Learning in the time of Corona: Tips for Teaching English Remotely (Part 2)

Are my students interacting purposefully with others?

After writing Part 1 of this three-post series, I was originally going to write about teaching writing in this ‘rapid-remote’ learning environment before exploring purposeful student interaction in Part 3. In a pivot that reflects how we might approach our work in the coming weeks, I assessed the situation and changed my mind. Interaction is more important now than ever, especially in this ‘learning from a distance’ situation we’re stepping into. It’s the glue that holds groups together and makes the people in them feel connected and ready to learn. It’s a vehicle through which students can develop their thinking.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to focus this post around this single question:

‘Are students interacting purposefully with others?’

By ‘purposeful’, I mean anything that helps students become better readers, writers, thinkers and humans. Also, anything that helps create a space for students to feel safe with a sense of routine and belonging, especially during a time when they might feel the carpet has been ripped out from under them. There are a few things to consider here, which I’ll address under these headings:

Consideration #1— The set-up: Planting the seeds for an interactive remote learning environment
Consideration #2—The support: Encouraging purposeful remote learning interactions

Because there’s so much to say about feedback, this will be addressed in a future post of its own!

Consideration #1 —The ‘Set Up’: Planting the Seeds for an Interactive Learning Environment

Remember to Breathe:

All the interactive lesson plans and tech platforms in the world won’t bring much benefit if we’re stuck in a ‘loop’ of distraction, panic and unrealistic expectations. So give yourself permission to take a breath first. This situation is far from normal, so it’s unreasonable to expect ‘business as usual’ from ourselves or from our students. As a teacher friend from overseas said to me, it’s about focusing on putting “one foot in front of the other” and taking it a week (or even a day!) at a time.

Be clear about your purpose

It’s not about the tech or the task, but about what makes it ‘tick.’ In other words, what are you trying to achieve by engaging students in particular tasks or by using certain tech tools? Purpose matters. Once you’re clear about your purpose, you can use this as a ‘filter’ when it comes to selecting the tasks and tools you’ll use to set up an interactive remote learning environment. Hopefully then it’ll feel less overwhelming when you’re confronted with the barrage of remote learning resources out there (including the ones mentioned on this blog!).

A good place to start is to think about what you already know about your students, how they’re managing this transition and quality teaching and learning. You might consider:

What do my students need most to feel connected and ready to learn?
Above all, what wellbeing and learning goals matter most right now? What will I need to pare back or limit?
What kinds of communication and interaction would I like to see?
What tasks and tools will enable this?

Notice that tasks and tools are considered after wellbeing and student learning here. They are ‘enablers’ within your context, not the dictators of it. As the saying goes, “technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master.”

Establish Communication and Feedback Loops

Setting up a way for students and parents to communicate with you, ask questions and provide feedback about how they’re going is vital if you’re wanting to set up an interactive remote learning environment. This might happen through:

an online platform or learning management system your school is using, like Compass, Sentral, Google Classroom or Microsoft teams, for example.
providing regular ‘office hours’ or blocks of time where you are available for phone calls or video conferencing with students. You can use Google Hangouts, Google Meets, WebEx, Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
if applicable to you and your school, providing real-time video conferences through Google Hangouts, Google Meets, WebEx, Zoom or Microsoft Teams, where you check in and interact with students or you could run some very short lessons or discussions and reviews of learning. Some considerations, though: real-time video lessons use a lot of bandwidth which some students might not have access to, and using them for lessons that convey a lot of content all at once without interactions can be overwhelming. If you’re going to go down this path, make sure it’s purposeful, pared back and involves opportunities for connection and interaction –more on this later.
posting a ‘What’s in Store This Week’ document that houses all the work students will engage in throughout a week onto the online platform you are using to communicate with parents. For students without internet access, you can send hard copies home or take a photo and send to a parent or carer’s phone. That way, you, students and their carers can use it as an ‘anchor document’ to help with planning, establishing routines and adjustments to learning. To see an example of one shared by international teacher Tan Huynh from Empowering ELLs, click here.
to ensure quick communication with parents and carers across language barriers, the Talking Points app can be used to send free SMS messages from a web browser or mobile to families in English, which will then translate into their home language. Parents or carers can respond to the teacher by texting in their home language, and the message will then be translated into English for the teacher to see.

For feedback, you might also consider sending out surveys or feedback invitations through Google Forms, Microsoft Forms or Survey Monkey.

Parent ‘start up survey’: Sending out a parent ‘start up’ survey to collect information prior to setting up remote learning arrangements. For some sample questions, see this survey the amazing Narissa Leung from Oz Lit Teacher has put together
Parent review survey: After a few weeks in, send out a parent feedback survey to review the remote learning approach you have adopted. For an example, see this survey that Narissa Leung from Oz List teacher has created.
Weekly exit slips: Asking for some brief feedback from students on a weekly basis using Google Forms, Microsoft Forms or Survey Monkey could help you make necessary adjustments along the way. You might want to use the frame ‘What went well this week…/Even better if…?. Alternatively, you could ask them to give feedback about the amount and type of work they have been doing and how they’ve been doing it, and what they would like to adjust for the following week (if anything).
Discussion boards: You might set up a discussion board using Padlet, Flipgrid, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams or Edmodo, where students can post questions or comments for the class. You and students can respond to each other’s posts and support each other.

