Remote Learning Tips: Benefits and Challenges

Like most American teachers, I've been involved in the Great Remote Learning Experiment. Because of the circumstances, though, I think last spring was more about surviving than thriving. Teaching six weeks of summer school, knowing from the start it would be remote, has provided better circumstances for gauging remote learning. Below is a bulleted list of things I’ve learned.

Spoiler: it isn’t all bad. In fact, some of it is hopeful. There are challenges and losses to remote learning, but also many gains. 

​Caveat: this is long for a blog post. But I think it will be helpful.  Keep in mind that I currently teach high school students but do have considerable experience working with younger students.

Major lenses I have found work best for remote curricular considerations:
Choice - Responsibility/Agency - Parents - Schedule/time - Quality v Quantity
These are also linked in crucial ways.

Giving students choice during this time is extremely helpful. Details will follow below. I think the lack of student choice is a major gap in our traditional systems at the best of times. But Covid has required even more student choice, given that each student has unique access to materials, resources, and skill-sets at home. Here is a document I use to help students with this. Here’s a link to my Teachable Course on the subject.

I can’t watch over students every minute and usually can’t even see what they’re doing, so they need to take more responsibility to engage and inspire themselves. When I explain that a process or project should take an hour, it’s really their responsibility to spend that time and focus. Again, this is something our traditional systems should do a better job of cultivating. Numerous students have shared some fears about choice and responsibility. This is new territory. It's also why parents are more pivotal than ever before. We need parents to be checking on their children to help motivate them to do the best they can. I’ve had far more conversations with parents than I usually do. We need to welcome parents into the class in new and improved ways.

Shifting to structural considerations, a good amount of focus should be given to schedules and what we think of as “class-time.” I had a parent suggest that “homework” was too much a part of the grading process. My response: “It could all be considered homework when it’s all being done at home.” I do think considerations for these definitions is helpful. We need to consider how much longer it takes students to navigate a remote learning environment (note, it takes longer). We must move away from the quantity of curriculum towards quality curricular experiences. This inevitably brings us back to CHOICE. For help with the “homework” definition, I suggest typical synchronous activities as “in-class work.”
(Note: State school boards need to rethink credit requirements and the like.)

On to the bullets.
The Benefits of Asynchronous time: 

• ​It allows students to work when they want and in a way that works with their own schedules.  
• It allows them to make choices which is an important disposition to cultivate for any career and future development.
  • THIS IS IMPORTANT: again, we should be focused on using this situation as an opportunity to teach dispositions and other skills that will likely benefit students more in their development and future than the content they are missing from your subject areas.
    • I think it might be helpful to hire a Coach position that focuses on student choice in the learning community. They could provide students, teachers, and parents with both resources, supports and roadmaps to follow.
• It allows the teacher more time to focus on individualized feedback.
• Videos can be made once and watched over and over by students. You can post to Youtube and even bookmark key points in the video so students can jump to those concepts. This is superior to Zoom tutorials that students can’t stop and replay at their leisure.
  • You make one video once, and can use it over and over again with every class. Think about how much that can free you up to focus on other quality learning endeavors such as detailed assessments.
• I have found a lot of benefits in asynchronous activities like Edpuzzles. Edpuzzles are my new favorite teaching tool. Check them out here.
  • My students said, “They forced me to pay attention.”
  • My goal for the coming school year is to prerecord all of my process tutorials and then deliver them as Edpuzzles. I can’t say enough how huge this can be in the bigger picture.

Caveat: Students need to be held to asynchronous expectations. If I assign an activity that should take apx 1 hr, student results should illustrate that. It’s paramount (as it always is) to consider student skill levels to make that assessment. I did a synchronous activity with students, asking them to follow my step-by-step instructions. “Draw a square, now shade it in. Draw a circle, now shade it to be a sphere. Draw a face following these steps, etc…” I did this for 45 minutes. It was part of an intro to drawing unit. Then I asked all of them to take pictures, turn it in, and said, “This is what an hour worth of drawing-time should like for you going forward, give or take 15 minutes. As you improve, so should your ability to add detail with less time.” 

