3 Essentials for Emergency eLearning
Three essentials for emergency extended eLearning are....
...wait for it...
...not technology tools.
Wait, what?! I thought this blog was supposed to focus on technology tools? What is this nonsense!
While technology in extended remote learning is indeed helpful, there is not a silver bullet, a one-size-fits-all tool that will magically create engaging, quality virtual lessons.
So what are essentials for eLearning if the "essentials" are not technology tools? As we embark into extended, emergency eLearning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we must acknowledge the novelty of the situation and the distinct challenges it presents. We find ourselves in the middle of a stressful teaching and learning environment, without similar past experiences to help guide our planning. Teachers, being the amazingly adaptive individuals they are, have adjusted their entire curriculum almost overnight.
To support teachers, well-intentioned technology companies around the world have begun offering free access to popular tools. Technology tools can certainly help provide flexible learning options and make tasks easier. However, using all of these new tech tools without proactive planning and principle will not create ideal learning environments. To best support our learners during emergency extended eLearning, we must not fall victim to the "cool" factor of new technology tools, but instead focus on intentional, instructional design. These instructional strategies, not tools themselves, will be what is essential for the unfamiliar path ahead.
To support teachers, well-intentioned technology companies around the world have begun offering free access to popular tools. Technology tools can certainly help provide flexible learning options and make tasks easier. However, using all of these new tech tools without proactive planning and principle will not create ideal learning environments. To best support our learners during emergency extended eLearning, we must not fall victim to the "cool" factor of new technology tools, but instead focus on intentional, instructional design. These instructional strategies, not tools themselves, will be what is essential for the unfamiliar path ahead.
1. Choice
Providing choices and options is essential for supporting diverse learner needs and interests. Additionally, providing learners options is critical for addressing connectivity and technology variabilities. Options can help remove significant learning barriers and provide all learners opportunities for success.
- Accessibility
- From an accessibility standpoint, providing students with options in how to engage, learn, and showcase their learning better ensures ALL students have opportunities for success. A student who may struggle with written text may have a difficult time if all lesson components, including instructions, are in written format. Providing options of text and video, or text and audio, can support learner variability. The act of delivering learners with choices can make a big difference between marginalizing learners, or creating an inclusive space where all learners have opportunities to participate.
- From an accessibility standpoint, providing students with options in how to engage, learn, and showcase their learning better ensures ALL students have opportunities for success. A student who may struggle with written text may have a difficult time if all lesson components, including instructions, are in written format. Providing options of text and video, or text and audio, can support learner variability. The act of delivering learners with choices can make a big difference between marginalizing learners, or creating an inclusive space where all learners have opportunities to participate.
- Equity
- Incorporating options into lessons also helps remove learning barriers by providing more equitable means to participate in lessons, despite varying internet speeds and technologies. Activities that require vast amounts of data and bandwidth can be problematic for students without access to high-speed internet. Providing no tech, low tech, and high tech activities can effectively address existing technology variabilities. As an example, in a secondary science class, students could choose between the following low tech, high tech, and no tech options to showcase knowledge of cell parts: create a diagram, create a video, or build a model with objects around the house. While challenges to connectivity will undoubtedly continue to exist, providing options is a step towards bridging the equity gap.
- Incorporating options into lessons also helps remove learning barriers by providing more equitable means to participate in lessons, despite varying internet speeds and technologies. Activities that require vast amounts of data and bandwidth can be problematic for students without access to high-speed internet. Providing no tech, low tech, and high tech activities can effectively address existing technology variabilities. As an example, in a secondary science class, students could choose between the following low tech, high tech, and no tech options to showcase knowledge of cell parts: create a diagram, create a video, or build a model with objects around the house. While challenges to connectivity will undoubtedly continue to exist, providing options is a step towards bridging the equity gap.
- Engagement
- The power of options is not an earth-shattering, novel concept. Businesses provide consumers options in products as a way to boost engagement and encourage ongoing consumption. For example, since Starbucks opened in 1971 in Seattle, its menu has evolved and now boasts 87,000 options to engage and quench the diverse sipping desires of its customers. While it would be impractical and impossible to incorporate 87,000 options into online learning activities, providing learners with options is a powerful means to boost engagement in learning. Numerous studies have shown providing students choice in learning "enhanced intrinsic motivation, effort, task performance, and perceived competence" (Wolpert-Gawron, 2018). Options are at the heart of engagement in UDL: "students are markedly different in the ways which they can be motivated or engaged in learning, as what may engage one student, may disengage another." Thus, providing multiple options for engagement is essential because, in reality, there is not one means of engagement that will be optimal for all learners in all contexts. Providing a few quality options to students, in terms of resources and activities, can help students have a "Starbucks-Esque" learning experience in which they are eager to jump in, select from relevant choices, and craft their own specialty learning product.
