What have we learned since the first lockdown in March 2020, and how are things different this time around? Dr Robert Harrison, Education Strategy Director, shares his thoughts.
Some students around the world are rounding the corner on an entire year of learning at home, distanced from their usual school-based classrooms.
Thanks to the coronavirus, schools around the UK joined them again in January as on-campus learning was suspended for most students. In reality, handfuls of students have been cycling in and out of distance learning for months as travel restrictions, quarantines and self-isolation have kept them at home. What have we learned since the first lockdown in March 2020, and how are things different this time around?
1. Consistency and connections are key
Teachers and school leaders have responded to feedback from students and parents about what they need when learning is almost all online. Divisions have consolidated learning plans so that it’s clear when things are happening, how ‘going to class’ works, and where to find (and return) assignments. Expectations for attendance and engagement have been communicated, and early warning systems are in place for students who may need some additional support. Advisors and learning support teachers are checking in, and monitoring wellbeing. School leaders are ‘visiting’ online classes and setting high expectations for engagement and interaction. Zoom breakout rooms and collaborative teaching strategies are widespread, and growing richer by the day.
2. Technology can enable learning
Not surprisingly, when schools moved online, it became more important than ever to use screen time wisely.
New platforms, resources, applications and learning engagements have become mainstream as our overall capacity continues to grow for teaching through technology. Teachers began by trying to recreate their on-campus environments, and quickly learned that some approaches don’t translate well. For many teachers and school leaders, lockdown learning has been a time of extraordinary professional growth and development. Even extracurricular sports programmes have moved onscreen, and students have more opportunities than ever to explore learning on their own since the world of education has moved online.
3. The brain is part of your body, too
Educational psychologists and neuroscientists help to remind us that learning is a whole-body affair. Where we work, the way we sit, the food we eat, the sleep we have, the exercise we take, our state of mind, our attention and cognitive arousal, the emotional condition and background of our lives – all of these things affect our ability to learn. Everyone working from home (parents and children alike) needs to attend to their physical and emotional wellbeing carefully. Staying motivated takes enormous self-awareness and benefits from social interaction. School has to be seriously fun. Most of us will need help from time to time to keep our spirits up and our minds in gear.
Academic stress is part of life for school-age children, and there are ways to help them manage.
4. It’s a family thing
Home is not school, and parents are not teachers…and yet they are (and actually, always have been). When everyone is working and learning from home, there are often demands on space, time, attention – not to mention bandwidth!
Families need to make a collective plan, and share each other’s challenges. Parents need to think about how much help to give, when to let their children stumble and try again, and where they can support learning most effectively by doing it together. Our Parents’ Guide to Distance Learning has sound advice. You may also find it useful to join this conversation between Dr Alex Reed, one of ACS’s digital learning leaders, and a parent who has questions about how it’s all supposed to work.
5. Real change is possible, but it won’t come easy
The world probably has months of disruption still ahead. Yet many organisations are already thinking about what comes next, and what we will be able to bring forward with us into the post-pandemic world. A few brave souls have even suggested that in some ways, kids are better off with distance learning! While we can’t wait to welcome everyone back to campus, ACS teachers and school leaders will be incorporating what they’ve learned about remote learning into the classrooms of the future.
In a recent survey of teachers in the United States, one-third report that they will use what they’ve learned by teaching online to better support student-centred learning practices such as creating individualised learning progressions, facilitating project-based learning, helping students practice new skills with adaptive learning software, enabling mastery-based learning, and keeping track of individual students’ learning progress. Will we be able to preserve those gains and make part of common practice? Time will tell.
You can read about ACS’s ever-stronger remote education provision here. And you can be sure that we are always learning, at school and at home, in the classroom and beyond.