No, not a Bette Midler song – but a collection of tips and tricks I’ve sourced from around the socials on best practice of distance learning. With COVID 19 on its way, we might be joining our colleagues from other countries in teaching our students remotely. Already we seen some of the different approaches that schools are taking. Check out the plans from Albany Senior School, Wellington High School, and my own school – Tauranga Boys’ College. Each has their strengths and weaknesses and over the coming weeks I am sure we will see development.
Maslow before Bloom
It’s not the first time educators have discussed the importance of meeting a students basic needs first before looking at Blooms taxonomy (just see the large number of search results!). With schools being closed and the lack of physical presence of students this is perhaps even more important. So think of some ways you can make student still feel like they belong and are respected. Maybe a class chatroom, Flipgrid response, or the opportunity to connect with you via email, messaging or video conferencing.
Image and quote from ethos CRS
Asynchronous vs synchronous delivery
You need to consider the demands for synchronous (be online at the same time) versus asynchronous (assigned online tasks to be completed when student wants) learning. I think it is unrealistic to think that we will simply just replicate the classroom experience via video conferencing and my approach will be do set mostly asynchronous activities with the opportunity for students to get help from me in real time.
Heutagogy (hew ta wat gy??)
So now we can’t be the ‘sage on the stage’ because something removed our stage (shot COVID 19…), being a guide to student’s learning becomes more important. But what if students need to motivation of being in a physical class with a teacher to get tasks done? What if we could provide resources for self directed learning that is motivating and engaging for students? I think we need to tap into the large body of research on gamification of learning. You just need to look at the learning design of popular apps and platforms such as Yousician (to teach you an instrument), Codecademy (to teach you coding), Udemy and Coursera (to teach you almost anything!)
Online lesson delivery
Having consider all the above, there is a plethora of resources to support teachers in these uncharted waters. Perhaps there are too many and it is overwhelming to choose what suits your students.
There will be for some teachers a steep learning curve if they are forced to deliver learning more online. There are a number of resources that will support teachers up skilling in this area:
- Teach from Home is a just in time resource from Google pulling together a number of their great resources targetted at teachers coping with delivering lessons from home.
- A great one is Google’s Applied Digital Skills. They have just added a couple of collections targeted at up skilling.
- Here’s a template for the structure of an online lesson. Great tip to make sure you close the Meet/Zoom when you leave!
- 10 Great tips from Tom Mullaney that includes recommended free apps (e.g Edpuzzle and Thinglink)
- Curated resources: as we know there is an over whelming number of excellent resources on the web for education. In response to the pandemic, Google curated this Youtube Learning collection in a Youtube channel.
- First Aid kit for Remote Teaching – a crowd sourced Slide deck with a number of useful tools and tips.
- The Google Teacher Center has a great set of resources/lessons for teachers to go through to develop skills in delivering distance learning.
- Resources for Teaching online due to school closures – a great summary with tips and strategies by Kathleen Morris
Great to see a number of #SYD19 Google Innovator Academy coaches and participants in the above webinar sharing some ideas and strategies around online learning.
Lastly, here’s my short contribution with a quick 5 minute intro to online learning considerations taken from a webinar I recorded this week.
