But did they learn....?

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By now we all know about COVID and how horrific it was for our entire country. Quarantining, lack of toilet paper, going stir crazy (with an 8 month old in my case)... it was enough to push everyone over the edge! I can remember thinking that we would surely be back to somewhat normal come August and everything would be a tad different, but ok.  Well, I was wrong! 

Right before school started back in August, I'm talking a week, I was voluntold that I would be teaching remote students. That actually sounded pretty cool because I am a huge dork about technology and I was team teaching with my work wife, so I would still get to be in contact with kids. It was going to be perfect! The other remote teachers and I started gearing up to begin the school year and realized we really had no idea what we were supposed to do. We were required to attend a Google Meet that was intended to train and guide us, but really all we got was way more confused and overwhelmed. Then the school year started and I had to move out of my classroom and into a closet and spent countless hours with my remote colleagues planning and creating content for the 27+ first graders in my remote class. IT WAS HARD and I am not entirely sure about the effectiveness of the lessons!

After looking at the Continuous Learning Rubric I find myself both frustrated and in awe of the things we accomplished with little to go on. Our district was definitely in Emergency Remote Learning mode and didn't have a solid plan, especially for elementary students. So how can we use our past experience to create a better learning opportunity for our students now? 

Maner, 2022

Leadership & Policy

Every district has its leaders, but does every district have leaders specifically for distance learning? Maybe they do now, but that was not the case when I was teaching. It was very scary and I never felt secure in anything that I was doing. Simonson et al. (2019) states it best: 

"A distance learning leader is a visionary capable of action who guides an organization's future, its vision, mission, goals, and objectives."

Leader Pyramid Infographic by April Maner 

Don't get me wrong, we have AMAZING leaders in our district and they even encompass some of the same competencies that are a part of the Distance Learning Pyramid of Competencies, but we just weren't equipped with one whose primary focus was distance education. This was something we were unfamiliar with and we needed serious guidance. Our Elementary Coordinator at the time was our go-to point of contact but she was also still in charge of all of the other million things that are involved with instruction in the elementary setting.  The first 5 Core Elements under the area of Leadership and Policy within the Continuous Learning Rubric (2020) address five areas which I feel we lacked the most when it came to best practices in remote learning:

  1. Goals: 
    1. Alignment between new goals and the district's long-term goals and/or core values.
    2. Use of data to inform goals.
    3. Assign owners to each goal and the strategies to support goals.
    4. Share goals publicly with a set cadence for feedback, data reviews, and revision.
  2. Governance: 
    1. Representation on committee reflects the core elements of the plan.
    2. Representation on committee reflects the diversity of the district.
    3. Formal processes use objective metrics to measure evaluate the plan.
  3. Cross-Functional Review Team: 
    1. Set expectations for how conflicts will be resolved.
    2. Involve the IT team in all digital learning solutions.
  4. Instructional Delivery Method:
    1. Provide teachers remote learning strategies and trainings.
    2. Focus on digital infrastructure including student connectivity while learning from home.
  5. Policy and Procedures:
    1. Use standards-based mastery for grading. 
These core elements are crucial when implementing a successful distance learning program. Teachers needed this sort of guidance when we started the remote learning process.

Access & Equity

Because I taught in a Title I school, this area of the Continuous Learning Rubric really hit home. The Core Elements are Internet Access, Device Access, Digital Access, & Vulnerable Student Populations (ClassLink, 2020). Our district did a great job, in a short amount of time to plan, in making sure students had devices and internet access. Every student was assigned a Chromebook to use while enrolled in remote learning. Parents were also provided with MiFi Verizon Hotspots if they did not have internet access at home. My biggest concern now that I am looking back and reflecting is whether or not we served our special populations. In research from Simonson et al. (2019), they stated that the National Center for Education Statistics (2017) reported that more 11% of all undergraduate students have some type of disability. In many cases, students with disabilities require support services and/or accommodations that must be met in accordance with their Individualized Education Program (IEP).  We also have a very large ESL population and many students do not have English speaking parents at home. Moving forward, this is an area that would need further development and attention.

Instruction

Instruction is the meat of what we do as educators and good instruction should not falter due to the way in which it is delivered. Some of the Core Elements of the Continuous Learning Rubric for Instruction (2020) are as follows, along with my reflections in regard to how we performed as a district in this area:
  • Whole Child Supports: Supporting the emotional, mental, and physical needs of students from afar was very new, especially because I taught first grade and I am used to my babies being live and in-person. This new, digital environment was scary for them and I don't think this was addressed. Everyone was handing on by a thread and it's extremely important to recognize this in our students as well.
  • Curriculum: This area was more difficult in the sense that we had to create a lot of digital resources. Teaching the content and keeping in line with our curriculum and pacing guides was nothing new; we just had to rethink the way we delivered the content and many times this was with little to no guidance. 
  • Instructional Materials: We sent home "toolboxes" right as school started so students were equipped from the get-go with materials they would need for our lessons. Everything from math manipulatives to crayons and pencils to actual workbooks were included. 
  • Instructional Design: This was a major area, along with Professional Development that we lacked in. There was no "design" for remote learning and everyone was playing the "trial and error" game. The limited time to plan for something of this magnitude attributed to the inadequate instructional design. 
  • Professional Development: Professional development is crucial for teacher learning and growth and the minimal professional development we had in order to prepare for remote learning ended up causing more stress and confusion. Again, this was all very new, but I believe that if this rubric would have been used we could have created a remote learning plan that would create better teaching and learning environments. 
  • Collaboration: By default, remote teachers became extremely close and collaborated on everything. My first grade remote teacher team planned every aspect of our day together. The immense amount of collaboration was my saving grace. We all felt a bond because we were "in this together" and we were battling this new endeavor side-by-side. We came out of this experience with a new appreciation for our profession and for one another. 

