Start SMART: Student Centered Considerations for Return-to-Learning with Intention & Empathy

It’s back-to-school time, sort of. We are on the eve of returning to learning, whether we are in person, remote, or in a hybrid model. The playing field has been leveled among recent and veteran educators who are all learning to build and fly their planes- underwater!  This blog post is optimistic and hopeful to remind us how and why we do what we do, regardless of space, pace or face-to-face. 

Disclaimer 1 

This Is a no-judgement zone. Whether or not you think it’s smart to be together, apart, or somewhere in between, these suggestions and strategies are meant to support whichever model your deciders have decided for you. That leads us to our first item, which has a disclaimer of its own.

 

Stay Student-Centered

This post and SMART model is built upon a Student-Centered foundation and pedagogical/philosophical cornerstone. Disclaimer 2: It has become easy to become self-centered during this pandemic, and I don’t mean that negatively, because we can’t help our students if we aren’t in a position to offer help to begin with. It’s the “place the mask on yourself before your children” philosophy that makes sense in order to make sure we are safe and healthy enough to help those around us. Being student-centered is about intentional, constructive, and optimistic practices that always start and end with student-learning and emotional well-being. 

Whether remote, hybrid, or face-to-face, the following elements set the stage for effective teaching and meaningful learning. Support is more critical than ever. Meeting the needs of all learners (and educators) by identifying and addressing needs only gets harder as the landscape changes, and district administrators should focus pd toward improving what we have and where we are before determining where we are going. 

Service is what we are all in this business for, but with challenging times comes a reminder that service should extend beyond students to support our selves as well as our staff and school. 

Finally, Safety sits atop the model as a priority that all other elements need to point to in order to maintain both physical social-emotional well being of us all. 

Keep Creating Moments

Any regular reader of this blog will definite my oldest and favorite graphic designed to illustrate the magic of moments. Whether we are together physically or virtually, it’s always about the student experience. We can design lessons that are meaningful, memorable or measurable, but when these three components intersect, we find the sweet spot of our business. It may be harder than ever to conceive how to create these moments, but they are the moments that we remember from our own education, the energy we wish we could bottle, and the activities we wish wouldn’t end when the “bell rings.”

Disclaimer 3: I'm plagiarizing my own previous blog post for the next 2 sections, because it's all about supporting remote learners, not just remote learning.

Give Straight A's in Class

How can we be separated in classrooms without feeling just as remote as if we were separated by screens?  These considerations look at reimagining the space and pace of in-person learning. We need to Address individual needs and issues of equity so that all student have access and opportunity to learn.  Teachers, schools and districts need to Adapt instructional space and pace to respond to limitations as well as capitalize on opportunities that smaller cohorts may provide. It will be a critical and fluid exercise to Adjust practice and expectations based on a magic blend of content, the delivery mechanism, wifi availability, learning objectives, and district demands. Finally, teachers and teams should constantly and Assess student learning, their own learning and the continued impact of continually changing circumstances. 

Support Remote Learners AND Remote Learning

React- We have been doing this to the best of our ability as the environment, the needs, and the expectations change, but when we are back with kids, reaction also means capturing and meeting their broad mix of energy, enthusiasm, and anxiety.

Respond- We must build on reaction to establish response.  This is where districts need to continuously plan, establish goals, and adjust with as much information and consideration for all parties as possible.

Restore- We will be living in the wake of COVID for a very long time, and when we return, the work of restoring culture and focus will take a highly concerted effort and plan as well.  Even in a hybrid return, all models point to teaching practices that are distant and isolating.  Are separated cohorts, desks, students, and teachers any less remote?  

Reflect-  We are bad at this in normal times, but reflection, self-assessment, and critical evaluation of our experience is always essential for growth and progress, and we shouldn't wait for the dust to settle! These steps of reacting/responding/restoring/reflecting should be ongoing by everyone involved.

Lean on Coaches and Model Learning

Even though every educator I know is overwhelmed by the landscape we find ourselves in, now is the time to lean on your supports.  Whether it's your room neighbor, admin or friendly neighborhood digital learning coach, I designed this cycle to model dialogue, sample lessons, or the integration of new tools to support familiar teaching.  It's intended to create the time and space to identify an idea, craft it into a learning experience for students with goals and objectives, accessible via innovative edtech, and an evaluative component to assess students learning and how well it met it's objective.  In looking at this cycle-model, the first 2 steps (time and talk) and last 2 (think and tweak) are the parts we too-often skip, or get shaved off, but are included to build intention before and reflection after, all in the service of impacting learning for all students. 

Now and going forward, let's get SMART and support ourselves, each other, and our students!

Back to School? Prepare to Pivot

At the time of writing this blog post, there is no decision on exactly how we will go “back to school” in just over a month or less (or more).  Most educators and administrators consider it inevitable that we need to shift between hybrid or remote models.  Whichever model it takes, let's shift the conversation from thinking and planning for back to school toward back to learning. Whether buildings are open, partially utilized, or locked up tight, school will be open and we need to be preparing and restructuring our virtual instructional environments as buildings prepare to adapt the physical learning spaces. 

In mid-March we had just abruptly left school, not knowing if and when we’d return, and I wrote in my blog, “It’s time to think differently about the way things have always been done.”  That holds true more than ever as we plan for any return, and we can't adopt a mindset of eventually returning to normal. Since we left school, the amount of unknowns has only overshadowed the amount of knowns when it comes to a return to learning and doing what we do. 