Keep it Human

Relationships and human connection are crucial during the best of times, and now, doubly so! If we want meaningful interaction between students, now is not the time to overload students (or ourselves) with content. Instead, wrapping our heads around our current situation and creating opportunities for genuine connection can create the foundations for an interactive, more engaged remote learning community.

But what does ‘human’ look like when we’re not in the same room? How can we encourage a sense of togetherness when we’re physically apart? Here a few possibilities to think about:

Show your face: Either through live video conferencing or weekly videos, teachers greet students warmly, maintain eye contact with the camera and let students know they are valued. If you are video conferencing, greeting students by name as they enter can create a sense of warmth and feeling valued.

At one school in the US, each teacher filmed themselves giving a quick, one-sentence uplifting message to the students at their school and let them know that they were missed. These messages were later combined into one video. Some Victorian teachers in Wangaratta made a lip-sync video to make students smile –check it out on this page.

Others have posted weekly video announcements to give overviews of previous learning and the upcoming week, or to respond to questions and clarify misconceptions.

Adopt a warm tone: Whether you’re communicating through talk or writing, get your message across with a sense of warmth and support.

Eg: “If you are stuck or need to talk this out, remember we’re here to help. You can post a question on our class discussion board, book in a video conference time or can email me with questions. We’ve got each other’s backs here!”

This sounds a lot more approachable and inviting than: “Post questions on weekly discussion board.”

Shout out: Some schools have created a routine of ‘weekly shout-outs’ that are communicated either through live video conferencing or a PowerPoint slide that is shared with students, like the one below. Click on the image to gain access to an editable version of it.

Check in: You might consider checking in with students individually or in groups via video conferences or phone calls, or using the first 10-15 minutes of class video conferencing time (if applicable) to hold a check-in routine like this one. These check-ins could be wellbeing or learning-focused, or both. Another option is to hold weekly online and telephone office hours where students can sign up and check in with their teacher, or where the teacher checks in with each student over the course of a specific time period.
Provide reconnection time: Providing time for students to just talk and reconnect with each other can restore a sense of community. Some possibilities might include giving students short ‘chat breaks’ in breakout rooms during video conferencing sessions or scheduling ‘virtual recess’ or ‘group chat time’ at points across the week. If you’re not video conferencing, students could write letters to each other or call or text each other.
Approach it with humour and fun: Enjoyable shared experiences and humour can bring remote learning and interaction to life. Some ideas include:
o Memes, funny quotes, or ‘words of wisdom’ either collected from students or selected by the teacher that sum up the ‘mood’ of the week. These can be posted to a Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Padlet or Flipgrid discussion board, or can be sent out as Google or Microsoft Forms. For a chuckle, see an example of one below:

o If you’re video conferencing and it’s your style, you can host themed days (eg: dress up as your favourite character from a book, fancy hat day, ‘bring your pet/stuffed animal to work’ day, etc.)

o An engaging, silly question or a trivia question as a warm up or closure activity–think a ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Where am I?’ question, a TED-Ed riddle or a ‘guess the book title or film title from these emojis’ question.

o ‘Warm and fuzzies’: sharing uplifting songs, speeches, videos, images or quotes with students, like this quote from Brad Montague:

o Collecting a one-line description from each student about what their experiences have been like and collating them into a collaborative class story or poem, like this one

o Embedding learning-related games into learning activities. To explore some examples of interactive game platforms you could use with your students, see this article from Ditch That Textbook called ’14 Ways to Turn your Classroom into a Game Show.’

Lay the groundwork: Norms and expectations for remote learning

Let’s remember what we know about good teaching and learning. When we start off each school year anew, the first thing we do (aside from getting to know our students) is set expectations for how we are going to work together. While we might not be starting with a new class, we are stepping into a whole new world of teaching and learning, so what we do at the start of the year is as relevant now as it was in late January!

Consider what you’d like remote learning to be like for you and your students. What about whole-school values and positive behaviours, weekly routines, video conferencing and work submission requirements? How will you reinforce them? See the remote learning routine and video conferencing norms infographics below for some examples of expectations and norms:

If you’re going to be video conferencing with your class, you might want to engage students in a ‘keeping norms alive’ five-minute protocol at the start of each session, where norms are reviewed and students choose one norm they will focus on for the day and try to embody throughout the session. You can run a five-minute debriefing session at the end where students reflect upon how well the class embodied the norms and set some goals for the next session.

