eLearning 2020

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Who’da thunk it????

As schools have shut down across the world, teachers, students, and parents are being thrust into roles that they’ve never experienced before. It seems that overnight we’ve gone from a classroom and school culture of making eye contact and shaking hands with students to the panic of wondering how we can express this same sentiment miles apart from each other.  As a parent, teacher, and one of the instructional leaders at my school, I realize that there is a fine line between adequate contact and too much contact, between productive struggle and students not even trying because the assignment looks too hard, and between teaching standards (but with the cancellation of testing why even bother) and reviewing for the next 8 weeks. 

These invisible lines, that were previously not explored, need to be determined before they are crossed.  An action that could erase the months of effort that all stakeholders put in before this elearning debacle situation.  In an effort to find these lines:
  • Teachers should get organized.  A system should be developed for contacting parents.  Parents should not receive 7 phone calls a day.  This is the quickest way to overwhelm the parent and the student, which will lead to zero communication.  This system can look very different depending on the teachers involved.  It could be a google sheet with an alphabetical list of students in which teachers can indicate which student they contacted (or plan to contact) that day.  It could also be a system in which teachers are responsible for their homeroom (or any specific period) class.  This would create the opportunity for the teacher, student, and parent to develop a stronger relationship with each other, even though they are not face-to-face. These strategies do take time to develop and execute, however, taking the time to organize parental contact at the beginning of the process will save everyone frustration later on. 
  • Teachers should focus on self-directed learning.  In order to get the largest number of students working, the teacher must find a way to introduce new material as easy as possible.  There are tons of resources readily available that teachers can use without the sometimes time-consuming process of creating them.  There are short, informative, and entertaining videos that can introduce a concept and guide students through understanding and application that can explain a concept more efficiently than you can.  Educational platforms such as Khan Academy and TeacherTube have thousands of videos that available to you with the click of a few buttons.  The addition of a 3-4 question formative assessment (read “quiz”—google forms would be great for this) so that you will know which students did not understand the concept or have misconceptions, is a fool-proof (and not time-consuming) way to help your students learn new content.
  • Teachers should focus on concepts that will help students be successful at the next level.  Suddenly, teachers are finding themselves free to teach whatever they would like.  With the cancellation of testing, the pressure of making sure that certain standards are taught is gone.  But, this does not mean that teachers can review old content for the duration of eLearning (however long this may be).  This does mean that teachers can now shift their focus to determining what students truly need to be successful at the next level and make sure that students have a firm grasp on that. For me, that was Pythagorean Theorem, for another of my colleagues that meant slowing down and making sure that students clearly understood the causes of the American Revolution.  So, though we may not get to how to find the volume of a sphere, my students will have a strong understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem and how it can be applied in Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry.  And Mr. Smith’s kids will have a strong understanding of the causes of the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and how to write a great break-up letter (only Social Studies teachers will get that reference). 




It is easy for teachers, students, and parents to get overwhelmed by the new dynamic of eLearning.  It definitely requires a shift in perspective.  In order to get through this, we much find the happy mediums between parent contact, student work, and concepts covered. 

What other tips and aha moments have you found that have helped your transition to eLearning?

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