The worst thing we can do is to think about getting “back to normal.”  What puts us on edge is that whatever version of teaching and learning that is prescribed or designed yields an endless list of unanswerable questions. 

Many planning/advisory groups struggle with selecting a starting point to reimagine the unimaginable task of eventually returning students to our buildings. The issue comes when these committees can’t get past the logistics of in-person instruction to examine what the actual learning can look like. The essential health and safety questions, issues, and obstacles that are identified only push the equally critical questions of reimagining teaching and learning further down the road. This Edweek article does a great job speaking to that specific split, especially its impact on those at greater academic risk. 

Every return-to-learning option has significant limitations and concerns. Every concerned parent or educator can punch reasonable holes in any model, but neither option necessarily solves the issues of the other. I don't know what's right, but I do believe that the cost of keeping kids out of school isn’t repaid by returning too soon.

🎸You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do what's right, but maybe being a rock star helps!  If you haven't seen Dave Grohl's article in the Atlantic, the Foo Fighters/Nirvana artist tells it like it is.

Reinvent the Wheel...

Do we need to reinvent the wheel?  No, thank you! To roll with the metaphor (ha), this past spring saw our educational community pull out the spare, keep us on the road, and transport learners safely, but we all know better than to drive too far on the donut!  We weren’t deploying a designed and prepared remote-learning in the spring. We were responding to the need of a crisis and employing the best practices possible without time or training, all in service of a continuity of learning, but that wasn't (asnd shouldn't be) a sustained model.

What's needed is a complete realignment. Among the many unknowns, this much is known for sure: A broad-scale growth mindset will be required from every stakeholder in order to exercise the flexibility, risk-taking, and collaborative effort it will take to live and work ell beyond our comfort zones.  

 

Let's Face Some Hard Truths  

• We know nothing can replace in-person learning, but it may just not be the safe or right things to do. 

• There is no perfect option, but our responsibility to children is to meet the needs and limitations of whatever is selected.

• We may not be together but virtual meetings can still bring us face-to-face, and the effective use of tools like Google Classroom, Seesaw, screencasts or daily slides serve to bring classes and learners "together."

• Our service is to students- their health, safety, growth, and development. We need to listen to our gut when it tells us that coming together puts any of these elements at risk.

• The first and last months of the school year get gross in a normal year! Non-AC buildings are full or classrooms loaded with stagnant air, damp papers, sweaty desks, to begin with and that’s not even approaching flu season.

• Good teaching is good teaching, and lame lessons are still lame lessons- even if they use tech (a digital worksheet is still a worksheet!)

• Learners need synchronous and asynchronous opportunities to learn whether they are face-to-face or remote.

• Like it or not, school is free childcare for much of our nation.

• In-person arrival/dismissal, hallways, bathrooms, and recess will be big problems

• Some kids love and thrive outside the confines and inhibitions of a classroom environment, while others virtually vanish.

• Engagement and classroom management is every bit as challenging in a virtual space.

• The elements and requirements of a hybrid design are a significant step back from the innovative, inclusive, and cooperative model of learning that we all know is nest for kids.

Let's also balance and address the unintended consequences of this experience as they arise, but let's also leverage the unexpected benefits that also arise. We have all redefined and redesigned our own professional development.  Whether or not they wanted it (or thought they needed it), I'd wager that school staff and faculty have added more to their toolkit in the past 6 months than the past 6 years!

The educational world strives to provide students the "least restrictive environment but sometimes the environment is the restriction.  This Boston Globe article provides guidance from Harvard about reopening concerns. Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said in a statement, "School districts have neither the resources nor the know-how to get their buildings ready to open safely."  While this is a broad generalization, I don't it's unfair to say that district resources lack the resources to do this as well as any of us would wish for. 

Whether remote or hybrid, the thoughtful and intentional use of digital learning tools can provide opportunity for more student-centered instruction.  Learning can return, and school can continue, but how?  A key factor will be the communication and collaboration of wide spread of stakeholders (including parents) in the service of addressing the following steps:

React: We have been doing this to the best of our ability as the environment, the needs, and the expectations change, but when we are back with kids, reaction also means capturing and meeting their broad mix of energy, enthusiasm, and anxiety.

Respond: We must build on reaction to establish response.  This is where districts need to continuously plan, establish goals, and adjust with as much information and consideration for all parties as possible.

Restore: We will be living in the wake of COVID for a very long time, and when we return, the work of restoring culture and focus will take a highly concerted effort and plan as well.  Even in a hybrid return, all models point to teaching practices that are distant and isolating.  Are separated cohorts, desks, students, and teachers any less remote?  

Reflect:  We are bad at this in normal times, but reflection, self-assessment, and critical evaluation of our experience is always essential for growth and progress, and we shouldn't wait for the dust to settle! These steps of reacting/responding/restoring/reflecting should be ongoing by everyone involved.

The last R is resources, and for better or for worse, there is a flood of awesome resources for both educators and families.  Here are some of my recent favorites:

Tom Daccord's article on Making Learning Visible through Screencasting.

Pear deck templates for back to school-

https://www.peardeck.com/templates

Blended learning virtual checklist slide: https://meredithakers.com/2020/07/03/blended-learning-online-checklist/

Slidesmania Template For Weekly planner/agenda/etc

https://slidesmania.com/simple-weekly-planner-for-distance-learning-with-hyperlinks-for-easy-navigation/

Clare Landrigan blog:

https://www.clarelandrigan.com/blog/ral9t497hndt8djbr2f8rm4actqhzh

Bitmoji classroom tutorial: https://youtu.be/ZUDoniqrUmQ