There’s no doubt about it, the 2020 school year was like no other. The Covid-19 pandemic left school districts scrambling to find ways to effectively educate students. Parents had to make the tough decision about sending their children back to school or allowing them to participate in remote learning.
Simonson et al. (2019) states, "no organization should enter the distance education marketplace without a clearly thought-out plan that has the consensus approval of all key players" (p. 291). However, the pandemic did not give time to think out a plan, nor achieve consensus of all players. School districts did the best they could in the amount of time they had. As a remote teacher, I felt many challenges of distance education.
Challenges of Crisis Schooling by Dana Janney
Family and Community Engagement
"The quality of student support services available and easily accessible to a distant learner will play a major role in determining whether that student learns, enrolls, and persists through to completion" (Simonson et al., 2019, p. 293). In my situation, the parents were the ones who made the decision to allow their children to enroll in distance education. The Continuous Learning Rubric states that distance education should not only engage parents, but also the community to better serve the students and families. One way to do this is by creating a schedule for meetings and interactions that responds to the feedback of parents and the community (Classlink et al., 2021). Our county created a schedule for virtual learners. They took into account the different grade levels to ensure we were meeting at different times. When schedules needed to change, I would always survey my parents to find what would work and what would not.
I loved that many virtual schools refer to the parents as "learning coaches" (Alabama Connections Academy, 2022; Alabama Virtual Academy, 2022). These virtual schools make it very clear that parents play a vital role in making distance education a success. Alabama Connections Academy (2022) explains that elementary students will need a learning coach who can devote at least five hours per day to helping their child with distance education.
In my experience with pandemic distance education, many parents did not expect to have to devote this amount of time to helping their children. I found that the students who had support at home did much better than those without.
Collaboration
Simonson et al. (2019) points out that distance education courses "will need much more organization, structure, and detail than typical classroom courses" and students who are new to distance education will more than likely need "precise, detailed instructions to guide their activities throughout the course and keep them on task" (p. 309). They continue to say that some issues faculty members face include training for distance education and support in the areas of course development and technology. The Continuous Learning Rubric states that teachers should be provided opportunities for collaboration between other teachers and stakeholders to support students (Classlink et al., 2021). They suggest that one way to encourage this is to provide resources and time for educators to collaborate about various needs. When researching virtual schools, many had built in days each week to allow for collaboration with other teachers and with students and parents.
In my experience with pandemic teaching, we did not have those times built in our days. We did collaborate, but it was on our own time. Simonson et al. (2019) acknowledges that teaching at a distance requires more time to develop the coursework and also more time to teach it. Without the support and collaboration of other teachers, I would not have survived virtual teaching.
Whole Child Supports
The pandemic affected all of us differently. I really liked how the Continuous Learning Rubric addressed the category of whole child supports. It stated that we should not only support the physical needs of students and staff, but their emotional needs as well (Classlink et al., 2021). In my experience, students missed being with other students. It was important to me that my students felt connected to our school and to their peers. I had guest readers join our Google Meets and I held Google Meets that were for fun and socializing. I passed out Valentine cards and Christmas treats. Benigni (2022) also notes the importance of social-emotional support. He recognized that teachers became very creative during the pandemic to meet the needs of students.
I also liked how the rubric pointed out that the staff's physical, mental, and emotional needs were important (Classlink et al., 2021). Teaching during the pandemic was stressful no matter your situation. At my school, we began sending out weekly surveys to faculty and staff to check on mental health and ask for solutions to problems. These surveys allowed us to make changes and keep a check on our faculty.
Future
"Technologies for delivering coursework, facilitating communication, assessing learner progress, and managing the varied components of online instruction will continue to evolve and present opportunities to stretch our thinking about what constitutes teaching and learning in a digital age" (p. 315). I think the pandemic has taught us lots about distance education.
References
Alabama Connections Academy. (2022). Parents as partners in online schooling. https://www.connectionsacademy.com/alabama-virtual-school/experience/parents/
Alabama Virtual Academy. (2022). Learning coach corner. https://alva.k12.com/resources/strong-start/learning-coach-corner.html
Benigni, M. (2022). Two years of lost learning: Not the case in all schools. https://www.cosn.org/two-years-of-lost-learning-not-the-case-in-all-schools/
Classlink, AASA, AESA, CoSN, & SETDA. (2021). Continuous Learning Rubric. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e_loE-T-UlqVowsjob6IKSn3D58W7JBUsxqxSEpawbY/edit#gid=314238601
Connections Academy. (n.d.). What's involved in being a connections academy learning coach? [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApYA3qJe0xU
Nowness. (2017, July 28). Rafsimons. [Giphy]. https://giphy.com/gifs/nowness-rafsimons-PzOOXVXgpF0mA
Simonson, M., Zvacek, S., & Smaldino, S. (2019). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (7th ed.). Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Dana,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog. I agree that teaching during a pandemic was stressful. You taught virtually longer than I did but it was stressful nonetheless. Klapproth et al (2020) state, "we assumed that stress was induced during the lockdown by lack of sufficient support, both technical and social, and excessive workload regarding the use of computer technology and social media". Times were unprecedented and not knowing what would come out of the shutdown was crazy. Had we had more time to prepare I feel that we could have done a lot of things better. According to Simonson et al (2019), "just like other kinds of teaching, teaching at a distance requires planning and organizing" (p. 131). The lack of planning and organizing coupled with the unknown of a foreign virus was enough to send teachers, parents, and students into a stressful tailspin. I am hopeful that we are on the other side of this and now we can push forward to plan efficiently and be better prepared.
Thanks for sharing,
Erica
References:
Klapproth, F., Federkeil, L., Heinschke, F., & Jungmann, T. (2020). Teachers’ experiences of stress and their coping Strategies during COVID-19 induced distance teaching. Journal of Pedagogical Research, 4(4), 444–452.
Simonson, M., Zvacek, S., & Smaldino, S. (2019). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (7th ed.). Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Dana, I really enjoyed your final blog post! You started off by quoting some important text. You quoted the "quality of student support services available and easily accessible to a distant learner" (Simonson et al., 2019, p. 293) was important. I've mentioned countless times the importance of our student learners during the pandemic. There were many students that just didn't get the support they needed during the pandemic because many teachers were trying to support themselves. "Technology cannot enhance learning unless adopted, embraced, and effectively used" (Zhou, Dzingirai, Hove, Chitata, & Mugandani, 2022). My district saw the importance of adopting technology that could continue instruction during another time like the COVID pandemic. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteReferences
Zhou, M., Dzingirai, C., Hove, K., Chitata, T., & Mugandani, R. (2022). Adoption, use and enhancement of virtual learning during COVID-19. Education and Information Technologies: The Official Journal of the IFIP Technical Committee on Education, 1-21. Https:doi-org.ezproxy.montevallo.edu/10.1007/s10639-022-10985-x
Simonson, M., Zvacek, S., & Smaldino, S. (2019). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (7th ed.). Information Age Publishing, Inc.