Please note:
The following is an extract from the article "Adaptive, Synchronous, and Mobile Online Education: Developing the ASYMPTOTE Learning Environment", published in the Journal Mathematics in 2022, 10, 1628. It can be accessed here.
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2.1. Distance Education in Germany
In Germany, all educational institutions from kindergarten to universities were closed in March 2020. Apart from regional differences, schools reopened after two months of school lockdown. Until the end of the school year 2020/2021, German federal states mostly followed a partial attendance model. The following school year started with regular in-person classes. However, due to the pandemic situation, a second national school lockdown was initiated from December 2020 until February 2021, and partly until June 2021.
National [
13,
14,
15] and transnational studies [
16,
17] report a high proportion of asynchronous learning settings for Germany in spring 2020—the lessons were rarely held at a common time. Presumably due to this unfamiliar learning setting at home and at a flexible time, the average learning time in the first school closure dropped by half from 7.4 to 3.6 h per day [
14]. Further, the asynchronous instruction went hand in hand with a decrease in student–teacher interaction [
18] and student-to-student communication [
17]. Not surprisingly, students and parents reported a perceived lack of personal contact with the teacher and the class [
13,
14,
16].
From a socioeconomic perspective, lower-performing students and students from households with a lower social status reported greater problems concerning ERT than their classmates [
14,
15]. This finding can be viewed from both technical and pedagogical perspectives:
From a technical perspective, the availability of digital devices in spring 2020 was strongly linked to the household’s socioeconomic status: 18% of German low-income households did not have a computer or notebook and 46% did not have a tablet [
15,
19]. Thus, since students’ access to digital tools was strongly linked to their socioeconomic status, it clearly predetermined their chances of participating in distance education.
From a pedagogical point of view, in ERT, students had to take greater responsibility for structuring and organizing their learning progress, as both the teacher and classmates were not immediately available [
16,
20]. The teachers perceived formative assessment [
18] and the diagnosis of learning progress and students’ adequate individual support [
13,
16] as major challenges.
2.2. Distance Education in Greece
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Greek health authorities ordered the closure of schools at a national level 3 times: namely, in March 2020, in November 2020, and lastly in March 2021. In these periods, traditional education was replaced with distance online synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning processes.
To support schools, the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs (MofERA) issued guidelines for distance education and provided a list of available resources. Moreover, Greece implemented educational broadcasting via state television, principally for primary-level students [
21].
In studies on COVID-19-induced distance online education, teachers, in their majority, appeared willing to adopt online learning tools and practices during and after the pandemic [
22,
23]. They also indicated the need for training in order to enhance their pedagogical and learning design skills. Specifically, teachers stated that distance online learning required more effort compared to face-to-face education [
23]. Due to the pandemic, teachers faced new problems—both personal (e.g., increased family needs) and work related (e.g., technological difficulties). These problems resulted in having limited available time for designing online learning material [
23]. Another factor that played a major role in teachers’ difficulties during this time was the lack of technological capabilities concerning the applications used [
22]. Furthermore, the teachers perceived the communication and the interaction with their students as challenging [
23].
Additionally, teachers reported that the interest and participation of the students were not satisfying [
22]. This statement is directly linked with students’ lack of adequate digital equipment and connectivity to the internet that the teachers observed [
22,
23]. Concerning internet connectivity, the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs tried to mitigate the situation by providing access to the digital platforms and educational resources via mobile devices with zero data transfer charge for students [
24]. However, students had no previous experience with the platforms used or with distance online learning applications in general [
22], and combined with the lack of personal and technological support, their participation was unsubstantial [
24]. It is important to note that students from households with lower income [
23,
24] and students with disabilities had extra obstacles to overcome during these times [
25].
2.3. Distance Education in Italy
Italy was the first European country to be hit by the pandemic: on 20 February 2020, the first case of a person affected by COVID-19 was found in Italy. In early March 2020, schools and universities were closed. After a national lockdown until May 2020, slowly, the country and the educational system started re-opening.
