What Have Educators Learned About Distance Learning?

[anorlunda]

Kudos @ZapperZ . As always, it is not the money or technology that makes the difference, but rather dedicated teachers.

 

[rsk]

I agree that now we are better prepared and to go online from September won't pose the same problems as this time round.

However I'm also aware that this year, we went remote with students we already knew, with whom we had already established relationships having been running those same groups for 5 or 6 months on campus.
September will be different, we'll be faced with new intakes and won't have that same opportunity. For me, as a HS teacher, classroom relationships are central to the whole process and it's going to feel very strange to me.

If what we end up with some form of 'blended' learning, with a mix of onsite and online, then that will be alleviated somewhat, but it sill still take longer to build those relationships.

We will see. In the meantime, I will have a look at Pivot interactives so thanks for that!

 

[anorlunda]

If what we end up with some form of 'blended' learning, with a mix of onsite and online, then that will be alleviated somewhat, but it sill still take longer to build those relationships.

You may be interested in these two posts about the special problems with "hybrid" class teaching.
https://reason.com/2020/06/17/the-difficulties-of-teaching-a-hybrid-class/
https://reason.com/2020/06/18/another-proposal-for-the-hybrid-class/

 

[ZapperZ]

I agree that now we are better prepared and to go online from September won't pose the same problems as this time round.

However I'm also aware that this year, we went remote with students we already knew, with whom we had already established relationships having been running those same groups for 5 or 6 months on campus.
September will be different, we'll be faced with new intakes and won't have that same opportunity. For me, as a HS teacher, classroom relationships are central to the whole process and it's going to feel very strange to me.

If what we end up with some form of 'blended' learning, with a mix of onsite and online, then that will be alleviated somewhat, but it sill still take longer to build those relationships.

We will see. In the meantime, I will have a look at Pivot interactives so thanks for that!

Are you given any kind of professional development to train you on running online classes? Unlike college level courses where college students are expected to be a bit more independent and do self-learning, HS students require a bit more of a structure and more meticulous planning. After all, HS teachers require credentials to teach HS students, unlike college level classes. So are you provided proper training to run HS online or hybrid classes?

The biggest mistake that I've seen many instructors do is to think that they can simply port what they were doing in face-to-face classes to online classes with some minor modification. Even with synchronous sessions, this is definitely not the way to do it. If I've learned anything, it is that online classes are a different beast than face-to-face classes, and have to be treated differently. And this includes the psychological aspect of it, i.e. how do you get students who are either just watching you on their screen, or students who are studying on their own asynchronously by going over the material, to engage with the class and the material.

There is one unique problem that many STEM instructors face that many people and course designers outside of STEM fields do not appreciate. In STEM subjects, especially math, physics, engineering, etc., we often discuss and solve problems by sketching and writing math equations. These are almost automatic. In fact, in my physics classes, sketching the problem is a requirement to receive full credit in solving that problem. This part is horribly tedious to do with online classes during a synchronous session.

Sure, there are whiteboard apps, capabilities, etc. on various videoconference programs. But most of us do not have a touch screen computer, and trying to draw using a mouse is absurd, and forget about trying to write an equation quickly. Whiteboard or touch-screen accessories to be attached to your computer is horribly expensive, and my school certainly does not provide any kind of allowance for us to get one for every instructor that needs it.

I managed to solve this issue a few years ago when I was running a hybrid course. Luckily, I have an iPad, and I manged to find a way to use my iPad as a writing implement during a synchronous class session, allowing me to sketch, write equations, etc. as if I have a white board in class. I'll describe more of this in detail if anyone is interested to know how I did it, but I'm interested to hear how everyone here overcomes this problem with your online classes.

Zz.

 

[rsk]

Are you given any kind of professional development to train you on running online classes? Unlike college level courses where college students are expected to be a bit more independent and do self-learning, HS students require a bit more of a structure and more meticulous planning. After all, HS teachers require credentials to teach HS students, unlike college level classes. So are you provided proper training to run HS online or hybrid classes?

The biggest mistake that I've seen many instructors do is to think that they can simply port what they were doing in face-to-face classes to online classes with some minor modification. Even with synchronous sessions, this is definitely not the way to do it. If I've learned anything, it is that online classes are a different beast than face-to-face classes, and have to be treated differently. And this includes the psychological aspect of it, i.e. how do you get students who are either just watching you on their screen, or students who are studying on their own asynchronously by going over the material, to engage with the class and the material.

There is one unique problem that many STEM instructors face that many people and course designers outside of STEM fields do not appreciate. In STEM subjects, especially math, physics, engineering, etc., we often discuss and solve problems by sketching and writing math equations. These are almost automatic. In fact, in my physics classes, sketching the problem is a requirement to receive full credit in solving that problem. This part is horribly tedious to do with online classes during a synchronous session.

