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This is one of seven chapters on online learning that together make up Episode 40 of the Education Research Reading room. Read/hear an introduction, and see an overview of all seven chapters here.

Courtney Ostaff has been teaching online for two decades, most recently for the Well-Trained Mind Academy in the United States. With a master's in secondary education and licensing in math, science, and social studies in grades 5-12, as well as in visual impairments from birth to adult, she has experience in providing in-home services from Birth to Three, as a public school teacher, and as a homeschooling parent. Using her personal lens to inform her professional work, Courtney teaches mathematics, science, and social studies to middle and high school students all over the world.

In this chapter Courtney speaks primarily about mathematics teaching, but she also has some fantastic advice about catering to students with diverse needs and effective ways to support students to collaborate online.

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Links/resources mentioned in the show

Nuggets of wisdom
  • The most important thing! A week by week setup that clearly lists what students are to do by day and by week. Place assignment files, links to outside resources, links to key areas inside the learning system, your slides from the live lectures, places to upload homework, etc all in one place. Set it up as a checklist that parents can print off and post on the refrigerator, and as a day-by-day calendar so they aren’t overwhelmed. 
  • When supporting students to collaborate and respond to each other, they need to do two different things. 1. Be clear enough that you can see what they’re responding to. 2. Contribute something new. See syllabus document ‘Meaningful contribution’
  • Example lesson link: www.wtmacademy.com  https://youtu.be/96i8CBnzLQs ← Can see a sample lesson from Courtney here
  • Don’t grade everything yourself. Autograde when possible, use auto-summing rubrics. One or two quality summative assessments per week is plenty. It can take much longer to grade online.
My favourite tools (and a brief description)

PS! Resources I forgot to mention during our interview:

  • CK-12 (high quality secondary math and science–web-based texts and downloadable texts and workbooks, all free)
  • Gutenberg.org and Archive.org (free books, downloadable or web-based, many available direct to screen readers for the visually impaired)
  • LibriVox (free audiobooks for all ages)
  • Bookshare.org for learners with print disabilities (free to US students, sliding annual fees worldwide)
  • Books for professional development: John Catt Educational Publishers 
To find out more

Listen to all past episodes of the ERRR podcast here.

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