- The power of options is not an earth-shattering, novel concept. Businesses provide consumers options in products as a way to boost engagement and encourage ongoing consumption. For example, since Starbucks opened in 1971 in Seattle, its menu has evolved and now boasts 87,000 options to engage and quench the diverse sipping desires of its customers. While it would be impractical and impossible to incorporate 87,000 options into online learning activities, providing learners with options is a powerful means to boost engagement in learning. Numerous studies have shown providing students choice in learning "enhanced intrinsic motivation, effort, task performance, and perceived competence" (Wolpert-Gawron, 2018). Options are at the heart of engagement in UDL: "students are markedly different in the ways which they can be motivated or engaged in learning, as what may engage one student, may disengage another." Thus, providing multiple options for engagement is essential because, in reality, there is not one means of engagement that will be optimal for all learners in all contexts. Providing a few quality options to students, in terms of resources and activities, can help students have a "Starbucks-Esque" learning experience in which they are eager to jump in, select from relevant choices, and craft their own specialty learning product.
2. Communication
School is a social environment. As students find themselves at home, isolated from their typical social settings, there has never been a more critical time to make sure students (and staff) have opportunities to interact with one another. Communication between teachers and other staff members is essential for providing support to one another, staying positive, and for sharing ideas as we all learn through this pandemic. Opportunities for interaction are also vital in sustaining student motivation and positivity as well. You may have already noticed what students miss most are the human connections from your classes. While content certainly matters, what matters even more during this time is creating opportunities for students to have personalized, social interactions with their teacher and each other. There are many mediums for communication in online learning-you may have already leveraged a few, even during a traditional learning environment. Explore which modalities work best for your students and yourself. Students will notice your investment.
3. Compassion
In a recent excerpt, author and motivational speaker A.J. Juliani mentioned, "this is not online or distance learning, this is emergency remote learning." Teaching during a pandemic is foreign to all of us, as is learning during a pandemic. No one has done this before. We may have experience with eLearning, virtual learning, and remote teaching. However, our current situation is laden with many more stressors, anxiety, and fears than a typical eLearning day. We do not have "an instructional manual or guidebook," as Juliani puts it, to guide us through our current situation. Yes, we can learn new tools, apply new strategies, and adjust our teaching (as so many educators have already done).
However, an essential element as we navigate through our current emergency is to extend forgiveness to one another as we experiment, learn, adapt, iterate, and re-adapt to the best of our abilities.
We must show grace to our students as they begin learning online for an extended amount of time, while facing insecurities, anxieties, and possible medical concerns at home.
We must show grace to teachers as they work long hours transforming lessons, reaching out to families, and striving to make sure learners are supported.
We must also extend grace to our administrators who are doing their best to lead all of us forward without any guideposts to help show the way.
We must extend forgiveness to the families of our students, who may also be struggling with medical concerns, work hours, lack of work, homeschooling, and making ends meet.
However, an essential element as we navigate through our current emergency is to extend forgiveness to one another as we experiment, learn, adapt, iterate, and re-adapt to the best of our abilities.
We must show grace to our students as they begin learning online for an extended amount of time, while facing insecurities, anxieties, and possible medical concerns at home.
We must show grace to teachers as they work long hours transforming lessons, reaching out to families, and striving to make sure learners are supported.
We must also extend grace to our administrators who are doing their best to lead all of us forward without any guideposts to help show the way.
We must extend forgiveness to the families of our students, who may also be struggling with medical concerns, work hours, lack of work, homeschooling, and making ends meet.
During difficult times, a little compassion for one another can go a long way. When we look back on these experiences years down the road, we probably won't remember specific lessons, tools, or events. What we will remember is the kindness we had for one another, and how this kindness was our guiding light through the darkness.
2. Heather Wolpert-Gawron, "Why Choice Matters to Student Learning", MindShift (blog), November 18, 2018, accessed April 2, 2020.
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/52424/why-choice-matters-to-student-learning
3. CAST, "UDL: Engagement", The UDL Guidelines (website), 2020, accessed April 2, 2020https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/52424/why-choice-matters-to-student-learning
http://udlguidelines.cast.org/engagement
Heart Image Courtesy Nick Fewings
Light Image Courtesy Callum Shaw
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