In this scenario, the Ministry of Education coined the expression “School Never Stops” (“La Scuola non si ferma”, [
26]) to continually provide students with online instruction. While the study of [
27] reports the widely spread use of learning platforms, other authors state that teachers implemented a synchronous and individualized way of instruction: “about 88% of the teachers delivered synchronous video-lectures, 82% assigned homework to be realized mainly individually and 53% organized synchronous homework correction.” [
28] (p. 10). However, synchronous team working, or collaborative asynchronous activities were rarely conducted [
28].
In general, regardless of whether synchronous or asynchronous instruction modes were chosen, the distance education was perceived as challenging by teachers and students [
27,
29] due to teachers’ little or limited pre-experience on distance learning formats [
29]. However, encouragingly, one-third of teachers also reported that they plan to continue using blended learning formats in the future [
28]. In particular, the assessment of students’ new knowledge and the efficacy of the teachers’ actions were seen as major challenges [
18].
2.4. Distance Education in Portugal
In Portugal, educational institutions were closed in mid-March 2020, i.e., teaching in Portugal moved from face-to-face teaching to remote teaching practices. Starting in September 2020, Portugal resumed its normal activity while the country underwent a second school lockdown from January until March 2021.
In the ERT phase, Portuguese teachers perceived a lack of guidance and supportive resources and tools for dealing with the distance learning situation [
31]. Most of the schools decided to use synchronous sessions through the online platforms Google Meet and Classroom Teams free of charge [
32]. To mitigate the effects of the interruption in teaching activities, the Ministry of Education provided guidelines for distance education and—in cooperation with the Portuguese television RTP—implemented the television program #EstudoEmCasa [
33]. This television program was based on a project that started in the 1960s that aimed, at that time, to bring school to children from small villages in the interior of Portugal.
During ERT, Portuguese teachers stated that the increased workload, the need to chabge strategies and activities, and the issue of evaluation and feedback and time management were major difficulties [
34]. Further, technical problems concerning the availability of appropriate tools and equipment and its handling were reported [
31,
34].
From the student’s perspective, the high autonomy during distance learning and the lack of digital competencies were seen as major restrictions of distance learning. Even more, with the availability of appropriate equipment and family-related conditions, two socio-economical aspects were reported as constraints by the students [
34]. In line with this finding, the government invested in the technical equipment of students with less financial means [
35]. Apart from this technical support of students with a lower social status, Cabrito [
35] highlights that students and teachers acquired and developed skills to work with information and communication technologies, envisioning a new generation that is better prepared for a highly technological future. This expectation by teachers of more powerful ICT usage for teaching and learning was also reported in Germany and Spain [
16].
2.5. Distance Education in Spain
In Spain, the COVID-19 pandemic meant that students had to stay at home and were taught by distance from March 2020 until the end of the school year. As the Spanish regions are fully competent in the organization of their school system, some regions implemented in-person and partial attendance models during the 2020/2021 academic year. In other regions, students from kindergarten to university level were educated using a face-to-face model accompanied by special measures, e.g., classes were divided into groups taught by different teachers. Teaching in the academic year 2021/22 was conceived as going “back to normality”.
In the phase of distance education, the frequency that synchronous tools were used was quite high compared, for instance, with Germany [
16], including a comparably higher use of video conferences for mathematics teaching [
36]. However, despite the frequent use of synchronous teaching in Spain, teachers reported problems regarding the communication with students [
16]. Indeed, new challenges rose, such as the loss of control, the lack of discipline in lectures, and the lack of didactical-guided teaching [
36]. Consequently, two out of three teachers declared the adaptation of their teaching to ERT as quite or very difficult [
36]. The vast majority of Spanish teachers agreed that they felt overwhelmed (77%) and more stressed (68%) [
37].
On the other hand, the availability of technical equipment for the students and teachers to be able to implement this novel method of teaching is quite reasonable and, more important, quite well spread among the different socio-economic levels: While, on average, 91% of students reported having a computer that they could use for school work, the user rate of 4 out of 5 students with a lower socioeconomic status is still quite high (OECD average: 78%) [
38]. Yet, this favorable fact does not mean that there were no social gaps concerning home support—both technological or by parents: students from families with a higher income had increased access to internet-based devices and spent more time on learning activities during the pandemic [
37]. Thus, as in other countries, the possibility of participating in distance education largely depended on social factors [
39,
40].
