A SISYPHEAN ENDEAVOUR: SCHOOL COMPLEXITY AND THE PROBLEM OF REMOTE LEARNING. “Schools are fascinating and complex places.”
So state Jen Barker and Tom Rees in the opening chapter to The ResearchEd Guide to Leadership (2020, p.23). In the closing chapter, Matthew Evans returns to this idea and describes schools as complex systems that are “constantly evolving,” (p.216) and feature problems that are “interconnected and embedded within bigger problems” (p.217). Noise and the Art of Mirror-Modelling. In Lockdown 1, I subscribed to Beachbody UK.
Beachbody is a subscription service which streams exercise classes to your TV. If you have ever completed a Shaun T workout, then you’ll know the drill: a short demo, then you join in for one slower round, then there’s a one-minute workout before the next move. In a Beachbody class last year, I noticed something peculiar about the way they give instructions: it’s all delivered in mirror-image. If the instruction is to kick your right leg, then the instructor kicks a left leg. The instructor tells you to stretch your left arm, while she and the team diligently stretch a right arm.
Primary school parents baffled by their kids’ homework. A quarter of primary school parents are baffled by their kids’ homework, according to our new research Maths is the subject parents find hardestOver a third of parents said they often ended up feeling utterly stressed out at homework timeKids reveal their parents often make mistakes and confuse them whilst helping Our latest research reveals a quarter of British parents (26 per cent) admit to being completely baffled when it comes to their kids’ homework, with maths being the subject where help is most needed.
Learning in the time of coronavirus: planning distance schooling. How do we keep teaching if schools are closed?
It won’t be long before schools in the UK close. They’ve closed in countries heavily affected – Spain, Italy, Greece, China, Hong Kong; they’ve closed in countries not yet heavily affected – like Denmark and Poland; and it seems to help. Closures may last a couple of weeks, but they may be much longer: schools in Hong Kong closed for two weeks in January; they are due to start reopening from mid-April to mid-May. Now Is the Time to Redefine Learning — Not Recreate Traditional School Online. It’s a common refrain among the change-resistant: “We’ve always done it this way.”
But in a difficult year, where charting the unknown has become a daily occurrence, it’s a tough argument for a school to make. We’ve never done things this way—meaning it may be the perfect opportunity to do them differently. Proof Points: The lowdown on flipped classrooms. Digital Strategy Guide. Using a Flip Flop Design for the Concurrent Classroom – Dr. Catlin Tucker. “I wish I could just focus on one group of students at a time.”
This is a sentiment I’ve heard repeatedly from teachers navigating the demands of the concurrent classroom. Case Study - ‘Zoom into the Room!’ - Learning from Lockdown. During the week, “Zoom into the Room” was a huge success.
Positive feedback was received from parents and children were overjoyed to see their parents in the classroom. After teaching, live teachers felt proud and even more confident in their craft. However, there were teething problems and the process became much smoother towards the end of the week. Teachers found it difficult to start the lesson and admit parents to the Hangout simultaneously. Less is more. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed face-to-face teaching as much as I am doing now.
Even with all the social distancing and two metre lines and all the endless wiping down it feels like a dream within a nightmare, or to be a little less dramatic a tiny holiday back to an older, simper life. Each lesson I am a teacher in front of children just as I have always been. Council Post: Education Disruption Brings School Digital Strategies Into Focus. Al Kingsley is MD of NetSupport, Chair of 2 Multi-Academy Trusts in the UK and a regular presenter on all things #EdTech.
@AlKingsley_edu. With education thrown into disarray by the pandemic, the challenge of providing teaching and learning for K-12 students has been — and continues to be — immense. Even before the virus made such an impact, many schools had already realized that a growing array of apps and solutions — that they sometimes only used for a short time before abandoning for the next best thing — was not the way to achieve meaningful, technology-enhanced teaching and learning experiences for their students. These were the schools that had defined (or were in the process of defining) a sustainable, pedagogy-driven, whole-school digital strategy for the longer term.
It is, of course, no surprise that they could move more easily to an online learning model than others that had not yet reached this point. Putting The Pieces Together Digital strategy practicalities Continuity Is Key. How schools are live-streaming lessons around the world. Teachers are donning wireless microphones while pupils are replaced by webcams as schools invest thousands of pounds to live stream lessons to self-isolating pupils and those trapped abroad.
The Department for Education revealed this week around 1,500 schools have been forced to partially close – with 84 per cent of state-funded secondary schools fully open, compared with 92 per cent the previous week. But as the number of self-isolating pupils increases, state schools are developing new ways to ensure those pupils don’t miss out. Reading Girls’ School, part of the Baylis Court Trust, now runs “hybrid lessons” – live-streaming from the classroom to self-isolating pupils at home.
Remote Education Policy Template + Policies (DFE Req) Guidance from Education Endowment Foundation Supporting Parents and Carers and Home learning Planning Framework Example Remote Education Policy Template (DFE Requirements by end Sept)to Establish Consistent and Effective Remote Learning across a School Example End User Policy Examples for Online Platforms shared on a Page here Supported by Digital Strategy (see visual) And Action Planning templates (bottom page) Monitoring Tool for SLT Usage and Engagement of Online Learning Platforms – Excel TemplateSafeguarding for Remote Learning.
Online Platforms. Apps and software for Remote Learning. Live Remote Teaching. Teacher tips and resources for remote learning. No excuses for bad behaviour! – Parkin Space. Time for a bit more disruptive nostalgia! The last few days have seen more than their fair share of history rewriting online. Not only by politicians, though theirs has been absolutely terrible, but also in the world of #edutwitter. Particularly when it comes to pandemics, and the use of education technology when schools are closed. Today I got annoyed enough by some of the postings to sit down and write this, in response to all those, “nobody could have seen this coming,” “online learning is showing it is poor at replacing real classroom teaching,” and, “isn’t ed tech ‘meh’?”
Stories. The new millenium In the early part of this century I, along with a shedload of other folk, were busily helping teachers gain expertise and skills in online pedagogy. Remote Learning – the wasted years. In 1996, Thomas Hamilton shot 16 children and one teacher dead and injured 15 others in Dunblane. Subsequently the UK government took the radical step and introduced legislation banning all cartridge ammunition handguns. This was not universally popular.
However, there hasn’t been a subsequent schools shooting. The response to extreme events sometimes has to be extreme, and for some, uncomfortable. In 2020 the Coronavirus pandemic struck. For the past 3 months everyone has been dealing with the here and the now. Distant Ramblings on the Horizon – cogitations on technology and learning. September, ‘robust remote learning contingency plans’ and the wisdom of trolls – Walden Education (@WaldenKent) How recent experiences of remote teaching; the observations of a US Sociologist; and (most importantly) Grand Pabbie Troll’s homespun wisdom* are steering my first steps in September and contingency planning for the Autumn. What did we learn during lockdown?