Category Archives: Blog

Remote Education and Communicating with a Teacher

Posted on by
Reply

A story from years past has new relevance today.  “A primary grade child saw her school teacher in the aisles of a local grocery store and exclaimed, ‘What are you doing here?  I thought you lived at school.’”.  Today’s updating of this story is a child learning at-home in the Time of COVID saying, “With cell phones, texting, e-mailing and social media, I thought you were available to my communications 24/7”.  “Nope” is the correct answer to each naïve comment.  We need to understand some boundaries.

In the Time of COVID, we have children attending school and children learning at-home and communication protocols need to be clearly established for each.  Communicating about teaching and learning with in-school children resembles pre-COVID communication with in-person questions and answers, group and individual conversations, and before and after school exchanges.  Most communication is successfully made during and just after the school day.

Children learning at-home are in the foggy zone of life on-line.  Some lessons are synchronous with a teacher and classmates in real time.  Some are asynchronous and children work independently of the teacher and classmates.  In order to balance screen time, many at-home children are advised to break up their school work with other at-home activities.  Add to this the need for at-home children to wait for parental assistance with lessons until working parents return home after a working day.  The result is a thinking that communication with teachers can and should take place at any time day or night. The norms for at-home children contacting teachers are new and not-yet defined.

Reasonable, respectful and responsible need to be our norms.

School leaders ask teachers to provide a single curriculum to all children regardless of a child being in-school or at-home. In addition, principals and teachers work to create a teaching and learning environment in which children can shift from one location to the other given parental choice and trends of  health data.  These provisions create a real expectation of a child’s accessibility to a teacher in order to answer learning questions about instruction.

For children in-school and at-home alike, a school day should begin with a teacher opening the in-person and at-home instructional day at the time a regular day at school begins.  Children in-school will continue with a school day that ends at the usual time for dismissal from school. In-school children have in-person communications with a teacher throughout their school day. Children at-home will continue with a school day including real time with a teacher and off-line time without a teacher. At-home children have on-line communication with a teacher at varied times during the day with the real expectation that a teacher will respond quickly.

After school hour communications present their own dilemma. In pre-COVID Time, students and parents called or electronically communicated with teachers after school hours.  Perceived necessity, being what it is, spurred such communication.  In pre-COVID Time, after the end of the school day, a teacher could answer or not answer a phone, let phone communications go to voice mail, check or not check texts, e-mails and social media addressed to them.  Many communications could reasonably wait until the next school day. Real emergencies were appropriately responded to, but most communications were not real emergencies.  A teacher had control of the nature and timing of a response. 

The ubiquitous nature of on-line schooling can easily cause children and parents to assume a 24/7 access to teachers.  If a child can do asynchronous, remote lessons at any time of the day, evening or night, a child can think that their teacher is accessible in parallel time. 

Not necessarily so. Teachers do have out-of-school lives that need to be respected.

A first appropriate guideline is that a school day is its usual hours, usually 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.  Given time for lunch and usual health-related breaks, a teacher should be accessible during these clock hours.  Unless teaching at the moment or engaged with another child, a teacher who is not synchronous with at-home children should be accessible by an at-home child via phone or text or e-mail with the expectation of an immediate or very quick response.  The repeated caveat is unless teaching or engaged with another child.  To facilitate understanding, a teacher can readily post their usual lunch time or necessary time out of the remote classroom.

A second appropriate guideline is that non-emergency out-of-school day communication by any child or parent will receive a response the next day.  Real emergencies aside, next day response is a real and best practice. 

The Time of COVID has disrupted so many things we used to take for granted, including home and school communications. We need to establish new guidelines that help not hinder good teaching and learning. Everyone wants all children to be in-school learners as soon as possible and good communication guidelines will help us get there. If we cannot make these two appropriate guidelines work during the Time of COVID, what will post-COVID be like?  Will 24/7 teacher access be the new norm when all children are in-school?  I don’t think so. 