References

ClassLink. (2020, April 21). Continuous learning rubric v2.1. ClassLink 

Analytics. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lXAwsLWBfNslkhIGxHqgojVjmV5n8KIrR7

 SCmZnNqsA/edit#gid=1000901060

Maner, A. (2022, May 21). Emergency remote learning vs. Online learning [Infographic].

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFBV3ewgFw/82vql6jyYqPWDXQYNAnauQ/view?

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Simonson, M., Zvacek, S. M., & Smaldino, S. (2019). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education 7th edition (NA) (7th ed.). Information Age Publishing.



3 comments

  1. Amanda MillerMay 24, 2022 at 11:55 AM

    April, I appreciated reading about your experience. It sounds really tough, but I can see that you took a lot away from the situation. It reminded me of another article I read about from the home perspective side of things. The parent of 5 children wrote about their experiences with the emergency learning, and it was rough on that end of things as well, (Garcia, 2021). I know we did the best we could and I know that if we had to do it again we would be more successful from what we have learned. Looking back, I am amazed at what we were able to accomplish, and now I have such an appreciation for "normal."
    I feel like we were on a learning curve with education becoming more student centered before the pandemic, and now we are on an even faster track moving education toward that goal because of our experiences through the emergency learning. Another part that we need to make learners aware of is the "need to focus on their own learning be able to judge whether they need additional assistance and how to proceed to request it," (Simonson et al,. 2019 p. 211). Quite the tall order for first graders, but hopefully we can move toward that with older students who choose distance learning.




    Garcia, G. (2021, August 10). The Impact of Distance Learning on Kids. Verywell Family. Retrieved May 21, 2022, from https://www.verywellfamily.com/the-impact-of-distance-learning-on-kids-5118430.
    Simonson, M., Zvacek, S. M., & Smaldino, S. (2019). Teaching and learning at a distance:
    Foundations of distance education 7th edition (NA) (7th ed.). Information Age Publishing.




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  2. Katie MaddoxMay 24, 2022 at 1:03 PM

    April, as we discussed before, our COVID teaching experiences were very similar. My school is also a Title 1 school, with about 70% students on free & reduced lunch (when it wasn't free) and about 40% hispanic population. Communicating with parents was just HARD! Teaching virtually requires teachers to step out of their comfort zones to use new communication tools they may not have used when teaching face-to-face (Maras, 2021). Discussing leadership, I ended up being the point person for our school. While I felt that I did have the technical knowledge needed, I was also very overwhelmed with my own plate and was having to help feed everyone else. Simonson, Zvacek, & Smaldino (2019) state that no distance education should occur without a well thought out plan. While we used every ounce of time and resource we had to make a plan, there was no way to prepare for what happened to us but I think we made the best of it. Moving forward, my experiences with distance education has sparked ideas to take professional development online and make it effective. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences, April!

    References:
    Maras, A. (2021, May). Teacher-student communication from parents' perspective during online teaching in the time of the corona crisis. In SOCIETY. INTEGRATION. EDUCATION. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference (Vol. 5, pp. 158-169).
    Simonson, M., Zvacek, S., & Smaldino, S. (2019) Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of Distance Education (7th ed.) IAP-Information Age Publishing, Inc.

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  3. The Hi-Tech Teacher, Valerie MatsonMay 24, 2022 at 4:39 PM

    April,

    Your post reminded me of the expression "flying a plane while building it". I think school districts and the teachers tasked with tackling remote learning did the absolute best they could at the time, and the kids still got something out of it. Now that I have spent some time learning about what distance education should be, I see that what many schools were doing was crisis education. You mentioned that the remote teachers recieved some training, but that you ended up feeling overwhelmed and confused. "If the selected faculty are making the transition from conventional classroom teaching for the first time, they will need to understand that the distance education environment is different in some ways from the one with which they are familiar" (Simonson, Zvacek, and Smaldino, 2019, p. 309). I really liked the Continuous Learning Rubric as reflection tool. Educational leaders could use the rubric to "consider alternatives or innovations that will affect the students" as they developed their crisis learning plans (Ruppert, 2019, p. 3). Access and equity seemed to be a key focus area for a lot of schools.

    Thank you for sharing,
    Valerie Matson

    References:
    Ruppert, N. B. (2019). Personalized Professional Development Plans. Current Issues in Middle Level Education, 24(1).

    Simonson, M., Zvacek, S., & Smaldino, S. (2019) Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of Distance Education (7th ed.) IAP-Information Age Publishing, Inc.

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