In my college career, I have taken fully in person courses, hybrid courses, and fully online courses. My experience with online courses has been a relatively good one. I enjoy the freedom to complete assignments when I can and not needing to meet in person. I would say that the best thing about online learning is having the ability to complete an entire degree without leaving my house. Something that sticks out as the best experience I've had in all my online learning has been learning about using Learning Management Systems (LMS). I could not have known that my training would be put into place so quickly. The Covid pandemic put my skills to use last year in the most real world experience. I had to teach other educators at my school how to set up their own Google Classrooms and upload assignments. I was able to be a leader in my field. With no experience in teaching an entirely online course, we all fell into the trap of "'dumping' Face-to-Face coursework onto the web." (Simonson, M., et al, 2019, p. 114) Without proper training for the students in how to use the LMS, we were also limited in what we could ask of them. I did feel more prepared than some others in my field.
In this school year, teachers were a little more prepared for online teaching. The students in my district were provided with the technology needed. We also had new access to the LMS, Schoology. Teachers were trained very little and learned most of what they know on their own. Even with more time, the year has not gone as smoothly as it could have. Devices were new to students and there were not enough ground rules and procedures for use at school. The older the students, the more issues with inappropriate use of devices. With the students starting the year at home, they were not trained on the LMS at all. Simonson, M., et al, says "it is essential that training be provided at the beginning of the course." (p. 117) This meant that teachers had to provide online tutorials and do online training with students at the beginning of the year. This has been a struggle all year. Some students never joined online classes because they didn't know how. It didn't matter how many tutorials and support was provided, they didn't use it.
I hope that this year has provided us with the knowledge of how to do things better next year. We need to plan better for more strict rules and guidelines of computer use. We need to do more training ourselves, so that we can train the students better. All of this takes time and energy. This affects the workload of educators and administrators. For more information on how the pandemic has affected our workloads click here.
We can also learn new ways to create engagement with devices. It is our teaching skills that have to improve with the technology. Below is a great infographic with 10 Ways to Engage Students in Distance Learning.
My dream is that we do not waste the chance we have to establish new education styles that accentuate the available technology. These students' futures depend on technology more than ever. The world is connected by everything and it is our job to build the skills our students need to be successful.
References
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S. E., & Zvacek, S. (2019). Teaching and learning at a distance: foundations of distance education. Information Age Publishing, Inc.
NBCNews. (2020, October 21). Educators Speak Out About Mental Health Toll Of Teaching Through Pandemic | NBC Nightly News. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtdzwbZ5WqE.
COVID-19 Teachers Survey + Infographic: How the Pandemic Impacts Teaching. Lawnstarter. (2020, October 28). https://www.lawnstarter.com/blog/studies/covid-19-teachers-survey-how-pandemic-impacts-teaching/.
powerschool.com. (n.d.). https://www.powerschool.com/infographic/10-ways-to-create-student-engagement-in-distance-learning/.
One of the things that can make or break how people feel about online learning is the competence of the instructor in regards to technology and the competence of the student in regards to technology (Simonson et al., 2019). While the time to implement our new systems of information delivery was at a minimum, teachers definitely stepped up to the plate to learn how to navigate the systems. When you say that you hope we do better next year, my biggest concern will be accountability. At all levels, we have had to have a learning curve and I think we have not been holding students accountable for many things due to this. While we have allowed students to complete the work, there is a struggle to assess what has truly been learned (Blankenberger & Williams, 2020). As we learn more about the platforms, we will have to work more on the types of assessments being used and we will definitely have to hold students more accountable for their own learning.
ReplyDeleteReferences
Blankenberger, B., & Williams, A. (2020). COVID and the impact on higher education: The essential role of integrity and accountability. Administrative theory & praxis, 42(3), 404-423. https://doi.org/10.1080/10841806.2020.1771907
Simonson, M., Zvacek, S., Smaldino, S. (2019). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (7thed.). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Hello Barbara,
ReplyDeleteI read your blog and was saying to myself, Amen, sister! I agree with your reflection about how we were unprepared for teaching our students virtually. I think many educators question whether we were providing lessons that were purposeful and not fluff work. Simonson et al.(2015) state that "Learner need to have direct, purposeful experiences to draw upon in order to successfully learn from more abstract events" ( p. 80. Covid didn't provide educators nor students enough prep time for the new LMS, Schoology. According to Reich ( 2021),"First, the pandemic should remind us that to use technology effectively, teachers need intensive support and extensive practice." ( p. 5). I hope that now educators are doing what is necessary to prepare for online distance education because it is here to stay.
References
Reich, J. (2021). Ed Tech's Failure during the pandemic, and what comes after. Phi Delta Kappan, 102(6), 20–24.
https://doi-org.ezproxy.montevallo.edu/10.1177/0031721721998149
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., and Zvacek, S. (2015). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education. Information Age Publishing
Barbara,
ReplyDeleteI applaud classroom teachers and their students for the resilience you guys have shown through the pandemic. The pandemic left no time for teacher preparation considering that meaningful virtual experiences are "labor-intensive to develop, requiring time and personnel resources not available to many instructors" (Simonson et al., 2019, p. 107). Everything happened so quickly! Now that a year has gone by many teachers have adapted to new ways of building learning experiences. One big concern of mine that still remains is equitable access. Differences in their environment, meaning their access to instructional support as well as their internet access, can cause significant variations in student success" (Black et al., 2021, para. 5). Reaching equity to access is vital.
References:
Black, E., Ferdig, R., & Thompson, L. A. (2021). K-12 Virtual Schooling, COVID-19, and Student Success. JAMA Pediatrics, 175(2), 119. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.3800
Simonson, M., Zvacek, S., Smaldino, S. (2019). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (7thed.). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.