Remote teaching and learning is not the Wild West with no rules or norms.  Responsible communication is essential for in-school and at-home learning and it is easier than we think when we treat each other respectfully.

Lesson Design in the Time of COVID

Posted on by
Reply

Every now and then what we learned decades ago and think of as old becomes valuable again.  The Time of COVID has made teaching to students at-home a schooling reality for many educators.  Thrown into remote education by school closures this past March, most educators used emergency teaching practices.  No one was prepared for daily synchronous teaching of all children.  We learned a lot about the inequity and inequality of Internet access in many homes, web-based teaching and learning platforms, and the reality of screen time fatigue.  On a very positive side, we relearned the importance of lesson design.  Teaching remotely requires a more precise lesson plan and this reintroduced us to Madeline Hunter’s eight step lesson plan.

Madeline Hunter’s Instructional Theory into Practice gained national attention in the 1970s and 80s.  She was named one of the 100 most influential women in education.  Her work at UCLA focused on the importance of students “getting it right the first time”.  Carefully planned, taught, modeled, checked and practiced learning better assures that children are successful in daily and unit lessons and do not require extensive reteaching.  She emphasized that all reteaching requires unlearning what is wrong before learning what is right.   Our reality is that reteaching is not always accomplished due to its significant time and effort requirement.  The need to “move on” and “we will correct that later” can leave children with incorrect understanding and skills that clearly influences future learning.  Especially with remote education.

Additionally, reteaching in remote education is just awkward.  It means arranging screen time with or deliverable materials to a child, manipulating the steps of unlearning and reteaching on screen or via the continued exchange of materials, and assessing that correct learning has been achieved.  This must be done while maintaining ongoing remote education with all children.  Or, reteaching is assigned to an interventionist who remotely works with a child.  Ugh!

It is better to “get it right the first time”.  Hence, a return to the Hunter Lesson Design.

  1. Anticipatory Set
  2. Objective: Purpose
  3. Teaching: Input
  4. Teaching: Modeling
  5. Checking for Understanding
  6. Guided Practice
  7. Independent Practice
  8. Closure
Madeline Hunter Lesson Plan Model

The Lesson Design fits on-screen time very well.  A remote lesson that mirrors an in-class lesson may last 50 to 60 minutes can be chunked into segments of screen time with the insertion of a brief “checking for understanding” at the end of a chunk.

Input and Modeling constitute a a chunk that can be recorded so that a child can view and hear “correctness” over and over again.

Checking for Understanding queries can be repeated at any time.  Synchronous teaching and learning allows all children in the remote class to see and hear the queries.  And, synchronous teaching allows a teacher to “call” on any and every child.

Remote Guided Practice may be its own chunk of screen time.  Guided Practice requires “show me, explain to me, and do it again” time.  This can be done with all children on screen or with an individual child on screen. 

Independent Practice can be off screen.  Children can work independently off screen or in small groups on screen.  The teacher does not need to be on screen.

Closure brings the teacher back together with all children and is a reciprocal process.  Children explain, show and demonstrate what they learned and how their learning connects back to the purpose and objectives of the lesson and how their learning builds an anticipation of future learning. 

The Hunter template provides a remote teacher with a guide to ensure that a remote lesson is a complete lesson from start to finish.  It is “chunkable” and does not require continuous on screen time for the teacher or children.  Most importantly, the Hunter template points to the importance of “getting it right the first time.” 

In the Time of COVID, If We Value an Equitable and Equal Education for All Children, No Option is No Option

Posted on by
Reply

Almost every question regarding how schools should operate in the Time of COVID leads to this problem – no matter how well intended and accommodating, plans for re-opening schools do not allow all children to receive an equitable and equal education.  A second outcome of almost every plan is that a segment of teachers, staff, children, parents and community are unhappy with its outcomes.  Our educational systems have worked hard to create accommodating options in every area where the education of children is not equitable and equal.  And, educators have worked to create parent, family and community partnerships in school programming and services to assure equity and equality.  COVID is leaving educators without options to provide the kind of options that make education equitable and equal for children and amiable with parents.  No options is not an option.

