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“The most profound words will remain unread unless you can keep the learner engaged. You can't see their eyes to know if they got it so ... say it, show it, write it, demo it and link it to an activity.” - James Bates
Communication
Communication
Teaching from your home is still teaching. The essentials don't change though methodology must. First and foremost, staying in touch with students and families is at the heart of teaching, whether from the classroom or from home. With the barrier of distance comes the need to plan simple, effective and manageable channels that allow students to understand the routines and expectations that you will use to keep learning moving forward for everyone. Establishing accessible avenues for delivering news, content, feedback, and other important elements of learning as well as creating social spaces that help students become part of your learning community is the most important groundwork that you can do. Connecting the parts of that learning community is of primary importance to the success of your students.
Learners need to know they have answers to their questions when they run into roadblocks while navigating the learning environment - primarily on their own. They also need to understand what their daily tasks are as well as the larger goals they are working toward. Teachers need to be present in providing both the support and the structure for helping students gain this understanding in ways that empower them.
As Reshan Richards and Stephen Valentine remind us in “A Letter to Educators Teaching Online for the First Time”, being there for your students will always be at the center of their success. The trick is to thoughtfully create that presence with the help of technology to overcome the space between everyone in the community.
Google Classroom, Google Sites, Calendar, and Gmail will provide the super-structure, but creating a balance of synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities will constitute the day-to-day workings of your communication system. Both are equally important. Synchronous events through Google Meet are imperative for providing coaching, clarification, feedback, demonstrating learning, and some of the essential social time some students need. Asynchronous pieces give students time to process and proceed at their own pace, to revisit and reflect, and to be away from the flickering, sometimes glitchy, screen while doing so.
What types of learning experiences require synchronous connection?
Which synchronous experiences can be turned into asynchronous experiences?
Essential question: How can communication be optimized for successful learning across distance?
How does communication look different in distance learning?
How does communication look different in distance learning?
While some say our students are "digital natives", communicating clearly through email and Classroom commenting isn't something that comes naturally. The shortcomings of underdeveloped literacy skills are accentuated in the world of online learning. The immediacy of face-to-face interactions only exists in synchronous meetings, and creating time for those isn't always easy. This also implies the need for scheduled Office Hours that include either live meeting times or specified email availability windows or both.
Because it is not always possible to meet synchronously, every educator must also become a teacher of essential literacy to help students learn how to ask clear questions in a timely manner. Modeling and explicitly teaching email etiquette as well as other digital communication skills become crucial, not just for helping students communicate with us, but also for bolstering their future educational and occupational endeavors.
Another important consideration is the amount of email notifications students have to deal with. Announcements, assignments and other posts in Classroom generate individual emails that can fill student inboxes. It is not hard to understand that many students become overwhelmed when faced with the morning barrage of email from six or more classes. Students will turn off these notifications and potentially miss important information if it is only presented in this way. So it is essential to have a regular space students visit to find due dates and assignment details. A simple but regularly updated website with links to Calendar, Classroom and Meet organizes information without inundating learners.
"4 Lessons From Moving a Face-to-Face Course Online" - By Kevin Gannon
Finally, the chance to clarify our spoken words quickly doesn't exist in any asynchronous interactions. And with online text of any kind, there is always the chance that the reader will see it as just too much: tl;dr. Therefore, it is essential that instructions, feedback and any other written communication be focused and clear.
Resources:
Google Classroom 101 - 3:35
How to Use Google Classroom 2020 - Tutorial for Beginners - 24:13
How Do I Create a Class Calendar and Invite Students to Events - 1:35
Student Tips for Successful Video Calls - pdf from DitchThatTextbook
Lesson Plan Suggestions for Teaching Email Etiquette
BrainPop - Digital Etiquette (Middle School)
To explore each learning goal, click on the drop down arrow to the right of each goal.
Click on the drop down arrow to expand each learning goal.
Click on the drop down arrow to expand each learning goal.
Learning Goal 1: Stay on a Schedule
Learning Goal 1: Stay on a Schedule
Work with your teaching team or department to develop regular schedules for students to follow. Students are used to a daily bell schedule. Continuing a version of that will help them organize their time and maximize yours.
Clear expectations for attendance at synchronous meetings along with due dates and times for completing assignments are essential to keeping everyone on track. Establishing routines early on will help your students plan their time to meet goals.