Sure, there are whiteboard apps, capabilities, etc. on various videoconference programs. But most of us do not have a touch screen computer, and trying to draw using a mouse is absurd, and forget about trying to write an equation quickly. Whiteboard or touch-screen accessories to be attached to your computer is horribly expensive, and my school certainly does not provide any kind of allowance for us to get one for every instructor that needs it.

I managed to solve this issue a few years ago when I was running a hybrid course. Luckily, I have an iPad, and I manged to find a way to use my iPad as a writing implement during a synchronous class session, allowing me to sketch, write equations, etc. as if I have a white board in class. I'll describe more of this in detail if anyone is interested to know how I did it, but I'm interested to hear how everyone here overcomes this problem with your online classes.

Zz.

I use my own android tablet & pen to teach from (using Lecture Notes and an app to cast it) but very few of my students have pens/styluses(styli?) to do the same. School has subscribed to a great platform called ClassKick which allows teacher and students to work on same document - the app itself allows either pen or keyboard use so should suit all, but of course the lack of pens is makng it too frustrating for them, Cost will be an issue whether it falls to the students or the schools to provide these.

A far as the training goes, we've had some ad hoc training on apps and platforms to support online learning, but as you hint, lots of these are not particularly useful for science/maths where diagrams and equations are necessary. It's likely that there will be more training available, I think, in preparation for the new school year both as the usual providers adapt to new circumstances and as colleagues discover and share new ways of doing things.

Interesting times ahead.

 

[bhobba]

Kudos @ZapperZ . As always, it is not the money or technology that makes the difference, but rather dedicated teachers.

Exactly. That's one of the messages that came through loud and clear in Visible Learning by Professor Hattie. Our education ranking here in Aus is dropping alarmingly for multiple reasons, one of the main reasons being the declining standards of teachers. Evidently new graduates did poorly in basic English and Math exams on graduation. That's because Education was seen simply as a last resort if you could not get into something else - they were accepting people with ridiculously low grade 12 results. Mine was nothing to write home about, but I turned a new leaf at university and worked my butt off, so did well. But evidently those going into teaching, by and large, do not see it as something they are drawn to and just coast along. Not all of course, but when you have things like physical threats to teachers by students and 'helicopter' mothers it's a battle. My solution is the same as they do in Finland. Drastic increases in teachers salaries to raise their status and be more attractive to better students as a career, minimum requirement a Masters degree, and much greater autonomy to the school, reducing bureaucratic overhead to pay for the increased salaries. They were moving to a Masters as a minimum requirement here in Aus, but that now seems to be abandoned. Just that by itself, and an increase in salary will make a big difference in itself IMHO. It hopefully will weed out those students that simply see it as a job of last resort by requiring the extra year or two to complete a Masters, raise its appeal to the better students because of increased remuneration, so, fingers crossed, attract those that see teaching as a vocation, not just a job.

Thanks
Bill

 

[atyy]

I managed to solve this issue a few years ago when I was running a hybrid course. Luckily, I have an iPad, and I manged to find a way to use my iPad as a writing implement during a synchronous class session, allowing me to sketch, write equations, etc. as if I have a white board in class. I'll describe more of this in detail if anyone is interested to know how I did it, but I'm interested to hear how everyone here overcomes this problem with your online classes.

I might get an iPad so I can write equations. However, a colleague who does drawings for biology uses https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PWKGHFQ which might be a cheaper option. I'm still deciding what to get, and would appreciate knowing what others use.

 

[rsk]

I might get an iPad so I can write equations. However, a colleague who does drawings for biology uses https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PWKGHFQ which might be a cheaper option. I'm still deciding what to get, and would appreciate knowing what others use.

Mine is a Samsung S3 galaxy tab. LectureNotes is an android app (not free but only a couple of €s) and allows all sorts of useful things, including import of pdf, image, video etc plus allows you to record what you're doing.

Since it's my own, school security prevents me from connecting it directly to the school's G-suite so in order to use it in a Meet class, i first cast it to a laptop with Airdroid.

The tablet was (and still is) the most expensive thing I'd ever bought, but I think it was worth every penny and it's probably available cheaper now as the next one in the range came out a while back.

 

[ZapperZ]

In my case, I use an app called AirSketch with my iPad. It is a whiteboard app, but with one interesting and convenient feature. You can have it display on your computer! It gives you a local web IP, and when you open a browser on your local network, what you end up is a white screen. You write on your iPad, and everything is mirrored onto your web browser screen live.

Here's a screen capture that I did rather quickly 3 minutes ago (it's my excuse for my horrible handwriting). When I share my web browser during a synchronous session, the students can see my writing live as I work through an example. It is the same as if they were in class a looking at the whiteboard that I'm writing on.