• Asynchronous Attendance: So, when I assign an asynchronous art activity on Tuesday to be completed by Wednesday at 1 pm in lieu of meeting synchronously via Zoom, a student should need to complete that for attendance credit on Wednesday. It’s their choice when to complete the project between those days.
• Art Process Benefit: This allows students to set up their workspace and just work for 3 hours on one focused project without having to worry about the bell interrupting their flow. High school students are frequently more motivated at night because of their biological clocks. This allows them to work during their peak hours, or when they have more ability to focus.
  • Again, they need to take responsibility for their schedule and this is a huge opportunity for higher-level cognition.
  • Many students shared that they did work after 10 pm.
• I think a lot of asynchronous experiences should be here to stay, even after schools open again.

​Synchronous Experiences:

Utilzation of the Asynchronous benefits creates important considerations for Synchronous Learning. My student surveys focused a good deal on this. How can we use synchronous (Zoom Meetings) more meaningfully if a lot of instruction is being done through Edpuzzle and pre-recorded videos? The answer:

• Use of Time: because videos are a better source of tutorials, Synchronous time should focus on community.
  • Discussions, critiques, and getting to know you activities.
  • Opportunities for everyone to work at the same time and ask questions.
    • Use this time for students to ask specific questions related to the instructional videos.

I scheduled a few Zoom meetings where we all just met to work together. I played music like I do in a normal classroom, students could ask questions and it felt more like a “normal” classroom.

• Attendance: Consider engagement and the completion of steps during meetings as a form of attendance. If a student doesn’t upload the expected work for that day by the due date they should be considered retroactively absent from class.
  • Or, I suggest moving away from attendance completely and towards a project-based attendance policy. It’s not the attendance that matters, but the quality of your work.
• CHAT is a significant tool: Use chat for a variety of things like taking attendance. I have each student enter in the chat how they are feeling today based on a Mood Meter. The chat is saved and then I can enter attendance after class is over.
  • Students can submit comments through chat for credit during critiques as well. I’ve found far more students engaged in discussions because of this feature.
• Did you know that students can raise their hands in Zoom and draw on imagery you're showing them?
• Make it mandatory that students show their faces during Zoom meetings. No exceptions.
• Breakout sessions are really easy and allow for some quality small-group discussions. I suggest using them frequently.

​
Challenges of being Completely Remote:

• I can’t help students in real-time and watch what they are doing. I have to wait until they upload work to be able to respond.
  • You can ask students to hold up their work during a Zoom and highlight their feed so everyone sees it as large as possible, but I found this didn’t work as efficiently as I hoped.
• Solutions to this challenge:
  • Schedule 10 minutes blocks of Zoom one-on-one time with students throughout a 2 week period. This requires apx 2 hours of time set aside each week for a class of 21.
  • Open Office Hours work a bit better, but it again puts the responsibility on the student to show up during those hours. 
• Too many Zoom meetings within a day or week is exhausting and screen time has physical implications.
• Too many Zoom meetings within a day or week is exhausting and screen time has physical implications.

Sorry, I had to put that one twice because of how significant it is. 

• We must take advantage of asynchronous time to both manage student and teacher schedules.
• We must provide students with experiences that get them away from their computers and screens.
  • I assigned a number of outdoor scavenger hunts and Land-Art units to get students outside. Check this one out.
• Academic dishonesty increased. This has never happened to me in my tenure as a teacher, and it happened multiple times in one semester. It’s easier for students to turn in work found on the internet. Make sure to put this in your syllabus or community structure handout.
• More students are able to do the minimum work required for the class and miss out on a meaningful experience. We must push them to make personal connections with intrinsic motivation - CHOICE.
• Wifi issues - students often get dropped. Another reason pre-recorded videos are superior.

​
Building structure and community:

• Easy guidelines and expectations that are clear and universal, and given to students and parents at the beginning of the class will help a ton. This can be part of the syllabus or community structure plan. Every student said that my class schedule being clearly defined allowed them to thrive.

I’m planning on laying out my entire semester beforehand. This is really hard for me because of how I like to respond to students, but this will preload my classes allowing me more time during the semester to assist individuals and it will help students plan for the future.
Your community plan should include:

• How to use Schoology (Your grading/instruction platform) - where things will be posted - basic expectations per day.
  • Community expectations - contributing during discussions is an important part of the class. Here are the ways you can do that and what credit is assigned.
  • Academic Dishonesty - Why it’s important and what will happen.
  • Parental/Guardian Conversations: I will reach out to your parents when an assignment is 3 days overdue, just as a precaution, rather than as punishment. 
    • Guardians are encouraged to reach out to me and should check Schoology once a week to see how their child is progressing. 
  • Also allow for autonomy outside of those universal structures.
    • What is important, as a must-do, for every student? What is the bar?
    • What can be open to student choice? Include some of the choice options in the handout.
• A clear schedule that repeats each week (this can also be included in the syllabus/handout):
  • Synchronous Zoom Meetings (minimum requirements count towards attendance).
  • Asynchronous Work (must be completed by a structured due date)
  • Open Office Hours per class
  • Assessment expectations and process.