Keep the ‘Teacher-to-Teacher’ Talk Alive

With the loss of our face to face staffroom discussions and over-the-shoulder in-office sharing and support, it’s so important to continue teacher interactions this time. As Helen Keller said, “alone we can do so little, together we can do so much”. In the current climate, this might involve teacher-to-teacher interactions like:

Regular professional learning webinars, smaller group meetings or one-on-one check-ins
Regular staff announcements containing short, professional learning ‘tips’ from different staff members
Encouraging staff to fill out a collaborative document detailing what’s working and what’s not working for them in this remote learning context, like this one from Catlin Tucker’s blog
Staff social club video conferencing sessions or trivia.

Consideration #2—The support: encouraging purposeful remote learning interactions

The current shift to remote teaching and learning involves a rethink of what the interaction between the teacher, students and content might look like in a new environment. Like a new building in its construction phase, a connected remote learning community and the interactions that take place within it need scaffolds and supports to enable them – which range from aspects of learning design to discussion formats and protocols, explored below.

Purposeful learning design:

There’s a lot we already know about good teaching and learning, but there are a few little extras to be mindful of if you’re trying to get students to interact with the each other and their learning in this new context.

First of all, the chemistry of face-to-face teaching is lost when we shift to remote learning. But luckily, there are a few things we can consider to keep students engaged and ready to interact:

Voice: If you are making lesson videos, recording your voice or running video conference lessons, try to keep the teacher talk to a minimum. When you are talking, ensure you sound enthusiastic, vary your tone and speak clearly. No one wants to sound like this teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off!

Visuals: What pictures, diagrams, charts or graphs could you use to break-up or replace text communication with students?
Stories: Humans are story-telling animals. Think about using anecdotes, connections to students’ lives and real-life stories to ‘spice things up’
Manage time: Make sure you built ‘buffer time’ into your planning and try not to cram too much in over the course of a week. Less really is more in this situation, as remote learning tends to take more time and there’s only so much our already stretched brains can take at once.
Schedule breaks in if you are video conferencing or running video lessons in real time: hold regular breaks every 30-40 minutes so you and your students can stretch your legs, go to the toilet, grab a drink or walk around.

Thinking about how to approach the flow of learning so it involves interaction is also important—whether you’re engaging students in learning in real time or not, or whether you are using documents, video, audio or video conferencing. And while we won’t get too hung up on doing too much all at once here, having a basic outline of what this might look like can be helpful, like the example below.

Please note that this is only one possible way of approaching this, not the only way. It is not designed to be read or used as a lock-step formula, but more as a guide for what could be possible. It is designed as a flexible document that can apply to learning over the course of a week or within a real-time session. While some of the examples it uses lend themselves well to recorded videos or video conferences, aspects of it can be adapted for use with hyperlinked or hard copy documents using written modes of communication.

If you’d like more detail on running real-time remote learning lessons, check out this link from Catlin Tucker’s blog.

Engaging Questions and Prompts:

In a remote learning environment, our ability to observe how engaged students are and how they are interacting in real time is limited. But what we do know is that our students’ brains are more likely to connect and stick with content that strikes an emotional chord or stimulates our curiosity. In this environment, we can frame our questions and prompts strategically to spark students’ interest (Goodwin, 2018).

Check out the graphic below to get an overview of some strategies that might help with this:

For more examples of engaging thinking and talking routines that can be used remotely, see this blog post about implementing Harvard Visible Thinking routines in this environment.

Student discussion formats and routines:

You might have heard the saying that ‘whoever is doing the talking is doing the learning.’ In other words, interacting with each other helps us build knowledge and understanding. But what might this look like in a remote learning environment?

In the table below you’ll find some examples of discussion formats and routines that can be used in a remote learning environment, containing both synchronous (in real time) and asynchronous (not in real time) examples. Please note that while there lots of options, don’t feel you need to use every new format or shiny new app. Select carefully with your purpose in mind, noting that you don’t want to overload yourself or your students with too many tools at once. Click on the table to access an editable version of it:

If conversations are running out of steam, as they sometimes do, then give students more thinking and writing time to prepare adequately, or ask them what’s getting in the way of their discussion. You can also show students some ‘talk moves’ they can use to keep conversations going, or how to decide if a discussion topic has had sufficient ‘air time’. See the example below for some sample ‘talk moves’ that were used by student group facilitators in Year 11 classroom:

Finally, if you’re looking for ways you can keep students accountable in online classes, check out this post from the Teach Like a Champion blog.

Some closing thoughts:

Just because we’re making the shift to remote learning doesn’t mean classroom community and interaction are dead. Instead, they’re open to transformation. We can move into these next few weeks one step at a time, knowing that we’ll probably try some new things, some will work and others won’t, and we’ll learn and tweak along the way. And this is perfectly okay!

As Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.”

How might you take steps to create an environment for purposeful interaction with your students?

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this post which will focus on teaching writing remotely!

References:

Goodwin, B. (2018) Student learning that works: How brain science informs a student learning model. Denver, CO: McREL International.

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2010). ‘Leading the Instructional Core: An Interview with Richard Elmore.’ In Conversations, 11: 3.