Distance and Remote: Flexible Learning for All

Todd Nicolet, Vice Provost for Digital and Lifelong Learning at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Todd Nicolet, Vice Provost for Digital and Lifelong Learning at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Todd Nicolet, PhD serves as Vice Provost for Digital and Lifelong Learning at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he leads digital, flexible, and lifelong learning strategy and programming. He has held administrative leadership positions across higher education functions and is passionate about serving institutional mission through innovation, strategy, and operations.

Over past few decades, we have explored, expanded, and improved distance and remote learning, moving the approach from an extension of education living primarily on the edges to a driver of innovation. The forced experience of emergency remote instruction during the Covid-19 pandemic, while not an example of appropriately resourced and planned online education, shone a light on the possibilities and many of the challenges. As we continue to focus, improve, and innovate, we also need reframe this work to more fully embrace it as an integral part of education.  A flexible learning lens will enable us to envision and create education that better serves all audiences by being intentionally equitable and inclusive.

The name and category of distance learning itself presents a challenge.  The set of formats that accreditors typically group as “distance” goes by many names in our work—distance, remote, online, digital, technology-enabled, self-paced. While some names speak to different variants, they are all part of a common set of approaches or formats. Thinking about serving a group of students who may not be physically on campus and ensuring they have appropriate resources for high quality education is important and often the focus of the accreditation category.  The issue, however, is the distinction reinforces distance and remote as the “other” thing we do in education, fueling questions about quality that presume anything other than in-person is lacking in some way. After decades of research and experience, we know the answer to these questions—the format isn’t the variable that matters; it’s what you do with the format. And what works in one format often does not work in another. Attitudes have been shifting and students are actively seeking these programs, but much work remains, particularly within educational institutions.

"We Need To Switch Our Focus From The Format To Why We Have The Format, Acknowledging How It Has Grown To Be Such A Significant Part Of The Education Landscape"

So how do we get past the name, which continues to create limitations, while still ensuring we acknowledge and adjust for the differences of formats? We need to switch our focus from the format to why we have the format, acknowledging how it has grown to be such a significant part of the education landscape.  We offer distance, remote, or online programs and courses because they provide the flexibility our students want and need. A lens of flexible learning helps us see that a “distance” format provides access for students who could not engage in a program if it was not flexible enough to meet their life circumstances. At the program level, providing and supporting flexible learning expands the pathways that are possible for students and the ways they can receive support.  The number of students we can reach and educate grows and the rates with which we retain students through successful completion improves. At the course level, flexible learning helps us consider the needs of all kinds of students, fronting universal design to create inclusive experiences for learners of all backgrounds and abilities.

Too often, we expect a course or program to be in-person or not and put it into one category or the other. That simplification belies the fact that most “distance/online” programs have at least some components that are not “distance/online.”  And most “fully in-person” courses use many of the same approaches and technologies found in online courses, including but not limited to videos, discussions, assignments, and tests, often using the same LMS.  Even with fully remote courses, we are seeing more and more residential students taking online courses when they are available.  If we see distance as an other format, this feels like a problem we solve by limiting courses to encourage in person experiences.  If we think of distance as flexible learning, we create space to be curious about what need is being met for those students, and we look for ways to better understand and meet that need.  We see the connection to the many excellent educational experiences in similar technology-enhanced courses and use these approaches to improve course and support experiences for all students.  It’s time to take the next step in education, to embrace flexible learning, building on the many lessons learned from distance and remote formats and to think about how flexible learning improves access, inclusivity, and success for all students.