Viral Disruption and Creative Destruction: Discourses of Online Learning

Dan Steward, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The current pandemic has disrupted education, shifting many from traditional face-to-face work into online learning. The shift is usually considered a temporary adaptation, until such time as students, teachers, and other educational personnel can return to "normal." But the "normal" has been trending toward online learning for many years already. Will a "new normal" emerge as a return to previous trends, or has the disruption to educational institutions afforded opportunities for more radical and enduring changes in the blend of online learning with older practices? While we are in the midst of the pandemic, it is too soon to tell. But we can show something of the discursive space in which educational plans and possibilities circulate, and in which expectations and preferences are expressed. This paper summarizes and analyzes the pandemic discourse of online learning, comparing and contrasting it with an ongoing discourse long underway. Various data sources are sampled and described, including disciplinary journals (e.g., "Teaching Sociology"), professional periodicals (e.g., "Academe"), and popular media (e.g., "The New York Times", "Twitter"). Data are gathered to reflect and represent diverse roles and occupations, from information technologists (e.g., from EDUCAUSE), to administrators (e.g., from the Association of American Colleges and Universities), to faculty (e.g., from the American Federation of Teachers), to students and alumni (e.g., from Phi Beta Kappa). This paper focuses on higher education in the United States, but draws some comparisons with K-12 education as well as the global discourse of online learning.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 38. Curriculum and Career, Discipline and Disruption