When I was a kid, we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Today, we get the same thing our moms once made for a few cents, except now it goes by a fancy name and costs 10 times as much. Distance learning really isn't "fancy" either; it's still involves the basics...good teaching and student learning.
Recently, we have seen the rise in the usage of two "fancy" terms...Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning. We define the term "synchronous learning" to mean "Live Distance Learning" and "asynchronous learning" as "Anything OTHER than Live Distance Learning". Both of these words are foreign to many and weren't used in polite conversation until just yesterday. However, they are exemplars (another fancy word) of the new vocabulary that has become part of our profession. Yes...things have changed, and so has our lingo.
Despite the technological challenges of Distance Learning...(and there are MANY), as educators, our primary job is still the same...to ensure that all of our students are learning! So, whether it is "synchronous" or "asynchronous", it all goes back to LEARNING. The terms "teaching" and "learning" have a symbiotic relationship. If students are learning, we assume that it is because effective teaching is occurring. The reverse is also true...If student's aren't learning, then we can assume that it is because effective teaching is NOT occurring. Because we all work as a team, we need to know what is going RIGHT and what is going WRONG, so that we can enhance our successes, and learn from and correct our failures. As a team, we can work together to smooth out the challenges of this new delivery method, and concentrate on developing high quality, and highly engaging learning opportunities for all of our students.
Distance Teaching can is a HUGE challenge, and requires a different skillset and time commitment...but fundamentally, it is still about good teaching. I believe that if we can frame our work in that context, it might improve the learning outcomes for our students.
At the end of the day, we aren't serving our kids a fancy sandwich with peanut puree spread with a grape relish reduction on a brioche' bun. We are serving them the same great peanut butter sandwich we always did, but on a different plate.