Shifting to digital during COVID-19: are teachers empowered to give voice to students?

While online learning resources are proliferating in all education delivery modes, from traditional classes to distance learning, institutions may have not recognized their potential for addressing diverse student populations, providing them online with learning experiences according to their individual needs. If teachers embrace online learning and customize their approaches to make online resources accessible to students, the interactive and collaborative nature of online learning may help reduce the lack of interaction in large classes and isolation in distance education. Research reports the need to examine the accessibility of online learning through the lenses of the digital divide dependence on factors related to physical access, skills and motivational factors. The circumstances of the pandemic have revealed inequality in access to education caused by access to technology and online delivery in which teaching approaches may not necessarily address the student voice with appreciation of their culture. Discussion address Kuo and Belland (Educ Technol Res Dev 64:661–680, 2016) article which reports experiences of minority students (e. g., African-American) in continuing education indicating that there has been little study of minority students' use of online learning resources. Authentic learning is highlighted by critical pedagogy as a means of engaging students in real-life problems and giving meaning to their real-life contexts as sources of learning and among which digital spaces play a prominent role in students’ meaning-making.