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Distance Learning: Students’, Teachers’, and Parents’ Commitment!
In terms of uncertain future over Lebanon’s education, how can schools cope in providing the best learning opportunities for students? Virtual classes change the learning dynamics and require commitment and patience, but also allow interaction between students, parents, and teachers in the time of isolation. The routine at home has changed. The children do not wear the school uniform and several parents do not go out to work either. But the lessons of many children and adolescents shall continue virtually, and everyone in the family needs to adapt to this model. Distance education provides a new reality at home in Lebanon, with several possibilities and problems. This scenario should continue, at least, until the end of 2020 as the Lebanese government announced the extension of the general mobilization to combat Covid19.
The main difficulty for many is with routine. As a teacher and mother of five children, I am living the transformation of virtual education like many others. For the youngest, as there is a break in the school routine, there is a difficulty to understand that it is time to stop playing to carry out the activities. In their minds, they are on vacation. When they are at school, students understand the fact that having a task is part of the school routine. Now that this has been broken, they do not always understand the need for tasks. So that the younger ones understand the importance of home classes, I bet on dialogue. It is necessary to make children aware that this learning must continue and that, even at a distance, teaching has value. According to Tracy Charbonnier, an expert in education technology at Bridgewater State University, if the student has established what he will do in the morning, afternoon and evening, according to the school's work proposal, the learning process is much more effective.
The engagement of students in this scenario that we are experiencing is important. The moment they engage with their parents, we have a successful distance learning proposal. Parents have to show a real interest in what their children are learning and what strategies the school is promoting so that they also motivate students. That gesture can make all the difference. At this time, families also live in the home office a lot, with great demand for work. But this interaction, participation is important. Parents need clear, effective, and supportive communication. Our school is doing so through positive, encouraging, and compassionate messages to effectively facilitate this learning at home. We are also conducting webinars that guide parents on how to check in with their children and dynamically incorporate learning into their homes.
At school, we discussed what possibilities and innovations we can use to provide effective distance education. Our starting point was the redefinition of learning expectations. We assured that virtual learning cannot be identical to classroom learning. There is a curriculum that defines the teachers' work plan, and we are dealing with it. If in the past months, we tried to survive distance learning; now, we are thriving! For this, we worked on a clear plan starting with digital teaching strategies through a specific platform, lists of exercises, and interactions. Our first, training session was conducted on the 22 nd and 24 th of August for all the teachers at Abrar Educational Center. During this workshop we focused on creating virtual classrooms ad assigning tasks, creating a self-graded quiz, adding audio clips to slides, designing cooperative activities using shared documents. The workshop was delivered in an interactive way containing polls and visible thinking strategies.
But the big question is still there; how to circumvent specific problems that can happen, like the video crashing, a slow internet or access difficulties? A good part of the world population has gone through the home office and we have a large number of students outside schools studying on digital platforms. So, any platform can have problems with the slow internet, with the server showing interruptions. Patience and persistence are values that we have to develop a lot at this time. With resilience and commitment, we can advance the strategies that the school offers.
The importance of adding audio clips
Tug of War
Polls to engage the participants
Padlet to help teachers reflect and engage
School leaders often face resistance when introducing a new approach to be adapted by teachers. This was evident when schools had to abruptly shift to online teaching during the involuntary closure of schools due to the COVID-19 lockdown. While administrators were pushing for the shift to online teaching, many teachers, who are instrumental for the success of this shift, resisted it. The stand of either side is justified since each perceives teaching online from a different perspective.
Administrators need to lead their institutions. In their attempts to keep up with change, maintain the existence of their institutions, and perform their duty of educating children, they are required to act as a driving force to cause change to occur. This is necessary but might be countered by an opposing force from the teachers. At a first glance, teachers might be perceived negatively for not wanting the change to occur, but with careful study, their attitudes are justified and need to be dealt with and understood with extreme patience and tolerance. A sudden adoption of a new approach by the school is likely to drift teachers from their comfort zone, and that can cause them stress and anxiety. The feeling of failure at trying something new is enough to cause resistance to it. All this can be due to lack of knowledge and skills and abilities in what the school is proposing.
