Why 'Deep Learning' Is Hard to Do in Remote or Hybrid Schooling

Teacher Sherisa Nailor helps Parker Drawbaugh, left, and Jacob Knouse in their Small-Animal Science class at Big Spring High School in Newville, Pa. It's a dilemma schools have struggled with for years: Should teachers spend the precious time they have helping students dig deeply into a specific issue, problem, or question? Or should they teach more broadly about a wide variety of topics? The argument for the former approach--called "deep learning"--is that it improves student engagement and prepares kids to be better problem solvers in a world with increasingly complex challenges around health, economics, social justice, and climate change. A broader approach, the counter argument goes, introduces students to a greater mix of topics, giving them a better sense of all the issues and problems society is facing. Taking that "deep learning" approach is now more difficult than ever, as students are stuck at home learning remotely either full time or part time, or in socially distanced classrooms where collaboration, project-based learning, and lab experiments are hard, if not impossible, to do.