A university educator in Atlantic Canada who has written extensively about on-off learning in our schools—doesn’t believe that enough planning has gone into the hybrid model in high schools in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Teachers had two days of preparation time before students returned today but Paul Bennett, an adjunct professor at St. Mary’s and Director of Schoolhouse Consulting, says online learning is here to stay as we have to have the capacity to pivot in a crisis.

In this province, high school students will alternate between in-class and online with the kids switching roles each day.

Not only is it more demanding on teachers, but Bennett says students will find loopholes on those alternate days. He says right away that meant 30-40 per cent of their expectations in school were reduced which, over time, meant learning loss. As well, teachers found the schedule double duty and more difficult to administer.

Bennett says the New Brunswick experience did not go well. He says they did not take attendance or track participation, and that only one in four teachers assigned anything on the at-home days.

Basically, the kids were left on their own he says, giving rise to the question as to whether the kids were in school or at home.