Remote Learning and the Mastery-Measurement Mindset

South African schools have closed and some have had to extend the holidays. Many schools are considering remote learning options and it was via Twitter that I found Lindsey Wesner and her amazing team at #ZAEdu. She started a WhatsApp group and teachers soon joined until we needed to expand into other more streamlined platforms. There is now a thriving community website (thank you Lindsay Wesner and Leigh Morris!) and a robust Google Drive Resource folder (thanks Nicole dos Santos of Penryn Preparatory!).

I started a collection of the tools and ideas I found most relevant to my classroom and our needs for online teaching at my school and tried to summarise what I have shared with my team in training sessions.

What I found most helpful was the overwhelming support, and that we are all together in this uncertain period of our world's history.

We've got each other's backs and that is a good place to be.

Adjusting your planning is probably most gruelling challenge. You have a curriculum to get through and there are exams looming. What to do?

Everything can be adjusted and picked up when we get back.

CHANGE THE MINDSET FROM ASSESSMENT TO MEASUREMENT FOR MASTERY

You will not be able to assess anything formally in remote teaching settings (unlike online learning which is a totally different ballgame).

Your focus should shift to:

• Getting information to your students

• Getting feedback from them

• Using both of these to measure their understanding and mastery of concepts

But which concepts?

Curriculum Triage Steps:

• Look at what you would have done in the first week of school.

• Take those concepts and half them.

• Look at what you have left and chunk that into 3-5 lesson sets

• Now...start with only one.

Do not inundate students with all the 'cool' resources you have found over the holidays.

STICK TO THE RULE OF 3:

KEEP IN MIND:

• Grade 00-3 will need your school to train parents as extensions of your teaching team.

• Grade 4-9 will cope beautifully with teachers teaching them online asw e are (finally) meeting them where they live!

• Communicate clearly, create forums where every parent in every grade know what is going on and what is expected (and HOW TO DO ALL OF THIS!)

• Do not INTRODUCE new fangled things because "everyone else is using it".

• Use what you know and adapt where needed in a way that makes sense for your school, teachers, students and parents

• Access to internet and non-wifi sites have been made available by service providers keep an eye out for those to help school communities and families who can't access all of this.

• Grade 10 to 12s can do more independent work with less structure. Give them what they need and let them get on with it. They can contact you in scheduled times for specific assistance. Check-in with your older often to gauge progress and arrange Hangout meets/create explainer videos for areas you identify as challenging.

• Let your students and parents reflect on what worked, didn't work and what could work better. USE IT (as they say in rugby!). Let that feedback speak into your planning for the next week.

• Have virtual staff-margarita meetings and just hangout online and discuss your week - reflect together and learn from each other. LAUGH a lot! You'll need it and then regroup for the next week.

FOR YOUR STUDENTS:

Make your online sessions something to look forward to. Keep it fun and creative and remove the stress. Deadlines? Keep them soft and flexible..putty due dates...

Do not stress if everyone is not online on time or if leadshedding cut halfway through a lesson. You can pick up again tomorrow.

Experience flashback:

I was booked off sick for more than a week in 2019, but felt that I could manage my laptop while recovering. I used Google Classroom STREAM to greet my kiddos and chat and explain what my expectation were of that lesson (during timetable session at school). They could then look at a set of 3 resources and use them to complete a scaffolded lesson over the course of the week.

Each day we would 'meet up' online during their scheduled lesson, and they would let me know what they could do, did not understand or why they have not started yet (and especially what else they found out!). These check-ins allowed me to track progress and measure for mastery - nothing more. I knew I would be back soon and could consolidate what we were learning and then assess formally.

Not everyone was done when I got back and it took two more lessons to get everyone done and on the same level. We consolidated and then they completed their formal assessment - and they did not do better or poorer - it was learning as usual. So stick to what you know and to what they know and keep it simple and scaffolded.

This is the process I applied:

FOR YOURSELF:

You will be inundated by information and 'cool' sites and ideas from all over.

Collect them and sort them and engage only with what you need for your situation and then:

DETACH | UNPLUG | DE-SCREEN a bit and let it sink in.

My first PD for staff presentation design was 56 slides long! It went through 2 more distillations and is now...well...triple distilled!

If all goes well and we are blessed this might not even happen...silver lining? You and your team will have a brand new set of skills to play with, develop and use to enhance teaching and learning in your school.

Good luck, and remember - you are not alone!

KICKSTART RESOURCES FOR YOU:

Distance Learning - Learning Biome

Follow #ZAedu on Twitter

Join the Facebook Think Ahead Couch to Class group

Visit the #ZAedu Community Website for loads of resources (add your own and take what you need - just make a copy first and leave the originals in place for us all to enjoy, please).