According to the following recent article in The Seattle Times, Washington state public school districts are swapping online learning tips and motivating each other to keep experimenting and finding ways to serve students in Seattle as well as in rural districts.
Finding the laptops and internet access was the first step, and it is unclear how many students lack devices. Next, the curriculum. How many students will slide behind as systemic inequities exist for students in low-income families, and students learning English or having a disability?
Since going online is no longer a choice, schools are starting conversations on how to refine lessons by trial and error. Many are teaching over video platforms, sending recorded lessons, and printing out materials for drop off at student homes.
Best practices in online learning will only go so far as the schools districts consider their context and preparedness. Over the last decade, a blended form of learning won out in K-12 in Washington public schools. K-12 studies in online learning mostly focused on college. This article includes lessons to be learned from other state high-poverty districts such as in Milwaukee Public Schools. Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind offer several forms of remote instruction realizing not everything can be accomplished online.
Many teachers today are already comfortable forming relationships with students, parents, and colleagues using social media. Those relationships will need nurturing as the online K-12 learning experiment continues.
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/There’s-no-roadmap-for-teaching-online-so-Washington’s-teachers-are-creating-their-own-The-Seattl.pdf”]
thanks Kris.
Many echoes of the situation in Las Cruces, and Dona Ana county, which have high rates of poverty and a pronounced digital divide. But of course, even school districts without those handicaps are going to struggle mightily to somehow get up to speed for both teachers and students with zero prep and development time.
We might need some MOOCs for teachers learning teaching online. Actually there probably are some already. But maybe they need to be even more “massive”.
One force that’s been working for nearly two decades to set the stage for just what is needed now, is the NMSU online teaching and learning program, which continues today.
There’s a research paper / case study by Julia Parra, Susie Bussmann and C Gonzales that may or may not exist in a publicly accessible form, but no doubt contains many of the “tips” that teachers everywhere are trying to share with each other in an ad hoc manner.
That paper’s title is: Transitioning to E-Learning: Teaching the Teachers.