Change should be planned well for proper implementation. First, school leaders need to differentiate between resistance that is caused by the individual’s indifference and resistance that is caused by anxiety and fear of failure. To deal with the latter, educational leaders must approach the issue empathetically. Empathizing with teachers means understanding their points of views, their problems, experiences, feelings, and above all the stories they have. Those stories can be understood when conversing with teachers. Conversing empathetically, rather than interviewing them to elicit answers to questions, is what helps teachers reveal stories about their experiences and how those experiences have impacted their feelings and understandings. Such conversations will allow you to know that the teacher feels uneasy when giving a lesson via a video conferencing tool and how the mother of one of her students interfered in the lesson unexpectedly and wouldn’t stop giving answers to the questions asked to the class. During such conversations, you know that a teacher has problems giving lessons early in the morning because that is the time her toddler wakes up and wants his mommy beside him or else he throws a tantrum. Such conversations will let you know that the teacher feels uneasy during a live lesson because he doesn’t know how to stop the students from annotating on the screen which disrupts the class, and they all fall into laughter. These stories give the school leader much insight into the struggles of teachers, and that is when the driving force of the administration and the resisting force of the teachers unite into one force pushing into one direction: adoption, implementation, and change.
Making informed decisions requires that the administration and other school leaders understand the reasons behind resistance (or acceptance) of change. Once understood, they can be evaluated and rated to understand which can be influenced and which cannot. Then it becomes easy to devise a strategy to enhance the points of strength and tackle the points of resistance. In the case of integrating technology to teach online, as the case is now that schools had to close down, the strategy might include a training agenda to equip teachers with the skills they need, creating coaching groups to support and mentor those who need assistance, providing resources for online teaching, creating support groups for sharing stories of successes and disappointments, and providing the necessary infrastructure for online teaching such as internet and devices.
Change is a process of unfreezing a certain situation. It is only natural to experience resistance when initiating this process. But this resistance is not necessarily out of ill-intentions but may be due to lack of skills, abilities, and other necessary requirements. Discerning these needs makes it easier to make informed decisions and devise plans of action that would achieve optimal results. Once new behaviors are adopted, implemented, and sustained, the school culture will be functioning with a new normal. That is change.
Madam Mwajabu Mbwambo conducted training in my schools (ALGEBRA SCHOOLS) to all Primary school teachers 36 at the end of August 2020 for revising CLs and Afls structure in order to Improve students performance
Teachers revised the Ding Dong strategy, Take-off Touchdown and other strategies. Watch the video for more clarifications
Congratulations to Madam Mwajabo for also completing an international
Madame Saumu shared how she is using CLS structures to support peer learning
Madame Saumu joined the EduLead Programme in 2020 and is an enthusiastic implementer of EduLead strategies. She works closely with Mr Kombo Ramadhan and is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the SIP.
Mr Harun is very pleased that he can start with implementing his revised SIP and started a series of teacher training sessions at his school.
In this video he demonstrates how teachers are using the "Chalkboard Challenge" to demonstrate active learning, to help with processing the new learning and most of all, to also have a bit of fun and build a team spirit.
EduLead coaches participated in an online feedback discussion on the Inspired Conference. Magda Saleh, Doha Arnouss, Amira Sanjar, Noureddine Barrakeh and Mohamad Abdul Aziz- all provided their views on the sessions and how they connected this learning with their own schools, their roles as school leaders and how the learning could be implemented.
Another star of the conference was Mr Rashidi Bilingi. He was very active in providing feedback and questions to the speakers.
We also also saw our EduLeaders being brave and uploading videos on the EdSpace Platform.
Ormonov Elmirbek, a graduate of Zh.Atabaev's school received a gold certificate from the hands of the President of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan
Among 43 963 graduates who participated in the national exams, only 53 received these certificates. Ormonov Elmirbek, our school's graduate, was in the 3rd place in points in the republic, and in the city of Osh he achieved the 1st place.
