Schools’ Re-entry/Reopening Plans: What We Didn’t Learn Since March
Feeling compelled to open schools in September, districts are shortcutting once again on what was missing in remote teaching before the summer break — The Pedagogy of Online Teaching
Since March, schools in the United States have been constantly adjusting and realigning their practices to the new ways of teaching and learning. To no one’s fault, it was almost impossible to be one hundred percent effective when schools turned on their online switch in a haste. Because of the complexity of the public school systems in the United States and around the world, where no one shoe fits all, the products of Re-Entry/Reopening deliberations in school districts were bound to be numerous. Yet, most of them center around the three obvious scheduling choices: Fully Online, Fully On-Campus, and Hybrid scheduling models.
Whichever model do individual schools end up choosing, it’s time to take an inventory of the pedagogical training schools have provided to their teachers and administrators for virtual instruction. The learning inventory feedback from March through June of the 19–20 school year has not been highly impressive. Most parents and students did not find online learning anywhere near the learning impact of in-person teaching. This feedback is quite in contrast to the comparative model studies, like the one below in which online learning was found equal or better by more than 70% of students and teachers. Of course, there is a difference of demographics here and it’s not a like for like comparison. The subjects of these studies predominantly are adults of college age, while we are trying to replicate these results for school age children.
A similar study published in the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning also did not find any significant difference between online and on-campus learning. A major comparative study published by the U.S. Department of Education also supports these observations.
The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.
The K-12 variable in these studies is still important which needs further exploring, but the Instructional technology of student engagement has also evolved exponentially over the last few years and months to a point where the gap between online and on-campus teaching and learning impact has greatly diminished. This observation is besides the socializing gains of on-campus learning. Yet, if online instruction becomes unavoidable, it must not devolve into staring contests into computer monitors.
In situations where online instruction is partly or wholly inescapable, schools must not drop the ball on the teacher training needs for pedagogical understanding of effective online teaching and learning. Understanding the basics of Google Classroom, Canvas, Blackboard is all well and good, but it’s what goes on these learning platforms that matters. It’s what works for each learning style online that matters. It’s knowing how to match the needs of learning objectives with the strategies of teaching online that matters. And this is where most schools are lagging behind. This lag could very well be for financial constraints with public schools, meaning how to pay teachers’ time for such training during their summer break. It could also be due to the scheduling challenges during this Covid summer when on-campus trainings cannot be offered. Yet, schools must arrange for remote online professional development on the pedagogy of online teaching BEFORE the start of next school year, either in-house or through third-party professional development providers, or else we will face the wrath of disgruntled parents and students who will start raising their voices against the futility of online classes.
Note: This article is part of a series of collections that makes the case for Dr. H. M. Saleem’s LIVE Interactive Online Workshop series: The Best Practices and Pedagogy Of Effective Online Teaching and Learning. To know more about this workshop series and to register for the upcoming schedule, please visit www.keynote180.com.
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