When we began teaching online in lockdown, it was an emergency. We were crisis response teaching. We were forced to deliver lessons, quickly online. There was a raft of pdfs printed and sent home as well as links to good websites shared and teachers began synchronously delivering content. There was a focus on getting content out there, quickly, and rightly so. Students needed some normality to continue. Those safe adults that had taught them in their physical school were still showing up for them and were still there for them teaching online.
We have moved on now. Now we have collapsed bubbles. Socially distance classrooms. Hybrid classrooms with half in half out. We have blended learning, flipped learning all going on. This time though it is intentional. This is the new education. This isn't a crisis response this is our approach to planning in these new long term circumstances. We can all see that classrooms of 30 may not return for some time unless massive physical redevelopment of institutions happen because space is tight. The challenge now is to reflect on our pedagogical approaches and seek ways to develop and include those in our classroom be it physical, online or hybrid.
Taking this article from TES
What is pedagogy?
By Tes Editorial on 10 December 2018 accessed 24th October 2020 I wanted to explore how this may look now in our new way of teaching. I have purposefully chosen an article that isn't recent. This is two years old since writing and the concepts discussed are much older. I chose this because I think a lot of the same rules apply when teaching online.
Behaviourism
Lecturing is easily replicated online. We can screenshare our presentation. We can orate our lectures. Learners can listen. Modelling is also easily replicated. We can use a blank slide in our slide presentation to model answers, we can insert images and annotate too. For those craving a whiteboard and pen we can easily do this too with IPEVO software or Flipgrid and mirror the screen when writing on a mini whiteboard at home. (one of the best tutorials on this is here by Daren White) By using a mirror you can film using you laptop or chromebook camera the keyboard of your device. Then pop a mini whiteboard, or laminated card or paper to cover over the keyboard and model away. The IPEVO or Flipgrid software will flip your mirrored writing to appear the correct way round for the learners watching online.
Constructivism
When teaching online we can slow the pace down for our learners. We can scaffold with a separate resource. We can share in the chat box of our online video call, additional text or ask learners how they are managing. If we wanted to anonymise student responses we may want to use a poll system like Slido, Peardeck, Mentimeter, Wooclap or the inbuilt tools in the video conferencing software we are using. We can take pulse checks of our teaching and reflect and adapt where we go next based on student feedback.
Social Constructivism
Group work can be replicated via tasks set and assigned to groups of students in our LMS. We can assign to different students different work via Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams or whatever LMS we have. We can create slide decks of presentations with tasks outlined asking for group or pair collaboration on the same deck. We can use version history or track changes to see who contributed to the discussion. We therefore have a record of that group discussion that previously in a physical classroom we wouldn't have had. We now know if there are passengers in the group or pair work task and can support. We know now if there are dominant team players and we can support them too. This group or pair work doesn't have to happen synchronously. We can set a slide deck and ask learners to contribute when they are doing their task, this works for asynchronous and synchronous learning. In Google slides a simple FILE>Version History we can see the changes in the slide deck over time and assess learners group or pair work and participation with more of an insight than we may have had in a physical classroom.
Using our video conferencing software we can either use breakout rooms for group or pair work or we can create meetings just for the groups or pairs to attend. We could schedule 3 meetings at the same time, and assign the code to the meeting to each of the groups or pairs if we wanted then to work synchronously. We as the meeting owner can visit each of these rooms to check progress. We can schedule small groups across the week where we as teachers deliver small group instruction via video call.
Liberatonianism
Student choice can be created via hyperdocs. We can create an choice of topics or activities for learners, links to exciting resources all curated into one hyperdoc. We can use visual stimulus to inspire learners in our hyperdocs and insert images. It's then INSERT>Link to link to the online resource we have chosen.
Students can show what they know by presenting on a video call with you or their peers. This can easily be recorded either via the software of the video call or a screen recorder like Hippo Video, IPEVO, Screencastify, Loom, Screencastomatic or many others. Students could record a video themselves using these tools and post it back to teachers. Students could create infographics to show what they know in Canva, Venngage or even Google Drawings. Students could curate their own resources to answer or support their answer to a question and display these in a Wakelet, Lino, Padlet or their own hyperdoc slide deck.
Students can show what they have learnt or answer questions via Flipgrid. They can orate their thought process. They may have more time to do this. They may feel less pressure than in a physical classroom when doing this. You may gain more of an insight into your learners via their content in using this media. They could show their answers via dance, via song, their creativity can really shine through.
I've included this part as a reminder of when I was taught to be a teacher. I was taught via lecture face to face. I was taught the pedagogy. I was then told to go into the classroom and develop my own approach. Over the years my approach has evolved from those early days in the classroom. Group work has increased in my focus, teacher talk has reduced. This is through my reflections on my teaching. My growth and development as a teacher. That doesn't change now that I teach online. I am reflecting on my pedagogical approach in the physical classroom. As I reflect, I see that many strategies I physically did in the classroom can be replicated online. Yet I am excited and enthused at the new opportunities of teaching online and the new pedagocial approaches I can develop. I hope this blog has helped you feel the same. SJ
