Lessons Learned:

Excerpts from: The Distance Learning Playbook, Grades K-12 (p. 117), Fisher Douglas.

Teachers and students have experienced the “Zoom exhaustion” that comes from too many hours trying to sit still and remain engaged in front of a screen. Some schools initially tried to replicate schooling in real time using schedules that were designed for face-to-face instruction.

They quickly found out that five or six hours of daily instruction, complete with the same bell schedules, recess breaks, and lunch schedules, was not workable. One reason is because homes don’t run on a school schedule, and the burden placed on families made it nearly impossible for them to manage. Another is that our own homes don’t work that way, either.

The time we are in front of students in live sessions should be prioritized for connection, discussion, and interaction. That means that some learning should occur asynchronously, rather than in real time. When planning lessons, think about learning experiences students need to prepare them for the interactive discussions you host in a virtual setting. These might be readings, short videos for students to preview, or written tasks that leverage prior knowledge. Consistency and predictability of schedule are student and family friendly.

Design weekly schedules that provide students with expectations about tasks to be accomplished before and after live sessions. Be sure to include the learning intentions, success criteria, and any assessments so that students have a clear sense of purpose and can ask questions in advance.

A scheduling template for the learning in grade-level or schoolwide use can help tremendously in providing students with consistent and predictable ways to engage with the content, with you, and with their peers. A weeklong learning template is particularly useful for families with several children attending a school, and at the secondary level for students who are meeting with several subject matter teachers. It’s not that students complete all of the tasks at the bottom of the page, but rather that they know when they are responsible for which things.

One mistake we made early on was in not giving attention to conflicting schedules. We quickly realized that while teachers were doing their best to schedule sessions, the result was that students and families couldn’t possibly juggle meetings that changed each day. And what is a student supposed to do when the English teacher and a special education support person were unknowingly asking for the same time? We shifted to specific days of the week so that live sessions for each subject are evenly spaced. Just as a bell schedule is useful to all of us in a brick-and-mortar school, so is a scheduling template in a distance learning environment.

A schedule that is inconsistent and unpredictable is going to provoke behavioral disengagement. Think back to engagement [when school was in session] • Participating in school functions • Attending and participating in class activities and discussions • Following school rules • Studying • Completing assignments. There are students who have difficulty doing this in face-to-face classrooms, and how much organizational structure do we provide for those students? It is even more important when students are at a distance and the interactions are in virtual spaces.

Daily Classroom Learning Schedule Templates:

• • What scheduling issues are you taking into consideration at your school? Guiding Questions

  • Distance Learning Weekly Planner (example 1)

  • Distance Learning Weekly Planner (example 2)

(see more below)

Source: Fisher Douglas. The Distance Learning Playbook, Grades K-12 (p. 117)