NYC public schools will close for instruction until at least April 20, 2020.  While the DOE will put forth its best efforts to provide quality instruction for teachers, I figured I’d put together some tips for those of you doing this for the first time.  The idea of remote learning may not appeal to some teachers as we know part of the joy of teaching is being with our students in person, but as someone who has taught in a blended school for the past nine years, I can assure you that you can still remotely spark creativity and a love of learning in our students.  Here is a list of successes and obstacles that my students and I have had within the blended model:

Successes

  • Aiming to write lessons that take approximately ¾ of the time of an average in-person lesson
  • Your students will be spending the majority of the time reading what you’d normally verbalize. Processing written words takes more time for many students than it does to hear them.  Give them a break and aim to shorten your direct instruction in writing.  In the end, it will take them just as long as an in-person lesson to complete.
  • Accepting work asynchronously
  • You know how long it took you to master this whole “remote learning” business?  Yeah, it’s taking your kids just as long.  Cut them some slack and allow them to turn in assignments as they complete them while also providing them with the structure of your course including rolling deadlines.  Keep in mind that many of our students either have become babysitters as their parents still have to work, others might share a computer with siblings who also have remote learning obligations, and others still may encounter trouble accessing either the internet or the resources you will require to complete your lessons that you’d normally provide in your classroom.  Whatever the reason, allowing students to turn in work at their own pace shows them that you’re sensitive to their situation during this uncertain time.
  • Continuing to include student choice in your lessons and assessments
  • Teaching remotely doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice student choice throughout your curriculum.  Teaching close reading of a text?  Provide multiple titles from which students can choose to do that close reading.  Better yet, allow students to bring a title to you for approval.  They might not always take you up on the offer, but they will appreciate that they have the option.
  • Including opportunities for human interaction (safely, of course!)
  • Have students asynchronously provide feedback on each other’s work (and grade them on the accuracy of the feedback they provide), write lessons that require students to safely interact with family members with whom they may live, have students recall past interactions they may have had to spark interest in your “Do Nows.”  The possibilities here are vast.
  • Providing ample opportunity for revision
  • This strategy ties in well with students providing each other feedback on tasks as well as accepting work asynchronously.  Have your students put that feedback to work!  You know how you can give directions ten times and some students still won’t understand what they need to do?  That doesn’t change with remote learning.  I promise no matter how specific your instructions are, students will still misinterpret them.  It’s only fair to allow them to revise work they turn in as many of them are learning a new platform as they are learning the skills in your lesson.
  • Including AT LEAST one lesson on the platform itself
  • I can’t stress this enough.  You will save yourself so much headache (although you won’t eliminate it completely) if you dedicate a couple of lessons on navigating the platform they will during this time. In my school, we have an entire course dedicated to using the school’s platform, and students are sometimes STILL amazed when I remind them later on in their academic career of a feature they already learned.
  • Allowing students to critique your lessons
  • I know, I know...after all that hard work, you have your curriculum up and remotely running, and the last thing you want to do is revise it.  But I promise, you will save yourself tons of extra work if you tailor your lessons to your students instructional remote learning needs.  Have them tell you where they got stuck in the lesson, what was confusing, what they enjoyed, etc.  Some ways I’ve successfully elicited feedback in the past has been through surveys at the end of the lesson, private conversations with students, and anonymous Google forms.
  • Writing at least one lesson dedicated to celebrating achievements/reminding students you’re thinking of them
  • This lesson could also serve as a mental health/emotional check-in.  Have students share a picture of their favorite animals or pets, highlight a piece of student work, or put some encouraging data together to show how much they’ve accomplished as a class during their remote learning time.  Personalize your praise!  Your students love you as much as you love them.  No one knows how to reach them in the ways that you do.

Obstacles

  • Recording yourself lecturing over a slideshow/images of the content in the lesson
  • While this method might seem like mastery of your ability to use technology for instruction, it’s actually no better than handing them a textbook, assigning pages to read, and having them answer the questions at the end of each chapter.  Boriiiiing!  Also, you’re better than this!
  • Being rigid about how assignments are turned in.
  • Just because your lesson is digital doesn’t necessarily mean that the assessment must or should be digital as well.  Provide students some leeway in how they turn in assignments.  Accept, for example, a chart of the scientific method from one student and a written explanation of the process from another.  The point here is that they demonstrate comprehension of the material, not that they wrack their brains trying to fulfill arbitrary requirements of an assignment while also potentially learning a new digital platform.
  • Overloading students with content or skills in one lesson.
  • This has always been a tough one regardless of how students are learning.  While you need to make sure you’re meeting state requirements, you also don’t want to move too fast for them to adequately grasp the content or skills you’re teaching.  This conundrum is doubly exacerbated by remote learning when students are spending much of their time comprehending written instruction.  However, in my early teaching years I was burned by content/skill overload in unsuccessful attempts to keep up with state standards.  If you try to include too much in one lesson, they don’t learn anything at all.  Your best bet is to go in-depth with one skill or topic per lesson.
  • Changing up your format too often
  • You will confuse everyone--your students, the parents, yourself, and your administration if they decide to review your curriculum.  Create or adopt a format and stick with it.  Make sure every lesson follows that format as closely as possible so students know what to expect.  Doing so is especially helpful while everyone is potentially trying to navigate a new media platform.  And on that note...
  • Trying to learn a new platform while writing these lessons
  • I know some teachers won’t be able to avoid this one as they need to comply with whatever platform their administrators require them to use, but if you can help it, use a platform that you already know or are already using with your students.  If administrators do require you to use a new one, learn the basics and move on with writing your lessons.  This is not the time to learn how to award virtual badges, coding, or any other complicated intricacy of a new platform.  Your curriculum is your strength--stick to it!
  • Focusing on what you haven’t been able to do
  • I was hired one week before my school opened, and at the time I had no idea what blended learning even was.  At times, I wallowed in self-doubt, overwhelmed at the task of writing a year’s worth of curriculum in one week, but I survived, taking it day-by-day, even if that meant only having the next day’s lesson prepared.  You will too!  You’re stronger and smarter than you think you are during those hopeless moments.  Take some time to relax. Good luck and stay healthy, NYC.