By all accounts, this spring was difficult for teachers, students, and their parents. The global pandemic came at us quickly, and no one was expecting it or prepared for just how drastic the repercussions would be.

Teachers did their best to provide education with no advance planning and no training for teaching online. That teachers were able to rally so quickly, sometimes with in day or two, in order transform their classrooms into alternate learning spaces was nothing short of miraculous.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking with teachers, principals and superintendents and following Twitter chats and Facebook posts about what went well (a lot) and what we need to improve going forward.  While districts are still planning for fall, the general consensus is that school is not going to return to normal. Even if we return to our buildings, it will be different.

What can learn from our experiences this spring and how can we take those lessons and use them to move forward this fall?

In times of crisis, school and family relationships are more important than ever.

Teachers have always tried to develop relationships with students’ parents.  During the pandemic, it became vital.  Parents needed guidance on how to use different tech tools.  They needed to know how to adapt for their child.  They needed to find balance between their own jobs and teaching their children.

What we can carry into fall is that teachers can provide assistance to parents by creating clear directions for using the technology that their children use in school. Many parents would appreciate hearing that they aren’t expected to teach all the content, but to provide guidance to their children. Teachers could offer suggestions for ways to support children in their learning. Some parents could benefit from tips about organizing their children’s work or structuring their learning time. Perhaps most importantly, we need to have regular communication structures, such as weekly newsletters or emails in place.

Think about how you can up your parent communication game.

In an online or hybrid classroom, you can’t just replicate what you do in a regular classroom. 

Our first reaction to this is, well duh!

 If you’ve seen the pictures of third graders with glassy eyes staring passively at Zoom, you know that lecturing online doesn’t work. On the other hand, many teachers shared that students regularly joined in on Zoom for a chance to interact with their teachers and friends.  How could you use Zoom or other similar platforms to encourage students to interact?

This might also be the time to dig into the flipped classroom idea. Let the students get content on their own through watching, listening or reading, and then use precious class time for discussion, questions, and extension.

We’ve always loved project-based learning.  We also love this option for teaching online or in a hybrid way.  Projects give students an opportunity to do different work, use different resources and use multiple ways of showing their learning.  Projects also offer intrinsic motivation, especially if students get to choose their projects. How could you create projects that connect to your curriculum that students could work on at home?

It is time to fully embrace having multiple ways of learning content and multiple ways of showing your knowledge of content.

Learning doesn’t have to happen all at the same time. Plan for asynchronous learning.

While we want to interact with our students as a group, we learned that in online teaching that wasn’t always possible. Families struggled with bandwidth as multiple children and parents working from home all tried to be online at once. Families also needed to prioritize the use of devices when several people in a household share them.

Record any online activities so that students can watch them at a different time if they need to.  Try to build in flexibility in assignments and due dates.

We need to systematically do a better job of addressing equity issues.

 Equity has always been an issue, but it became very apparent during the first weeks of the pandemic. We can no longer hide behind classroom doors and think that we are doing our best to address the needs of all students.

Many students depend on the food they get at school. With no way for students who receive free and reduced breakfast and lunch at school, we saw communities rally. Bus drivers dropped off food at community centers. Musicians started charities to provide food for children. We even saw teachers delivering the school’s free breakfasts and lunches to students’ homes along with their books and assignments.

 This spring, schools were all over the board in how they addressed education. Some required class work and attendance, others did not.  Some provided “enrichment” activities but no assignments. Some supplied all families who needed them with laptops and hot spots, but other children were left out of education for lack of learning materials and devices.

This is unacceptable.

With time to plan over the summer, school districts will need to devise plans that will allow all students to learn.

High Stakes Assessments and Grades are Overrated

For the most part, standardized testing didn’t happen this spring.  Did anyone really miss it?

In many schools, students didn’t receive grades either.  Teachers still read papers and gave students feedback, but did not give grades.  Parent reports were focused on progress and skill attainment, rather than letter grades.

Perhaps a major change in how we do business in schools is also the time for a major change in how we assess students going forward.

Teachers need more training for teaching in new ways.

We are aware that many districts have already started offering workshops and trainings for teachers.  Some have increased paid days for teachers and are using those days for training. Some have offered funds for teachers to take training on their own.  We have even heard of teams of teachers that are working throughout the summer, without pay, to develop lessons for fall.  Many teachers will take it upon themselves to learn more about how to meet the coming challenges.

Teachers need practical, applicable, hands on training. They also need paid time to develop new curriculum and to offer that curriculum in multiple ways.  Training teachers will pay off in loss of teaching time due to snow days or other potential school disruptions.

These are just a few of the many lessons we earned from teaching during the pandemic.

What lessons did you learn from teaching this spring?   Will you change your teaching as we go back to school in the fall?

We would love to hear your experiences.

Our Best,