One of the results of the EduLead Programme in my school is the tremendous growth in enrolment and student numbers. The reputation of the school is growing because of the excellence in teaching and management and parents are keen to bring their children to our school: Zh.Atabaev's school in Osh
Here is the record of enrolment since 2018 when we started the EduLead Programme:
Year 2020-2021 432 students
Year 2019- 2020 388 students
Year 2018- 2019 336 students
After collecting data and analyzing the problems that we encountered when switching to online learning, we decided to conduct seminars for parents on online learning:
The seminars turned out to be productive, as parents began to look at online learning from a different angle. We were able to convince parents that online education has its advantages, provided that it is well organized.
The school decided to conduct seminars with each parent to help with this. Teachers, individually with each parent, conduct master classes on the use of the platforms Google Meet, Zoom and Google Classroom. We were pleased that these events relieved the stress and fear of parents about distance learning. Prior to this work, parents viewed online learning as a tragedy and torment,
However, after the seminars, we noticed that the parents finally realized that if the education of their child is well organized, it can give good results. Personally, I am glad that my students’ parents decided to buy laptops and computers for their children. We discussed the moments of parenting meetings on Google Meet.
We emphasized that it is very convenient that they can participate in meetings without interrupting their business and without going to school. Google classroom is very convenient and effective in teaching, since the student can receive instructions for completing tasks in the form of video lessons, which will greatly facilitate the consideration of parents.
Studying the materials on their own through audio and video lessons, and then discussing the information received in online lessons will form the skills of thinking and independence. I’d also like to note that the child also gains computer skills. The experiment of carrying out typing skills on the computer with children showed that children not only like to play on the computer, but they also liked working.
From August 10 th to August 28 th this year, I held three online workshops for chemistry teachers in the Nookatsu and Bazaar-Korgonsky areas. The number of teachers was 39. Goals for the Online Seminars:
Forming understanding of set and demanded Government education standards for the education system in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Educating teachers on the subject standard for the subject of ‘Chemistry’ alongside its previous additions to the school education system.
Application of standards for class planning.
I used WhatsApp, Google Meet and Classroom in the online seminars. All presentations and discussion were conducted via Google meet, whilst tasks (tests and work lists) and communication were done through Classroom. Organisational questions were discussed on WhatsApp.
What topics have been discussed, and what topics had resonated?
The subjects of ‘Preparation of an education plan according to the model standard,’ ‘Synchronous Training Environment,’ and ‘Evaluation Type’ evoked lots of interest and discussion. Participants asked questions, such as: How do we reflect the structure and content of the subject specifications for the formulation and development of lecture plans; how to set the overall goal for the class, how to implement the connection of subject, key competencies, assessment, a motivating educational environment when conducting chemistry lessons. The participants exchanged their experience, as well as suggested ways of solving the assigned tasks.
Participants had mostly worked independently. The participants of the training successfully coped with all the practical tasks, took an active part in all the practical sessions, and shared their interesting work experience. They worked at a good pace, and there was very good communication between the training participants. Every day at the end of the training, a general reflection was carried out using the “Weekend ticket: 3-2-1” technique. Participants wrote down their opinions on what new information they received during that day and what else they would like to learn regarding the topic of the seminar.
Almost all participants found the training useful, as they received practical advice on drawing up a lesson plan based on the subject standard. Also of great interest was the information about the motivating educational environment and assessment. After each presentation, “Two stars and one wish” technologies were used as feedback. During the seminar, a friendly, working atmosphere was created with the involvement of all participants in the work. Every day at the end of the seminar, testing was carried out on the trained materials of that day. Generally speaking, everyone received high scores. After the end of the seminar, the participants filled out a Google form, i.e. they themselves assessed their acquired knowledge and assessed the work of the trainer. The advantages of the conducted online seminar was that the participants learned how to work with various platforms that will be useful to them in their future work. During the presentation, I introduced the participants as the best program EduLead. Some topics of the online seminar and EduLead were similar, such as "How to Set the Goals of Lessons";, "Motivating Educational Environment" "Key Competencies, ie. what should our graduates be like?" etc.
I can confidently say that the knowledge I received from the EduLeadprogram helped me a lot.