I posit this as a given. There is a real difference between in-school and at-home learning for students, regardless of how diligent schools are in providing remote instruction.  At-home just is not the same as being in-school and this this builds conditions of inequity and inequality.

The first divisor of COVID is the reality of health conditions.  Children and their families and teachers and their families who have health conditions that are imperiled by COVID have no option.  Their baseline consideration is “I cannot participate in any schooling that presents my exposure to any person who is infected or contagious or has been exposed to such.”  Because the infected and contagious may be present in any social situation, this immediately eliminates in-person teaching and learning for these students and teachers.  Their parameter must be safety first.  Students and teachers with health conditions have no options for in-school attendance.

The second divisor is perception – perceived danger or perceived safety.  Whether a person perceives danger or perceives safety, their perception is right.  Prevalent COVID data yields this “glass half full or glass half empty” proposition.  Our county is rated by our Department of Health Services as being “high in COVID activity” – community spread.  Our county has a suffered few COVID-related deaths and a low number of hospitalizations.  The “high” rating of community spread builds the perception of present danger.  The “low” number of deaths builds the perception of relative safety.  No argument can convince either perceiver that their perception is erroneous.  Perception is reality and the reality is that some children and teachers believe they should be in-school and some children and teachers believe they must be at-home.  Students and teachers who perceive the dangers of in-school attendance are separated into at-home students and teachers. No options to be in-person.

The third and fourth divisors are real time factors.  Some schools have the physical capacity for all children and teachers to be socially distanced in-school.  A combination of lower enrollment and available in-school classrooms spaces allow for a socially distanced instruction of all children.  At the same time, some schools do not have this capacity.  At best, these schools can offer a combination of either in-school and at-home instructional days for all children or in-school all week instruction for some children and at-home all week instruction for other children.    Social distancing requirements are dividing children into full-time or part-time in-school and/or at-home students.

Internet access is the fourth and highly significant real time divisor. Synchronous  screen time between teachers and students has become a strong tool for delivering in-school teaching to at-home students.  Some homes have high speed connectivity and some have little to no connectivity at all.  And, of those homes with connectivity, some Internet is not strong enough to support streaming and Zooming.  Additionally, the amount of school time required for at-home learning can be very expensive given a family’s Internet plan.  Internet connectivity has divided students at home in the “haves” and “have nots”.  Access to the Internet is a very real creator of inequality and inequity.

A fifth divisor is the presence or lack of parental supervision and support for at-home learning.  This is a true have and have not division.  The economics of some homes require that adults work full time.  Their need is inarguable.  Children in these homes do not have adult supervision and daily support of their at-home learning.  The economics of other homes allows an adult to be at home.  Children in these homes have adult supervision and support.  However, not all adults are suited for supervising and supporting at-home education.  The lack of an adult at home or an adult who is suited for at-home education leaves at-home students without needed options for their learning supervision and support.

The final divisor lies in the community. Local economies work best in the school year when children are in school and adults are available for work. When COVID forced schools to shift to at-home student learning last fall, local economies suffered. Reopening the economy pushes schools to provide in-school teaching and in-school learning. When educational leaders attend to health data’s indicating the need for at-home student learning, an immediate adversarial relationship erupts between economic and educational interests with small to no options for compromise.