Create a digital calendar that students can subscribe to in Google Calendar. Post it on your Google Site as well.
Don't differentiate "classwork" from "homework". Consider how much time you actually have "with" students during a week. Try to create a schedule for the week that allows students to connect with you during prescribed hours and gives them time to work through learning activities at their own pace. Likely you will need some synchronous time to present information or to clarify assignments.
Create meaningful, predictable routines that students can count on, including and especially connecting with you. Announcements, assignments, due dates etc all need to happen at times students can count on. Posting assignments in Classroom at the same time each day, though not necessarily the first thing in the day, helps students ready themselves for the learning that day. Making short videos to communicate these daily elements is most effective when they include your smiling face. These videos also make you present for your class and allow you to be you with them.
Plan announcements carefully to avoid overwhelming student inboxes and notifications. Remember that kids have several teachers posting assignments via Classroom and that missing work notifications also crowd inboxes. Try to limit yours to one essential notification per day.
Learning Goal 2: Use Synchronous Connections to Build Community
Learning Goal 2: Use Synchronous Connections to Build Community
Use video meetings for conversations you lead and learning activities, not for content delivery. With the ready availability of innumerable distractions, including the built-in chat in Google Meets, it is very difficult to expect students to attend to content in an online live session. Pro tip from Global Online Academy: explore Project Zero's Visible Thinking Routines. This is a vast repository of ideas for engaging students in a variety of ways that can be adapted for synchronous sessions.
Invite expert guests from other communities to join in video meetings. Online meetings may be the easiest way to connect with specialists and others and add variety to your class.
Allow students to share work with peers and to discuss questions and issues. Establish rules for turning over the video call to selected students in order to have them share their learning with peers.
While longer online live sessions can be problematic, it is important to create some time for students to get together with you as a class.
Resources
7 Strategies Designed to Increase Student Engagement in Synchronous Online Discussions Using Video Conferencing - Caitlin Tucker
Online Classroom Video Etiquette (5:14) - Aimed at students
Student Tips for Successful Video Calls - pdf from DitchThatTextbook
Strategies for Supporting SEL in Virtual Settings - pdf from Edelements.com
Learning Goal 3: Use Asynchronous Connections to Allow Students to Choose Their Own Pace
Learning Goal 3: Use Asynchronous Connections to Allow Students to Choose Their Own Pace
Being together live online is problematic - the Internet doesn't always cooperate, and students' family situations sometimes interfere for starters, therefore asynchronous elements are likely to make up most of students' learning time. It's important to consider the fact that students will be negotiating meaning from texts and websites you point them to on their own, so providing assists is always important. Posting your own videos to support any textual materials and using a service like Rewordify to make texts more readable are important parts of asynchronous delivery. There are so many tools and strategies to let students communicate in their own way. Here are just a few:
Have students use video or audio for journaling or posing important questions. Use this method to give students a break from text.
Try stopping all synchronous connecting for a week to force students to find their preferred modes of asynchronous communication.
Ask students to use ScreenRecord to demonstrate a process done on their iPads or to teach peers .
Introduce Vocaroo to have students create voice recordings that are sharable online.
Resources
5 Simple Tips for Creating Engaging Instructional Videos
4 Ways to Make Sure Students Are Watching Your Videos
Making the Most of Remote Teaching (23:50) - Edpuzzle with Google Slides and Video
Tools
Loom - Free (forever) screen recording app that allows you to bring yourself into the video
Flipgrid - Students can create short videos in response to prompts. They can also reply to each other. You can use Flipgrid to create your own videos, though there is no screen recording feature.
Rewordify - Paste difficult text into Rewordify to get a simplified version with key vocabulary highlighted and defined.
Discussions in Google Classroom - Classroom's Stream can be used to have students discuss topics by posting when they are ready to contribute.
How to Teach Remotely with Padlet - Padlet is a freemium service that has robust options for sharing text, audio, and images.
Please complete the Module 1 exit slip before moving on to Module 2.
Please complete the Module 1 exit slip before moving on to Module 2.
Exits slips are a great way to help students reflect on what they have learned and share how they are thinking about new information. In the article "The Many Uses of Exit Slips" the author provides examples of paper exit slips in a face to face classroom. Think of ways that you could change this activity to collect information electronically from students.
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