1. The document discusses the history of behaviorism in education and its focus on reinforcement and punishment to shape student learning and behavior. It argues that online learning has reinforced these behaviorist approaches through the use of technologies that monitor student behavior. 2. It advocates for a critical digital pedagogy that recognizes the humanity of both students and educators. This would focus on curiosity, questioning, and empowering learners rather than standardized assessments and compliance. 3. Moving forward, the document calls for engaging critically with technology and traditional practices to address inequities and perpetuation of outdated models of teaching and learning.

1. 1
HIGHEREDUCATIONHIGHEREDUCATION
Online Learning: Teaching during a Pandemic
Critical Digital Pedagogy after COVID-19
Sean Michael Morris
University of Colorado Denver
Digital Pedagogy Lab

2. 2
HIGHEREDUCATION
2
HIGHEREDUCATION
“This is going to come here. Everything is going to change.”

3. 3
HIGHEREDUCATION
3
HIGHEREDUCATION
Where We Have Come From
“If there is something that goes against the nature of human
beings, it is the nonsearch.” Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of
Commitment

4. 4
HIGHEREDUCATION
4
HIGHEREDUCATION
“One of the most beautiful characteristics of a teacher is to
testify to his or her students that ignorance is the starting
point for knowledge, that making mistakes is no sin, that it is
part of the discovery process. Error is an opportunity to seek
knowledge. Error is precisely what makes us learn. Do not be
embarrassed at not knowing.”

5. 5
HIGHEREDUCATION
5
HIGHEREDUCATION
Education now relies more upon what Freire observed as the
“banking model” of teaching than on any notion of learning as
search, or learning as a celebration of freedom.

6. 6
HIGHEREDUCATION
6
HIGHEREDUCATION
In a classroom, this means the teacher is responsible for
deciding what knowledge is necessary for a student to master
the subject of the course: what reading is necessary, what
methods must be practiced, what are the learning objectives,
and what are the rewards and punishments for doing or not
doing what the teacher has deemed imperative?

7. 7
HIGHEREDUCATION
7
HIGHEREDUCATION
Skinner’s behaviorism was based on the notion that “Teaching
is the arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement under
which students learn.” from Technology of Teaching

8. 8
HIGHEREDUCATION
8
HIGHEREDUCATION
“Comparable results have been obtained with pigeons, rats,
dogs, monkeys, human children… and psychotic subjects. In
spite of great phylogenetic differences, all these organisms
show amazingly similar properties of the learning process.”

9. 9
HIGHEREDUCATION
9
HIGHEREDUCATION
“Uniformity, regularity, standardization, and therefore
objectivity were the buzzwords of the first decade of the
twentieth century … Thus was born the multiple-choice test,
what one commentator has called the symbol of American
education, ‘as American as the assembly line.’ It is estimated
that Americans today take over 600 million standardized tests
annually.” Cathy Davidson, Now You See It

10. 10
HIGHEREDUCATION
10
HIGHEREDUCATION
“Learning … is about behavior,” education journalist Audrey
Watters tells us, “about reinforcing those behaviors that
educators deem ‘correct’—knowledge, answers, not just
sitting still and raising one's hand before speaking.” from
“Pigeon Pedagogy”

11. 11
HIGHEREDUCATION
11
HIGHEREDUCATION
Assessment has become so integrated into the idea of success
that we are told that today getting a good grade has a direct
impact on one’s entire future. Failure in a class (i.e., failure to
respond with the correct behavior) may mean failure to
graduate, or failure to impress a future employer.

12. 12
HIGHEREDUCATION
12
HIGHEREDUCATION
All of this preeminence given to correct behavior and
assessments and grades is a lie.

13. 13
HIGHEREDUCATION
13
HIGHEREDUCATION
In an education where standardization is the mean, wonder
has no place, creativity is acceptable only in that it meets
certain criteria and expectations (so it may be assessed), and
imagination serves only to threaten the status quo.

14. 14
HIGHEREDUCATION
14
HIGHEREDUCATION
When compliant behavior is the same as exceptional behavior,
when information is consumed but not produced, when
action is predetermined by someone not the actor, when
questioning is not rewarded and failure is derided, the society
that’s cultivated is not one that discerns truth but only
accepts the truth handed them.

15. 15
HIGHEREDUCATION
15
HIGHEREDUCATION
Where We Are Today
Even as more progressive pedagogies have gained some
traction, the intervention of educational technologies into
schooling both online and on-ground has kept behaviorism
alive.

16. 16
HIGHEREDUCATION
16
HIGHEREDUCATION
When learning went online—both this past year during the
pandemic, and decades ago with the advent of the first online
courses and courseware—the prevalent question was: “How
do we know learning is happening?”

17. 17
HIGHEREDUCATION
17
HIGHEREDUCATION
Post once, reply twice.

18. 18
HIGHEREDUCATION
18
HIGHEREDUCATION
Beyond the LMS, technologies like plagiarism detection
services (Turnitin, Grammarly, etc.) and remote test proctoring
software (ProctorU, Proctorio, and the rest) take operant
conditioning a step further by creating the conditions for
punishment before any behavior is yet in evidence.

19. 19
HIGHEREDUCATION
19
HIGHEREDUCATION
“Every student is guilty until the algorithm proves her
innocence.” Audrey Watters, “Robot Teachers, Racist
Algorithms, and Disaster Pedagogy”
This is not only not an educational approach founded on
curiosity and questioning, but one in which the greatest
reward is simply not being punished.

20. 20
HIGHEREDUCATION
20
HIGHEREDUCATION
But not only did education default to behaviorism because of
its easy appeal, it did so because the age-old fear of online
learning rose up in a roar: how do we know learning is
happening? And more: If I can’t see them, my students will
cheat.

21. 21
HIGHEREDUCATION
21
HIGHEREDUCATION
Where We Might Go
More than technological, though, the precipitate shift to
learning and teaching online during the pandemic was a
human one.

22. 22
HIGHEREDUCATION
22
HIGHEREDUCATION
“One resonant note of guidance rose above the clamor: take
care of each other. Take care of students. Take care of
yourselves. Take care of learning. Be kind, be generous, be
patient.” Sean Michael Morris, “Fostering Care and
Community at a Distance”

23. 23
HIGHEREDUCATION
23
HIGHEREDUCATION
”There cannot be search without hope.” Paulo Freire

24. 24
HIGHEREDUCATION
24
HIGHEREDUCATION
“I am convinced that without a deep engagement with critical
digital pedagogy, as individuals and institutions, we will almost
certainly drag outmoded ways of thinking and doing things
with us. If we do not reckon honestly with what all we have
been carrying, many dead ideas are sure to be repackaged as
new and innovative “tech solutions” for the converging public
health, social, political, and economic crises we face.”
Ruha Benjamin, “Foreword” Critical Digital Pedagogy: A
Collection

25. 25
HIGHEREDUCATION
25
HIGHEREDUCATION
True digital literacy is not made from the skill to use an
interface or a device, but a depth of consciousness about the
interaction between the human mind and aspects of digital
technology, including: digital identity, algorithms, social
media.

26. 26
HIGHEREDUCATION
26
HIGHEREDUCATION
If we aren’t free to ask vital questions about how our
traditional practices of education have left many students
unsupported, then we will have no choice but to continually
perpetuate those inequities.

27. 27
HIGHEREDUCATION
27
HIGHEREDUCATION
Critical digital pedagogy is a humanizing pedagogy that seeks
little else but to protect the dignity of students and educators
alike, with an aim to empower them, too.

28. 28
HIGHEREDUCATION
28
HIGHEREDUCATION
Thank you.