Teaching from home
As a teacher of over ten years, I have at times dreamed of being able to work from home and deliver lessons using Skype. On those cold, dark, wintry morning, I have wished that I could just stay on my sofa. Be careful what you wish for!
Since the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January 2020, my school has remained closed due to the spread of the Coronavirus within Mainland China. Many educational establishments have created a range of e-learning experiences for their students.
The aim of this post is to share the experiences that I (as a Year 6 primary school teacher) have had and make some comments on the pros and cons of the activities we have crafted as a school. I will also include some information on how students have been affected by long periods of being away from their normal routine (and in some cases, prolonged isolation).
Creating an e-learning programme
It is important to discuss this with your team or leaders and gain clarity on how you will have a consistent approach to e-learning.
Here are some considerations:
How will you deliver tasks to students?
Written tasks
During the beginning of our school closure, while we started to formulate an e-learning programme, we were posting activities and tasks for our students to do on platforms such as Seesaw or Teams. We gave students differentiated work to complete and included examples so that they were supported as much as possible while working mostly independently. Our students could contact us if they needed help, however it became clear that they were missing contact with teachers and their friends.
Recorded lessons
Our school tried recorded lessons that students could access and watch at a convenient time. This was useful due to having international students in many different locations and times zones. Creating and editing videos was certainly time consuming. In addition, this method of sharing lessons does not provide a lot of interaction for students.
Live lessons
Our school uses Zoom or Teams to deliver live lessons for our students. This offers students the opportunity to interact and discuss topics and content with their teacher or peers. We have also been recording the live lessons and uploading them to the cloud (Microsoft One Drive works best for us since Google Drive is difficult to access in China) so that students who are unable to attend live sessions may view it at a later time. We are currently holding live sessions for English, Maths, Social Studies and Chinese. Activities and recorded sessions for specialist classes such as P.E, Music and Art are uploaded to the cloud for students to access at a time of their choosing.
Timetable
Once you have decided on your preferred method of delivering lessons or tasks, it is important to create a daily/weekly schedule that will be shared with your students. More than ever, our students have been craving routine and this will help them to gain a sense of normality during these unpredictable times.
The timetable includes the time of live sessions and suggested time slots of when they could be having breaks, completing other lesson content or extra curricular activities.
Lesson content
In primary school, we have established that we will not be covering new content (at least for now). Reviewing skills and revisiting learning that students have already covered since the beginning of the school year (but in new/adapted ways) offers students something familiar and builds on their existing knowledge and understanding. For example, in Year 6, we have looked at creating an imaginative narrative. The students have already covered the features of short story writing before, however we can see that it has been beneficial for the students to do this again and they have appreciated the chance to express their creativity.
Submitting work/non-contact time communication
It is important for students to know how and when (acceptable hours) they can contact their teachers. Each week, we share the weekly timetable with our students and include links and passwords for students to access live sessions. We also remind them of how they can contact their teacher and our preferred methods of sharing their completed work. Our students have been submitting their work to us via Seesaw, Teams or email. In Year 6, we have been using Microsoft OneNote which is a useful tool in storing student work all in one organised space.
Child protection
You may need to talk with your leader(s) about any changes to your establishment's child protection policy.
Delivering your e-learning programme
Setting norms
For the first week (at least one week), it is important to establish a set of understandings of how you are going to be running the digital learning experience. We spent much of the first week allowing our students to become familiar with the different apps and online resources. During our live sessions, we spent time checking in on the students and giving them time to share their feelings. We also provided them with suggestions of what to do if they were feeling stressed or bored. It has also been important to set up a list of agreements on how we expect students to participate during live sessions and how we can decide who will be speaking or sharing. Scheduling in circle time style sessions was really important. In Year 6, when we hold live classes on Zoom, we generally ask students to mute their microphones and type responses or questions in a chat box. Students can also digitally 'raise their hand' and can un-mute their microphone if they wish to share something verbally.
Sharing content with students
Zoom has mostly been a very useful tool to hold live lessons. It allows the host of the lesson to share their screen with the viewers. When this happens, I have generally been playing a custom-made PowerPoint with a mixture of text, images, videos, examples of work and an explanation of an independent task that students should attempt once the session is over. The independent task is saved as a pdf and shared with the students on Seesaw. Seesaw cannot host files as large as the recorded lessons, and Seesaw did begin to feel cluttered with many different posts and files, so this is why we took the decision to also upload files to the One Drive.
Screen time concerns
Since my school has been creating and delivering digital content for seven weeks, we have noticed that some students and teachers have complained of headaches and feeling tired. We have tried to create independent tasks (following the live online sessions) that will not rely on devices or technology. Wherever possible, we have tried to design activities that students can do on paper or without the use of electronics.
Supporting students
Personally, I have found it helpful to provide some allotted time at the beginning or end of the live lessons for students to talk to each other and discuss their feelings. Sometimes the students just want to talk about something they have done, a piece of news they have heard, or to show their pet on the camera. Students have at times expressed feelings of loneliness or boredom. Some of my students are in locations where they are rarely able to go outside. I shared with them a list of activities to promote self-care, which they could try while at home:
A handwritten diary - taking time to think about your feelings is important. Writing a diary will help you to practice your language skills, but you will also be working through your emotions and creating an interesting document to revisit in the future.
A passion project - perhaps there is a certain topic that you are interested in. You could research it using books, digital resources or having discussions with friends or family members. This project could include you building a model or replica of an animal, building or invention. Share your research project with your peers so that they could learn from your findings.
Working on a hobby - listen to or play music, draw or paint, knit or make something out of clay! Doing something practical or creative could help you relax or build on your skills.
Get in the kitchen - design and make a healthy meal. Share it with your classmates so that they can try your menu!
Keeping active - use videos such as Just Dance or create your own routines that will act as good exercise. You could even invent your own P.E game for others to try out.
Further ideas
If you have any questions please get in touch. If you would like to look at some examples of the resources, projects and lessons that my school has delivered during this time, please get see my blog post here. If you have some ideas for me, I am more than happy to listen. It's important to help each other during this time. I hope to post again with some examples of activities/templates that will helpfully be useful to other educators who may be in a similar situation. Take care everyone!
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