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Yesterday we had our first classes back after (the first phase of?) coronavirus lockdown. In Melbourne this lockdown phase resulted in six weeks of online learning.
There were many barriers that students faced to online learning during this time, and whilst achievement gaps increased due to socioeconomic disparities between students, there was another factor that emerged as even more important to student's online learning success: Self-regulation.
A front-running contender for my key takeaway from this online teaching experience is encapsulated by a line from George Zonnios on the ERRR podcast, ‘What happens when we stop pushing?‘ Well, the recent lockdown brought the answer to this question clearly into view. The answer for many students was, ‘Not much at all.'
Against this backdrop, going back to school presents two key challenges for teachers (amongst others). These are: 1. Where do I teach from, given that half of my class now knows 6 weeks more content than the other half, and, 2. How do I try to talk to those students who totally dropped off the map? What can I possibly do to try to catch them up, help them learn a lesson from this experience, and help them to be better prepared for a likely second shutdown? This post focusses on the second of these two challenges.
As I thought forward to my first class back with students, the first image that came to mind was me standing up the front, giving the class a stern talking to about responsibility, the impending examinations, and how they've let themselves down. The problem is, I knew in my heart of hearts that this would generate very little sustainable change.
As such, I took some time to sit down and think about what I was trying to achieve, how I could acknowledge the great work of students who did do a good job over the break, and how I could help those who are now six weeks behind to, 1. not be completely overwhelmed with the work ahead, and not feel too ashmed about themselves, and, 2. develop some practical strategies to cope with the workload that lies ahead, or even another lockdown in future.
I came up with a process that included three phases: notice, reflect, plan
Notice
I had the sense (and the evidence) that some students had just totally unplugged, they had not read the messages I'd sent out, and really had no idea about just how much they had missed. In order to raise their attention to their true level of engagement. I created a table of all of the tasks that had been due over the break, and got them to rate themselves from 0 to 5 on each of those tasks. Here are the responses of a two different students.
Student 1:
Student 2:
This really brought home to students exactly how much work they'd done. It helped those who checked out to see how much they'd missed, and it helped those who'd done well to look back and feel proud at what they'd achieved.
Reflect
The idea of the reflect stage was to give students an opportunity to consider how their achievement made them feel, and also to think about what lead to, or inhibited, their success regarding their online learning. Here are a few student responses in relation to that first goal.
- In response to the question: Looking at this self-reflection mark, how do you feel about how you applied yourself during online learning?
- ‘Base on the self-reflection mark, I think I did very well on homework and edrolo video lesson.'
- ‘I feel ashamed and terrible'
- ‘Not Good : |'
- In response to the question: If you are proud of your online learning efforts, what did you do that enabled you to achieve a high level of learning?
- ‘I try to finished home work and some more example to improve my achieve'
- In response to the question: If you are not proud of your online learning efforts, what do you think is the main reason for your low amount of work?
- ‘Not setting timetable, didn't use time effectively, getting disturbed by siblings, Lol : (‘
- ‘Given myself a break and let myself out since I didn't leave my 100m/house for 2 months (at all) and looked after myself better‘
Looking forward
In terms of supporting students to look forward and try to think about how they want to do as well, or better in future, I provided them with the following checklist of options.
Now, clearly some of these options aren't quite as straight forward as they seem. Irrespective of students' choices here, there comes a point at which parents must be contacted, and a teacher isn't allowed to just let a student fail. But the goal of this sheet was to act as a starting point for conversations between me and each student about what they really want, and how they want me to help them to get there. If I have this sheet next time a student fails to hand in homework, I can use it as a prompt to inform that discussion. This positions me as someone who is in their corner, rooting for them and willing to ask ‘how can I help' when they're obviously struggling, the same question I'd ask a friend or colleague who is finding it hard to keep on top of things.
Having ‘that talk'
One quick practical note: I made time to have ‘that talk' with each student by setting a task that they could each get on with independently after they'd finished this reflection. I used Desmos to do this, but other tasks could serve just as well. Desmos was particularly good because I could watch the teacher overview screen and see when students logged in, which told me that they'd completed the reflection, after which I could go and have a quick-check in with them. I think that going into whole class teaching wouldn't work as well following this reflection, because it would reduce the time you have to catch up with each student for a quick one on one chat.
First to the positive. It was wonderful to be able to congratulate those who had done really well. There were many students who put in an enormous effort, organised themselves really well, and deserved to be recognised for doing it. I had a quiet word with each and commended them for their organisational skills and hard work.
For the student who said that she felt ‘ashamed', and a few others who struggled in a similar way, I was able to schedule a time to catch up with after class to discuss how they were doing. I ended up printing out a calendar for them (which they didn't have) and helping them to write into it the homework tasks that they'd already been given, and then to also set an alarm. We also talked about some habit building strategies, and I emphasised chaining (attaching homework habits to other things that they regularly do), contextual cues, and small steps (see Harry Fletcher-Woods writing on habits too).
There was only one student who chose, ‘Leave me alone, if I fail, I fail…' In truth, I wrote this option for him, because I knew he'd choose it! In fact, I explicitly told him, ‘Haha, I knew you'd pick that one. I actually wrote that option for you', which caused a wry smile to spread across his face. This provided a space for us to talk about the fact that the two of us aren't the only people who have a say in the scenario, there are his parents too, as well as the school's goals. He acknowledged this too, he gets it. I was real with him and he appreciated it. This is what I meant above when I wrote of being in the student's corner. We were able to have an honest discussion about the various pressures that each of us is under and how we can work together to effectively navigate the intrinsic and extrinsic pushes and pulls that teachers and a students within a school community.
Did it work? It's impossible to say whether the outcomes of this discussion will be long lasting. But for me, the crucial question was how I could quickly and effectively get students to reflect on how they had applied themselves during online learning, and to use that reflection as a springboard for some concrete planning about how we can work together to help them to do better in future. Given these success criteria, I was happy with how the exercise went.
Give it a go, I'd love to know your thoughts : )
You can download the reflection sheet that I used in an editable microsoft word here. Subscribe here to receive a weekly email containing all new posts and podcasts from ollielovell.com (max 1 email per week, unsubscribe any time).
Enjoyed this post? Make sure you also check out the Education Research Reading Room podcast, to listen to CPD on the go: A walk, the drive to school, cooking dinner, etc. The ERRR podcast is chock full of in-depth and practical interviews with world leaders on education and covering topics such as assessment, explicit instruction, inquiry based learning, reading instruction, mathematics, motivation, and more!