Our distance learning plan is based around four key aims – health/wellbeing, routine, community, and ensuring learning needs are met. The plan was designed around the experiences of international schools that have been in lockdown for several months and educational research into effective distance learning. Two key themes emerged: we should not try to replicate a school timetable at home and live video is not needed for every distance learning experience (if you have ever watched YoutTube for 50 minutes you will know what I mean). We developed a plan that is flexible enough to cope when there are multiple people in one house and not everyone can access the internet at the same time, that is sustainable when the Covid19 virus peaks and there are large numbers of sick people, and provides a sense of calmness amongst what is currently a frenetic pace for everyone.
“Tom Alegounarias, the former chairman of the NSW Education Standards Authority, said it was not only impossible, but also counterproductive to try to replicate the institutionalised structure of school at home. “It isn’t appropriate to be structured in concentrated and engaged learnieng all day [at home],” he said. “That isn’t actually what happens at school. Kids don’t remain in this focused state for long periods.“”
There is a big difference btween effective face-to-face pedagogy and effective distance learning pedagogy. Face to face pedagogy is mostly about synchronous learning, distance learning is mostly about asynchronous learning, neatly shown in the image below from this post.
We are not just moving to distance learning, we are doing it during a global pandemic. Our teachers have pivoted 180 degrees in a spectacularly swift time frame. This has been challenging and we are currently proceeding through trial and error, in a very uncertain environment. I participated in a webinar with the Association of Independent Schools NSW last week and three key themes emerged: every school is in the middle of a steep learning curve, we have to confront online fatigue, and we are rethinking how to engage students and have empathy for their experience.
Our teachers have approached this with a mix of reactions. Some are finding it fun or a new challenge. Most are quite overwhelmed, have never worked so hard, and are totally reworking everything they do. It has been a large adjustment for our students as well and they have, by and large, been brilliant. They have had to quickly demonstrate more independence, resilience, self-regulation, problem-solving, and collaboration. My key message at the moment is that we can afford to think less about covering curriculum content and high stakes tests, and take this as an incredible opportunity to focus more on the development of these crucial soft skills.
As this Sydney Morning Herald article indicates student disengagement and teacher burnout are significant risks as we look to the coming months.
The photo above is on my office door. It is of Italian children in 1959 using a pulley to cross a river to get to school. It helps remind me that this is not the first time kids have coped with hardship. On a broader scale, this is not the first time humanity has faced a crisis like this. There are plenty of historical precedents to this pandemic. We are currently in our Word War Two moment and engaging in wartime redeployment.
What will young people remember about their time in Covid19? It won’t be a laundry list of facts from school subjects. What will endure are the dispositions and habits of character that we are able to nurture, the foundations of intellectual character that a good education is based on – independence, resilience, self-regulation, problem-solving, and collaboration. The enculturation of these dispositions will define how successfully educators cope with Covid19.