Remote Learning or Just Smart Teaching?

A year ago it was a colleague who had a death in the family and suddenly had to miss a month of school, and I wrote the post: What happens when you're suddenly unavailable? The case for going digital

Last fall is was the threat of PG&E shutting off power to our school for a couple of days (it happened for a day at one of our schools), and I wrote the post Thanks, No Thanks PG&E.

And now, it's COVID-19. Threatening 3 basic scenarios and forcing us to plan for possible contingencies that could involve teaching part or entirely remotely.

Scenarios:

1. Twenty to thirty percent (maybe more) of students are absent for a prolonged period of time either because they are under mandatory or voluntary quarantine, or because they are taking precautions to protect themselves or family members.  
2. Our teachers can't come to school for the same reasons as scenario 1.
3. Public Health Department determines school must be close for x amount of time.

I find myself thinking about the same things and the same questions:

Are we prepared? 

Can we maintain teaching and learning despite these disruptions?

Going deeper with these past and current experiences, the real questions we should be asking are: 

What is the role of the teacher today?

What classroom activities and processes MUST be done in person, and what can simply be shifted into a digital space?

Last year I had the honor of speaking at TEDx Los Gatos, where I tried to make the case that teacher PD should be personalized and blended, which was influenced by personal experience and my argument that the role of the teacher has shifted from disseminator of information (eg "the sage on the stage") to that of facilitator (eg "the guide on the side).

It used to be that teachers where the keepers of knowledge and information and it was our duty to give that to students. But that's not the case anymore.  Now our role is to create opportunities for students to collect information, synthesize, and apply learnings from all kinds of sources beyond that which is given by the teacher.

So, if I'm teaching a class where I'm spending a great deal of time delivering content, and suddenly kids can't come to class, or I can't come to class,  learning is lost.  The class comes to a grinding halt.

That's not what education should be.  

That's not smart teaching.

Yet, if I'm teaching a class where content is delivered in a myriad of ways, from a variety of sources and not teacher-centered, or perhaps the content was "delivered" in the form of homework (A-La Flipped/Blended Learning), then learning is not lost.  As the teacher, I have created an environment where students can learn content from anywhere, at any time.  It does not matter if they are not there, or if I'm not there.  This is not to say we don't need the teacher.  Quite the contrary. While it is not a teacher-centered classroom, it is absolutely a teacher generated classroom.

That leads us to that second question, and let's be frank: Every teenager who has ever existed has asked this question: Why do I need to go to that class?  What's the point?  If the answer is not OBVIOUS to the student, then chances are, what's being done in class could probably just be done online.

Here's my argument: 

We need to rethink what what we do inside of the classroom in person versus what we do outside of class. 

We need to ask ourselves what is the value-added when we are meeting together?  

Are we being smart about our teaching?

Like in my PG&E post, we need to be doing the things that absolutely must be done in person and couldn't be done any other way.  If we're using technology in class, it ought to enhance or transform what we do. 

If it's purely substitution of something that could be done without technology, we either shouldn't doing it in the first place, or it should be done outside of the classroom.


Here's a breakdown of what I think we should be doing online online only, could be done online or in person, and what should be done in person.

What can and should exist entirely online:

Delivery of content.  Delivery of content requires the lowest level of thinking, and requires the least amount of support.  Don't waste valuable class time doing it.  It used to be that you were expected to read the textbook before coming to class.  Now it should be watching a video lesson. Maybe both/either, but use these as the starting point.

Initial check for understanding.  Before a teacher begins to assess "did they just get what they were taught." The kids should be asking that question of themselves through reflection ( such as a 3-5 sentence summary at the end of notes), or some kind of practice questions/problems.

see: performance, feedback, revision

Here's what COULD be done in person, but might just as well be online too:

Discussions.  Discussions are a debatable classroom necessity. It used to be that this was obviously a must-do in person. But, do all students really participate and contribute in classroom discussions? 

With online discussion boards in our Learning Management Systems or even video based discussions like Flipgrid, we can ensure that ALL students have a voice, and that they are discussing what they've learned; responding to prompts from the teacher that push them to go deeper and begin to apply what they learn.

By responding, students are checking their own learning (you can't speak thoughtfully about a topic without having learned it), and the teacher can use this as a formative assessment.  Now, this could start online and then spill into class too. See: blended and online discussions. Or it could just be done online by itself


Review.  Ever heard of the Curve of Forgetting?  People begin forgetting as soon as they learn something.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ebbinghaus%E2%80%99s_Forgetting_Curve_(Figure_1).jpg

With frequent practice through online and in person activities, the information comes back quicker and becomes part of our long-term memory.  Tools like quizlet, implemented on a regular basis, can be super powerful in retaining information.  Teachers have so many different ways of doing this, I'm no going to go into it at this time.

Modified from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ebbinghaus%E2%80%99s_Forgetting_Curve_(Figure_1).jpg

Independent Learning/Practice:  Whether it's a worksheet, practice problems, or independent practice of some kind, this is where it can be debatable whether it needs to be done in person or can be done online.  Typically in these activities, the cognitive load increases, and thus the need for support increases.  

The role of the teacher as facilitator means we are there to help fill in gaps in understanding, or help ask questions that facilitate the discovery of those gaps in our students.  This is our value added.

If we were forced to do this in a remote learning scenario, such as the one COVID-19 is requiring us to consider, we need to think about how we as teachers can check-in with our students, or how our students could seek out help from us when we need it.

Here's what SHOULD be done in person, and why we need students in class.

As more and more jobs are being replaced by automation, it's becoming increasingly clear that jobs that are not and will not be replaced are those where where the employees demonstrate creative problem solving skills, strong interpersonal and communication skills, and can connect to one another on a social and emotional level.  Geof Colvin wrote a book titled, Humans are Underrated, where he identifies 3 human skills that are incredibly hard for computers to replicate:

• Empathy
• Creative problem solving
• Story telling and it's impact on human behavior

Here's a short excerpt of a talk where he highlights these three:

Yet, empathy is in decline in America. We need to be creating learning opportunties and collaborative projects that push our students to develop these essential human skills, and work in creative problem solving tasks. We need these done in class and in person, with the support of the teacher, because this is REALLY hard to do remotely.

The early 2000s saw a dramatic rise in employees working from home, yet more and more companies are calling back their employees from telecommuting (Current COVID-19 status notwithstanding).  See the article Why are Big Companies Calling Back Their Remote Workers Back to the Office? 

It's because they've lost the edge you get when people are working together. They're less innovative. Less creative. Less collaborative. This is despite, and in the face of, technologies that allow us to interact at any time.

Final Thoughts

Can we just close school for the year and teach remotely? 

Will students be able to learn and stay on track?

Yes.

We can deliver content, check for understanding, and engage students to apply what they've learned.  We can use digital tools to track all of this and ensure they are learning it.

Will student go deeper with that learning? 

Will they develop essential skills that will help them in the future?

Probably not.


We need our students in class, with our teachers, but only if they are teaching smart; using technology and time in a way that truly enhances learning and teaches our students essential skills they will need in the future.

So in this most current case, I hope the school doesn't shut down, but if it does, I will actually be a little glad because I think it will force all of us to pause and think deeply about what we do in class, and how much of it could be pushed online to do more important things in class.

I'm especially looking forward to having these conversations with my colleagues.


Thanks for reading. Please post thoughts to comments.