SEL and Growth Mindset:
​I translated a bunch of my assessment handouts, critiques, and worksheets into a SEL and Growth Mindset frame. I think it was really helpful. 

• SEL Check-Ins were meaningful and worked really well (and took attendance for me).
  • Using the Mood Meter from Mark Bracket, I had students start a Zoom meeting by entering in the chat how they felt.

• I often had a conversation with students on how to manage those emotions or make decisions based on them to motivate inspiration.
• I Integrated SEL into many projects with positive results. This must be authentic. Research shows that SEL at the H.S. levels must be very meaningful and authentic to work. Otherwise, it can actually work against you. I used the 5 SEL Competencies from CASEL Here. And here’s an example of an assessment based on it (pictured above).
  • Here’s an example of a Mindfulness Earth Art Lesson that integrated SEL and art-making.
• I also integrated a lot of Growth Mindset approaches, which included a great deal of focus on responding to failures as opportunities (check out my last blog post), and positive psychology steps. Watch this Ted Talk by Shawn Achor.
• This also included some neuroscience explanations on how our brains function and how we could enhance that functioning. Again, the dispositions, rather than the content.

​Autonomy:

• Provide options in every project - but with clear expectations.
  • I provided students with 3 project options based on 3 different handouts. Then I scheduled separate Zoom meetings to discuss each. Students could choose which one they attended. I should have just made process videos for each of them. But this really helped to break up the amount of students in meetings, which is key!
• Provide brainstorming or choice documents to fill out during the process. Again, here’s the one I give students.
  • I gave students complete choice project options and then asked them to fill out a brainstorming form with checkpoints for credit.
    • They could literally choose to work on anything related to art. I even allowed students to write essays if they wanted. I find so much more joy in seeing students respond in a wide variety of ways that are meaningful to them rather than everyone making the same thing. A number of students thanked me for allowing them to craft their own project using their interests, skillsets, and available materials.
  • More emphasis on the process rather than the result. My focus of course was the creative process.

Assessment/Feedback:

• This is a huge area of opportunity for learning platforms like Schoology. Video feedback easily built into the program, and the ability to draw directly on images is highly beneficial.

Parents:

• The need for phone calls and meetings with parents multiplied.
• Parents need to be checking Schoology regularly. I’m surprised at how many parents were unaware of missing assignments, sometimes even after a week.
  • A new Dean position that focuses on parental needs/supports could be helpful to learning communities.
• Share the syllabus with parents at the beginning and include basic instructions on how to navigate your tech platforms/grading systems. I found that most did not know how to do this and their children were not offering it up.

Working Hours - Schedule:

• Do not consider all hours that a class would normally meet as class time remotely. It’s considerably harder for students to manage their schedules and it takes longer for them to complete asynchronous expectations.
• Distractions at home are increased and your ability to recognize distracted students is severely impeded. 
• If a class is scheduled to meet for 5 hours in a week, I suggest planning for 4 hours of student engagement. Less is more. Focus on quality over quantity.
  • Use those asynchronous hours to your advantage!
• I had to take a hard look at my content expectations and make sacrifices. It is far more beneficial for students to spend time with one project they care about rather than complete 3 other projects they will forget. 

Honestly, I found a lot of benefits to remote learning, but that’s likely because I’ve always promoted student choice and taking responsibility for their own learning. That’s messy work that focused itself this summer in new ways. I’m impressed with the level of work I received from intro level students. It was a rough ride at times, but learning always is. I think there are many benefits from having our learning and teaching community dive into this work in a planned and more cohesive manner. 

Based on meetings with other summer school teachers I have a renewed sense of hope. Most agreed with the schedule and choice reforms I’ve been advocating for because it’s clear how this will allow students to succeed remotely. Some even suggested that specific classes might work better completely asynchronously. We should not expect this to work with 8 period schedules at a time. These changes, if done correctly, could benefit students and learning for years to come.