2.6. Distance Education in Europe: An Interim Conclusion
In the five European countries considered, teaching and learning in the ERT phase showed recurring issues caused by COVID-19-induced distance education. The brief overview reveals that in Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, the following challenges of distance education occurred, which are summarized in the following Subsections:
2.6.1. Loss of Personal Interactions
Distance education required a rapid change in the instructional setting: The place of learning shifted from the common learning place “classroom” to the children’s rooms. Consequently, according to Johansen’s space-time matrix [11], the students did not learn in the same space, and in the case of asynchronous education, not even at the same time. Thus, it is not surprising that European students named the loss of familiar structures as one major difficulty during ERT. For Germany, a lack of student–teacher interaction [13,14,16,18] and communication among students [17] is reported. The studies of [16,23,28] confirm the lack of personal contact in Spain, Italy, and Greece.
In Spain, teachers also reported a loss of control and lack of discipline and the lack of didactical-guided teaching [36]. The latter issue, the rearrangement of their teaching strategies for distance education and the development of new teaching for online environments, was also reported as a challenge for teachers in Italy and Portugal [18,29,34]. Moreover, Portuguese and Greek teachers emphasized the increased workload compared to face-to-face teaching [23,34].
Undoubtedly, the changes in the environment caused by distance learning were even more massive when teaching and learning were conducted in an asynchronous mode, i.e.,
learning was organized at an individual location at a self-selected time. Thus, according to the space-time matrix [11], the students not only worked at different places but also at
different times, which further increased the sense of social isolation reported by [16].
2.6.2. Lack of Adequate Formative Assessment
Due to the spatial separation, teachers in Germany, Spain, and Italy experienced difficulties in formative assessment [18] and the diagnosis of learning progress and
students’ individual support [13,16]. Moreover, for Portugal, teachers reported that the evaluation and feedback of students’ working process were challenging [34].
This problem of adequate formative assessment was clearly related to the lack of student–teacher interaction reported in all five countries [13,15,16,18,23,34]. To monitor
students’ work process, at least to some extent, at a distance, teachers in all five countries used learning platforms [16,24,27,32].
2.6.3. Deficit in Curricular Resources
Even if learning platforms were widely used for distance education, a lack of available digital tasks in the ERT phase can be assumed. On the one hand, the urgent
development of digital education programs by the Italian, Portuguese, and Greek governments during the first school closure underpins this assumption. On the other
hand, teachers reported the lack of supporting resources and tools for dealing with the distance learning situation in Portugal [31] or the self-creation of at least half of the used
tasks in Spain [36].
To provide individual support to the students, it seemed important to provide tasks on students’ individual performance level—in particular, as the students experience
larger autonomy and take responsibility for their learning in distance education [16,20,34]. Therefore, with respect to the potentials of digital tools [41,42], an adaptive allocation of
tasks and a possibility for (self-)assessment could help to support students’ individual and autonomous work process at home and enable an appropriate form of differentiation in
distance learning settings.
2.6.4. Lack of Technical Equipment
Lastly, it seems that the ERT phase most strongly affected the lower-performing students and students with a lower socioeconomic status. For all five countries, a strong
linkage between the availability of technical devices and the household’s income was reported [19,23,24,30,34,37,38]. The importance of social factors for students’ learning
progress in distance education [14,15,39,40] very likely resulted in an increase in the socalled digital divide—the influence of socioeconomic levels on accessing ICT [43,44] —
even when the states provided financial and material support in response to this threat.
Further, lower-performing students and students with a lower socioeconomic status tended to receive less support from their parents and spent more time on learning activities during the ERT phase [14,15,29,37].
2.6.5. Lack of Digital Competences
Finally, participation in the digital world not only depended on the availability of technical equipment. Successful use of the tools also required that they were used
appropriately. For all five states, however, studies reported a lack of digital competencies among teachers and students [13,16,22,23,29,31,34,37].
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