I like this method because (i) it's using something I already have, and (ii) it doesn't require any other special installation or drivers, etc. All I do is type in the web IP address in my browser on whatever computer that I'm using, and off I go! I've used this for the past 2 years, and it worked very well. Not only that, I can save each page, and upload all of them for the students to review later.

And yes, the app has several other features that allows you to change colors, line size, etc. But that is in the full, paid version. The free version will allow you to write only in black, and you don't have the ability to change color. I had been using the free version of the app till last March, and I finally paid for the full version when we changed to remote learning. So the free version was certainly quite adequate in most cases.

Zz.

 

[symbolipoint]

The post #129 reminds me of struggling because a teacher routinely used an overhead projector during lecture time. I did not predict that things would ever get worse.

 

[ZapperZ]

The post #129 reminds me of struggling because a teacher routinely used an overhead projector during lecture time. I did not predict that things would ever get worse.

Unless I've given the wrong impression, that is not what I present to my students during a synchronous lecture.

I typically have my powerpoint presentation all set up with the material, etc. It is only when I have questions or what I need to explain further that I will whip up the whiteboard so that I can easily explain stuff. I also use this to annotate my powerpoint pages when there are questions or something needs further clarification.

In other words, the whiteboard is not the main actor in my presentation.

Zz.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Just a few weeks from the start of many schools. Any update from educators?

 

[ZapperZ]

Just a few weeks from the start of many schools. Any update from educators?

Yes. I have completed two Quality Matters workshops, and just started my institution-specific training for online classes (3 weeks of intense work that will run into the beginning of Fall semester. I must be nuts!).

The biggest take-away from all the training and workshop is: online classes are NOT the same as face-to-face classes taught online. If you think they are, and if you teach it that way, your online classes will suck! They are of different beasts and have to be presented, delivered, and treated differently.

Zz.

 

[Devils]

Our education ranking here in Aus is dropping alarmingly for multiple reasons, one of the main reasons being the declining standards of teachers.

For some odd reason, the quality of students is never mentioned in these studies. The biggest predictor of student outcomes is socioeconomic status. I have taught and tutored in Australian private and public schools. Public schools are like a warzone & I'm surprised that kids learn anything. On the other hand private schools have respectful students who want to learn, and they are far more selective on what teachers they hire. I also got the feeling in public schools that there wasn't much real management going on. Many teachers in Australian public schools send their kids to private schools. The head of physics at one public school said "everybody would leave if they could find a job elsewhere". That does not inspire confidence .

 

[bhobba]

For some odd reason, the quality of students is never mentioned in these studies.

In the Gonski report they hooked onto your postcode as a big determinant, so thought let's give schools in the poor performing postcodes more money. The thought didn't seem to occur that maybe the students had better attitudes in some postcodes. Interesting mindset.

My personal view for what it is worth is get out of school as soon as you can and go to university. In Aus that is easily done via the university of open learning eg:
https://www.mq.edu.au/study/other-study-options/open-universities-australia

You enrol in one of the degrees offered, but at Macquarie after a semester you can transfer to whatever you like - dependant on how well you did.

Thanks
Bill

 

[rsk]

There's a huge fuss at the moment in scotland, where I started my teaching, over the grades which have been allocated this year.

Teachers were asked to give predicted grades, which the exam board (SQA) then 'moderated' based on the school's past performance - a measure to counter grade inflation (or cheating, in effect) I suppose.

Anyway, the fuss is that many students have had their grades moderated down and this has highlighted the post-code dependent gulf in attainment. The board has simply attempted to match the year on year data, and to me the real problem here is that the gulf in attainment exists - in every normal non-pandemic year - based on postcode and socioeconomic status.

I too was asked to give predicted grades for my students and to rank them in order - I imagine that's to fit them to the curve and therefore that the rank I gave them will matter more than the grade i gave them. Time will tell, we haven't got those 'results' back yet.

 

[vela]

The biggest take-away from all the training and workshop is: online classes are NOT the same as face-to-face classes taught online. If you think they are, and if you teach it that way, your online classes will suck! They are of different beasts and have to be presented, delivered, and treated differently.

Are you converting your classes to be fully online and asynchronous?

 

[symbolipoint]

rsk,
Predicted grades? Based on something useful, like to project based on some results through the semester or year?

 

[rsk]

We do predicted grades every year anyway, it's just that this year we knew there was more at stake.

They're based on pupil performance across the board in that they really are our prediction, based on everything we know about that student, of the grade they'll obtain in the real external exam. Most teachers are pretty good at this and there are rarely any big surprises but of course, there are sometimes pressures to over predict (I worked at a school once where the Head pressured staff to predict top grades for the kids who had applied to Oxbridge, to keep their pushy parents happy).

