also accelerate a little bit of pushback, with students and teachers saying, ‘Okay, we want to stop staring at the screen now.’” Hopefully, as we approach a return to school in the fall, we will all find that balance between the human and the digital to make learning meaningful for all students.

Written by Liana Gamber-Thompson, CK-12 Foundation.

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