Many of you are about to venture into the first day on a virtual platform with your students, are supporting children with their first adventure on a virtual platform for learning, or are supporting someone behind the scenes that is one of the two mentioned (administrators, paraprofessionals, friends of parents/teachers transitioning to remote learning, etc.).
Last Sunday, March 15th, things were just beginning to unfold with COVID 19 in the state where I support the only online public option for 7-12 as Director of Curriculum and Instruction. We had already had our first school contact us about the options they had to move their students to online instruction with our Content Only courses (they utilize our online curriculum content in our Learning Management System (LMS) while their own teachers facilitate/deliver the content to their students). We were going to enter into training them about the courses, the technology systems, and the implementation of the delivery of instruction. I was charged with encouraging the teachers/administrators, provide some insight about partnering with the students, and most of all reminding them to give themselves grace and understanding as they transition into this new learning environment with their students.
That day, as I have done every Sunday since the beginning of January, I took a walk and listened to the podcast “Innovator’s Mindset” with George Couros. In this podcast, George revisited the “5 Questions You Should Ask Your Staff or Students.” At first, I thought, “George, why now, school is almost over?” Then I had a moment of clarity. We are all in a moment of “First Day Jitters.” COVID 19 has thrust us into a new situation for how we care for and teach our students. Many of us have no idea how we are going to do this remote learning. I will tell you, there is a lot of information out there on all the social platforms, maybe so much you are overwhelmed. (If you are, and you need someone to listen or help you just take the next step, put your email in the comments, and I will reach out to you, listen to you, and if you want it, help you.)
Back to my point. George shared the following in the podcast:
If you want to listen to the podcast or read the related blog post, click here.
It got me thinking. How can these questions apply to the teachers/administrators I was about to train/support in the transition to online learning?
I came up with this modification of George’s original 5 questions. I realized this may be something that may be helpful to other teachers as well.
If anything, I hope it shares the message that before you jump into teaching content, let your students know their voice matters, their dreams and passions are important, and success is still something that is achievable and completely possible in this new online learning environment and you are partnering with them to make that happen. Before anything, relationships, relationships, relationships.
Kudos to those of you that have already met via some online video format with your students to check in with them. To do this is to help demystify the online live Zooming (Video) for both yourselves and the students before you even start to deliver content… and most of all it focuses on our most important job in learning, relationships.
I do not want to put too much more in this post. However, a very good infographic regarding things to keep in mind as both you and your students are learning from an environment that is not the classroom you all are accustomed to was shared with our own organization’s teachers and shortly after shared out on social media.
Most of all seek support from your colleagues, your greater education community, partner with your parents, and most certainly lean into your students. We are #bettertogether and my hope is that in all this we will find a level of solidarity and support educators have never experienced before, which in turn will bless our students and our parents in ways we had no idea would happen.
Please share your thoughts, your need for support/encouragement, questions in the comments below.
The Bulldog Educator 