To reclaim needed options for educators, students and parents, we need:

  • Community commitment to following medical guidance that drives the local infection rate to one (1) case per one hundred thousand citizens (100,000) and hold that rate over time.  In our count of less than 100,000 in population, the rate is no more than one (1) new, positive COVID test per day. This requires enforced masking and social distancing mandates.
  • Suspension of school until the above local infection rate is achieved.  The 180 days of school year for all schools, teachers and students will slide back in the chronological calendar until this rate is achieved.  Education will be achieved, just not now and not with the current examples of inequity and inequality.
  • Governmental financing of ubiquitous high speed Internet for every community regardless of population density and commercial subscription. Every aspect of life in a community needs this.
  • State and local financing to employ enough essential school employees to achieve social distancing in all school operations – classroom, transportation, food service. If essential personnel are not available, schools cannot provide in-school teaching and learning.
  • State and local financing to ensure that all areas of a school can be sanitized quickly and effectively is machine and not hand labor. Cleaning builds both the reality and perception of safe school environments.
  • PPP coverage for an adult to be an at-home supervisor and learning supporter for 4K through grade 6 age children.

It is absurd that a nation of such resources should not ensure an equitable and equal education for all children, even in the Time of COVID.  Or, to restate this, it is absurd that a nation of such resources is willing to squander the educated future of a generation of children.

Where In The World Is My Teacher? He Is A Waldo

Posted on by
Reply

“Where in the world is my teacher?”  School closure and remote education have opened the door for a new breed of teacher, a Waldo.  Waldo, like the personage in the children’s puzzle book depicted within a group of people in different places around the world, is a teacher who can physically be anywhere in the world and work daily as a teacher for your school.  Note – a teacher for your school not in your school.  If Waldo holds a valid teaching license for your state, Waldo can be a remote teacher for your school.  The answer to the question, “where in the world is my teacher”, is this – physical location does not matter. 

The 2020-21 school year will present a buffet of schooling scenarios in any given school district.  In-person schooling will return children to classrooms with protocols for distancing, masking, and hand washing.  School-based remote home schooling will meet the needs of parents who do not believe in-person schooling to be safe for their children.  A families economic and technology status will play into this decision, also.  And, an array of hybrid scenarios involving in-person and remote education will be implemented for schools unable to provide safe, distanced education in their classrooms.  Finally, ever present is the likelihood that COVID may cause a school to close classrooms or schoolhouses and engage their programs for remote education.

From a teacher employment perspective, 2020-21 will require the hiring of more teachers.  Without debate, money will be a problem.  State allocations to schools will be dinged by COVID’s depletion of recent and future state revenues.  Federal monies already approved will be bolstered with more monies to meet the political imperatives.  Local taxation limits will be massaged.  Money will be found, because the real and perceived need for children to be schooled this fall is great.  Period!

Our Wisconsin county contains five school districts.  It is very safe to say that any county resident holding a valid WI teacher license and wanting to teach is or will be employed this fall.  And, we still will be short of licensed teachers.  It also is safe to say that the given economics of Wisconsin and our region do not make relocating for employment a realistic option for job seekers.  Reasonably priced housing in our county is scarce and even low interest rates for housing loans does not change that fact.  We will not be able to attract enough teachers to move to our school districts to fill our teaching needs.

Hello, Waldo!  We will advertise for non-resident employment.  Any teacher holding a valid Wisconsin teaching license for the positions we post will be considered for employment as a remote teacher.  A candidate can live anywhere.  The only stipulation is that the teacher’s location has and can sustain adequate Internet connectivity.  We will provide modems, laptops, additional screens, cameras, and other technologies to make the remote teacher synchronous with our school, students, and parents.

A Waldo will teach the school’s curriculum using lesson plans devised by our in-person teachers.  As an example, an in-person first grade teacher will use the district’s curriculum guides to create unit and lesson plans for in-person students.  We want all first grade children to receive the same high quality instruction regardless of their physical location.  These units and lessons comply with state disciplinary standards and provide the academic progression for children to advance grade level to grade level and through secondary subject sequences.  Although standardization historically has been frowned upon, in the time of COVID and the need for school scenarios, standardization will be a requirement of instructional supervision.