We had submitted our routine predicted grades just before schools were ordered to close and when we still (naïvely) assumed exams would take place - to make significant changes after exams were canceled would have looked decidedly dodgy. The ranking was the most difficult part for me.

 

[ZapperZ]

Are you converting your classes to be fully online and asynchronous?

No. I'm converting my classes to fully online with a combination of synchronous and asynchronous.

Unlike in Spring where we were scrambling and some students were left without the ability to connect consistently, we are more well-prepared now. I can require students to attend my synchronous Zoom session, and will be using Zoom to its full extent (polling, breakout rooms, etc.) to increase student engagement. I'm also modifying our LMS page to increase the impact of resources, pre-lectures, and forum discussions (these are the asynchronous part), all of which I've learned can have a significant impact on student engagements with online material.

I used to have my LMS page categorized by Lecture notes, homework, pre-lectures, quizzes, etc... Now, they are "Start Here", "Week 1", "Week 2", etc... which is more intuitive for an online students to follow. Every single activity and assignment that a student has to do are contained within week, so they know exactly what they need to accomplish and complete for that week.

The other take-away from all my training is that the idea that online classes are easier is a huge, big myth. In fact, it's the other way around, that both instructor and students will have to do more in an online class than in f2f class.

Zz.

 

[symbolipoint]

(mentor note: changed ! to So true! to help others with the meaning)

The other take-away from all my training is that the idea that online classes are easier is a huge, big myth. In fact, it's the other way around, that both instructor and students will have to do more in an online class than in f2f class.

So true!

 

[vela]

Just a few weeks from the start of many schools. Any update from educators?

Most schools in the area are continuing with online content delivery, with few classes meeting on campus.

This summer, I taught an online course for the first time in four years, and I was quickly reminded of many details about teaching online. Another course I taught was a remote instruction (RI) course, where the class still meets at a set time for lectures delivered over the internet.

One thing I will definitely do is have a ice-breaking activity, so students in the course get to know a little about each other and get used to talking to each other right away. I didn't do one in the RI course, and getting those students to discuss problems with each other or with me was like pulling teeth. The activity is also useful as a way to determine if any registered students are no-shows and should be dropped.

It's definitely worth the effort to set up a "how to navigate this course" module. It may seem clear to you how to get around the course online, but it won't be to many of the students.

I'm still not entirely sure what to do about assessments. Last spring, it was obvious to me that many of the students looked up solutions online on the exams. (I gave a bunch of them zeros on an exam and didn't get a single complaint.) This summer, I had students turn in one homework problem per chapter. They could use any resource to figure out how to solve the problem, but they had to write out a complete solution, identifying the concepts involved and explaining why they solved the problem the way they did. They couldn't get full credit for just turning in a bunch of math, even if it was correct.

 

[symbolipoint]

vela, why do you say they turned in "one homework problem per chapter."?

 

[vela]

Because that's what I told them to do.

 

[symbolipoint]

vela, why do you say they turned in "one homework problem per chapter."?

Because that's what I told them to do.

I ask because assigning just one problem per chapter seems inadequate. Nothing like that was done anywhere that I ever studied or attended.

 

[jedishrfu]

The strategy could work if it was the last problem listed in a chapter which usually incorporates the key points of the whole chapter in its question.

 

[vela]

I ask because assigning just one problem per chapter seems inadequate. Nothing like that was done anywhere that I ever studied or attended.

Oh, I didn't assign just one problem. I had them turn in a solution to only one of the assigned problems.

 

[rsk]

Oh, I didn't assign just one problem. I had them turn in a solution to only one of the assigned problems.

But don't tell them beforehand which problem you're going to ask to be submitted.

 

[jedishrfu]

I had a prof do that. He graded selective problems from a homework set but never said which ones he would grade. I was rather disappointed with this approach since it gave me a false belief that I had done some problems right when maybe I didn't.

It didn't affect my grades as I learned to police myself well and was quite sure my solutions were correct but others weren't as fortunate.

This was in the age before the internet where pencil, paper, sliderule, simple calculator and whatever books you had were the primary instruments of self-dis-instruction.

 

[etotheipi]

I too was asked to give predicted grades for my students and to rank them in order - I imagine that's to fit them to the curve and therefore that the rank I gave them will matter more than the grade i gave them. Time will tell, we haven't got those 'results' back yet.

Given that you have been exposed directly to the grading procedure, I wondered if you think the method used this year is a fair one? Maybe it is the best they could do with the limited time available to put in plans, but myself and a few friends are quite worried for results day because it seems that literally anything could happen. The grading system seems fairly brutal, and every day there are stories about grades being moved up, or down, or sideways, and at this point I think I would have been a lot happier just doing the exams

There is always the option to re-take in Autumn, I guess... if you're willing to drop your university application and re-apply next year