Online teaching is not difficult; it is different. Once we understand and learn to work with the differences, remote education becomes another scenario among many for teaching all children. Educators are educable, don’t you know.
When we approach in-school teaching of at-home children, our first focus is on the technology involved. Cameras and screens. Many small faces on a device’s screen. No children physically present in the classroom. Each of these is true. But, technology is a false front of difference. Our laptops, chrome books, IPads, display boards, cameras and screens also are present in classrooms filled with children.
Time, not the remoteness of children or the new arrays of technology, is the critical difference between in-person and remote teaching and learning. It is consideration of and use of time that we must master in order to become effective remote educators. Once this is done, remote education is only an alternative teaching strategy.
As remote educators, we are relearning these characteristics of instructional time.
Time is a package. A lesson in most public school classrooms occurs within an envelope of minutes. In a secondary classroom, a math lesson occurs within the minutes of a class period. In an elementary classroom, ELA, reading, math, science and social studies each have an identified amount of minutes in the school day. When ELA time is up, the lesson moves to the next subject. A unit of instruction requires a number of lessons and, as each lesson requires time, so units span weeks of time.
Time is finite. The minute hand on the clock moves marks the beginning and ending of instructional time. When the clock says the class is to begin it begins and when the clock says the class is over, the class is over. Schooling is ordered by the clock and the number of finite minutes allocated for instruction .
Time is visible. On a regular school day, school bells or tones sound to begin time for teaching and learning and their ELA materials and take out their math materials. Children understand this – they watch the clock and know how the flow of a lesson and time work. Any classroom observer sees children each day who know there are only so many minutes in a lesson in which a teacher may call on them to speak or answer a question or perform. Outside of those minutes they are anonymous in the classroom. They know that the first minutes of class are settling in time and the last minutes of class are packing it in time. Children see time differently than teachers see time.
Instructional time must be optimized within known attention spans. Studies tell us we can generalize a child’s attention span to be 3 to 5 minutes per the child’s age. A Kindergarten child can pay attention for approximately 15 to 25 minutes before they begin to drift. Children with learning disadvantages may have lower attention spans. A 3rd grade child can pay attention for 24 to 40 minutes. Effective lessons must be crafted within these attention spans – connection with prior learning, initial instruction, modeling, guided practice, checking for understanding.
https://blog.brainbalancecenters.com/normal-attention-span-expectations-by-age
Attentive focus also is dependent upon whether or not a child finds the topic of her attention to be meaningful and personalized. As soon as she determines that what she is hearing, seeing or doing is not, she drifts away from paying attention.
At-home learners are vulnerable to losing attention due to factors outside the teacher’s domain or control. We are not aware of what else is happening in the child’s home, what is off-screen, or the child’s state of readiness to learn prior to connecting online. This heightens the need for compact, compelling, meaningful and personally-connecting instruction.
Time must be front-end loaded. Teaching at-home learners is a “get what you can when you can” proposition. For this reason, instruction needs to be front-end loaded. Within the finite envelope and while you have a child’s attention, provide necessary initial instruction. The longer into the lesson a teacher waits to deliver necessary instruction, the less likely it is that a child will engage.
Time for student work is off-screen time. The most egregious complaint of children and parents regarding remote education arises when a teacher requires a child to be on-screen for hours at a time. Don’t do this. When the lesson moves to independent practice time, disconnect from screen time. Let children do their reading, writing, and math assignments off-line. Let children connect with other children as part of their time not part of their on-line time with a teacher. The more a teacher allows children to work off-screen, the more children will engage with a teacher during instructional time.
Time lost is not equally regained. When a child perceives that on-line schooling is a waste of time and begins to disengage, the time it takes to get the child to re-engage is never regained. A child who sits passively watching an in-school teacher lecture for a full class period quickly hits the off-screen button. On-screen lecturing is a major cause of secondary student disengagement. And, it takes far more time to re-engage a child than it would have taken to sustain engagement from the beginning. In remote education, lost time really is lost time.
Time is accountability and accountability creates persistence. Teachers who understand the relationship of time, high quality lessons, and personalized relationships demonstrate everyday that children who are engaged in these well-crafted, on-line lessons stay engaged. Children respond to teachers who hold them accountable as learners BECAUSE the teachers are accountable for a quality use of time. These child persist and are succeeding as at-home learners.
These are not necessarily new or earth-shaking revelations about how to effectively use school time. They are, however, incontrovertible truths – violate them at your peril.