Waldo will be provided lessons in reading, ELA, math, science and social studies.  Elementary Waldos also will be provided lessons in art, music, and physical education.  A remote education will be an identical twin to an in-person education.  Secondary Waldos will teach subjects within their licensure.  We will need specialist Waldos.  Waldo also will be provided with student assessments and access to the school’s pupil records to ensure that students and parents can accurately follow a child’s academic progress.  Waldo, like an in-person teacher, will communicate with students and parents regarding a child’s schoolwork. 

The question of accountability arises for Waldos.  Out of sight leads to less in mind.  To remove this problem, school principals will supervise Waldo just as they supervise in-person teachers.  Principals will observe Waldo’s daily interactions with in-person teachers, students and parents.  Principals will observe Waldo’s synchronicity to ensure that Waldo is approximating in-person teacher and student exchanges.  Principals will observe Waldo’s pupil recordkeeping.  Remote teaching is not interstellar – it is clicked connection away.

In every aspect, except physical location and responsibility for unit, lesson, and assessment design, Waldo will act as an in-person teacher in the schools.  Our socially distanced and safe faculty meetings will include all Waldos.  Literally, Waldo is just down the hall and around the corner.

The future will be affected by the present.  When COVID becomes history, the evolution of teaching and learning may find advantages in using remote teaching talent, talent that is not physically in the schoolhouse.  Waldo may not just be anywhere, Waldo will be everywhere.

School Opening Decisions At The Right Pay Grade

Posted on by
Reply

Public schools serve the public and are governed by lay school boards as mandated in state constitutions.  In every state, public education is one of the longest standing and most viably evolved state institutions.  In an era when our political, social, economic and cultural institutions are so challenged as to be ineffective, I marvel at the resilient integrity of public education.  Acknowledging this, it is interesting and informative to observe how national, state, and local leaders who are not at the local “school board pay grade” try to affect schooling in the time of COVID.

Notwithstanding the fact that some large, urban school district school boards reflect partisan elections and some have mayoral control, 95-plus percent of school boards in our nation are populated with civic-minded, education-committed members whose primary function is to provide policy guidance and financial authorization for the school district.  As the most grass root of public services, board members know and are known within their school district communities.  Their “pay grade” is nominal and their community appreciation and recognition is underspoken.  In a word, school board work is the epitome of local government making decisions that directly represent and affect a local community.

In the time of COVID, the status of children in or out of school has risen to the highest voices in the nation and state.  The fact that public education is our nation’s largest child care provider means that when children are in school parents are available for work and when children are not in school parents are conflicted between caring for children at home and being available for work.  School closure due to COVID affects employment, wage earning, consumer spending, and economies on all levels.  The crux of the problem, however, is that economy is political.  Hence, political voices want to influence, if not command, that children return to school so that parents can return to work so that the economy can be improved so that politics can resume its inordinate place in our society.

The distance between national and state voices and children in local school classrooms is almost interstellar.  Talk and commandments with the broadest of brushes by big time officeholders are incognizant of their effects upon local schools.  In reverse, every local child has a name that is known in her school.  She matters.  Her education and welfare matter.  The trajectory of an individual child’s school experience is the meat of school board committee work and board policy discussions.  Prior to and in the time of COVID, local school board members are laser focused on how their decisions impact the education, health and safety of children with names.

In our state headlines, a US Senator declares that all children must be in school in September.  Politics at play.  Our President declares that all schools must open in the fall.  Politics at play.  Our state legislators are wary of mandating that all schools will open in September while opining that they should.  Our local representatives portray plans that will open school in ways that align with their partisanship.  Politics at play.  Local business leaders send letters to their school board members urging that all children should be in school in September.  Economical politics at play.  Parents are stuck on the question – what is best for my child.  That is the right decision to be made.

The right “pay grade” for deciding the status of schools in the time of COVID is the local school board.  They are locally-knowledgeable and locally-responsible and their decisions affect children with names.

Local governance is as local governance does, to paraphrase Forest Gump.