Global Perspectives on Online Education During a Time of Emergency: Conditions, Contexts and Critiques

‘Global Perspectives on Online Education During a Time of Emergency’ presents viewpoints on the unprecedented shift to online education as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to broaden and deepen readers’ understanding of studies that could better address academic issues related to teaching and learning online. The pandemic triggered the disruption of national educational systems and a rapid transition to online education, but there were few guidelines on how to proceed. Consequently, the role of educational technologies and distinctions between formal and informal learning became blurred (Greenhow & Lewin, 2016). This volume examines how educators adopted new pedagogical practices, adapted to flexible working environments, and tackled new technologies to maintain educational systems following the global outbreak of the coronavirus. It showcases innovative practices and critiques several learning theories of online education.
The chapters are developed using two main approaches: empirical investigations and reviews of existing research. The empirical chapters present significant new findings of broad relevance. The review chapters use established studies to describe recent developments of broad significance and highlight unresolved questions and future directions. The volume, as a whole, provides research-based insights on evidence on the contexts and conditions of the emergency transition to online education worldwide and useful recommendations on emergent directions in online education.
This is a vital text for educational researchers, technologists, and practitioners. It includes empirical data, theoretical questions, and methodological approaches addressing online education. The volume explores flexible learning, alternative pedagogical practices, and changes in digital environments, examining futuristic approaches at a crucial moment of global reform in online education.

Patricia Marybelle Davies (EdD) graduated from the University of Manchester in 2013 and is currently an associate professor at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University in Saudi Arabia. Previously, she served as a senior lecturer in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK and headed the Computer Science Department at ACS Cobham, an American curriculum college in Surrey, England, from 2002 to 2014.
Graduating summa cum laude with a first-class honours Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia, in 1986, Dr. Davies also holds Master’s degrees in Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley and in Educational Technology from Columbia University, New York. Her research focuses on critically examining educational technology applications to advance student learning and developing learning applications through automated content analysis. More recently, her work has emphasized building Educational Technology applications using Natural Language Processing (NLP).
Among her publications are ‘Perspectives on Cyberlearning: A Case Study by Students, About Students’ (2023) and ‘Understanding Natural Disasters Through Participatory Simulations: A Pilot Study’ (2022). Contributions also include chapters in two edited collections: ‘Enhancing Learning and Teaching with Technology: What the Research Says’ and ‘Education Policy Research: Design and Practice at a Time of Rapid Reform’.
A Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, Dr. Davies is also a member of various professional bodies, including the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Statistical Association (ASA), the British Computer Society (BCS), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Additionally, she serves on the Risk Assessment and Audit Committee of the British Educational Research Association (BERA). From 2016 to 2018, she was awarded Google Educator Grants to support the continuous professional development of computing and computer science secondary school teachers.