Online learning - early experiences

I had a conversation with a group of trainee maths teachers just before Easter about their experiences of the first two weeks of the closure of schools due to coronavirus.  Here are some of the things that cropped up.  It seemed worth sharing them because they represent views of what is happening in 19 different schools.

1) Teachers are working phenomenally hard

I don’t find it easy to set cover lessons in school.  Leaving sufficient material for a 50-minute lesson that the pupils can all access and learn from, without me being there, is difficult.  It needs to be tailored to the needs of the pupils, and something that a non-specialist teacher can lead.  It probably means not introducing much new content.

Teachers are setting what amounts to three or four lessons of cover for each class every week now.  (They are cover lessons in the sense that the teacher isn’t there in the room with them.)  Some teachers are juggling family commitments alongside their planning.

2) Schools are using different systems

• Some are using Microsoft Teams as a way to communicate with pupils.
• Others have Google Classroom.
• Show My Homework or Go4Schools is being used by some schools as a way to alert pupils (and their parents) to the work that has been set.
• Sometimes work is set that involves a subscription site, such as HegartyMaths, Mathswatch or MyMaths.
• Some teachers are making videos or are narrating PowerPoint presentations.

In all cases, it seems that pupils are finding it easier if they are being asked to use a system (whether Google Classroom, Mathswatch or Show My Homework) that they are familiar with already.

3) Structure is important

It seems to me that Easter holidays have come at the right time.  We have had two weeks of remote working and can now take stock before beginning again after the holiday period.

Some schools have been following a timetable and setting work for when the pupils would have had lessons in that subject.  This was felt to be good for a number of reasons:

• It helps children to organise their time, both in terms of when to do the work and how long to spend on it.
• It gives structure to their day and demarcates ‘work time’ from ‘social time’ or ‘family time’ or ‘playing time’.
• If pupils work on ‘lesson times’ it perhaps stops it from feeling like they have 5 pieces of homework to do each day.

The alternative, which has been happening in some schools, is for the week’s work for each subject to be issued at the start of the week and for the children to need to structure their own time.

The more structured version was felt to be better because it gave the children more support and a realistic idea of how much they should achieve.  It also meant they were likely to be fresher and less tired than if they left their work until the evening.

4) The amount of work that is set has been over-ambitious

After a fortnight of doing this, teachers have realised that setting a full lesson’s worth of tasks is not realistic or fair.

• There is a need to factor in time to access the work, to download files, print, etc.
• 1 hour of worksheet work is too tiring and is not productive. This wouldn’t usually happen in the classroom (for a reason!).
• It is important to set other types of activities too.
• Schools with 50-minute lessons are aiming to set 40 minutes of work.

5) Access is an issue

There are concerns about disadvantaged children.

• Children without a device (computer, tablet) at home cannot access material that is issued daily. If they have a device but no printer, then this will hamper some tasks.
• Children who share a family device (computer, tablet) will not have access throughout the day. If they have school-age siblings then they will need to share time on the device. If two or more siblings need to spend the entirety of 5 hour-long lessons using the computer then this makes life difficult and they certainly can’t all work during their ordinary lesson times.
• Children without a quiet space to work will find any sort of school work difficult (they might share a bedroom, or other family members might be playing music or watching TV or playing games elsewhere in the house).

6) Assessing online is hard

Other than small-scale monitoring using tools within HegartyMaths, MyMaths or Mathswatch, this is an area that hasn’t been explored in detail yet.  We can know how many questions a pupil has answered and how many they got right, but can’t pick up the usual things we would in class about what the students are struggling with, what errors they are making, etc.

7) Very few schools are doing live teaching

A limited number of schools are doing live lessons with older students, but very few do this with younger ones.  This is not a surprise:

• It is hard to do and different from the way a lesson would usually be planned, organised and taught.
• Access issues are exacerbated. The students have to be online at a particular time.
• The teacher can’t do classroom management, check engagement, can’t easily pick up misconceptions, etc.
• Schools have concerns about safeguarding (and concerns about Zoom meetings being hacked mean they are right to worry).

One benefit of having live lessons is that queries can be asked and answered immediately.  This has led some schools to have lessons that are provided via an online platform or PowerPoints, but then to offer live online ‘surgery’ times during which question can be raised by students.

As to how these are structured, a common method seems to be for the teacher to use the visualiser from their classroom, with a mini-whiteboard or a piece of paper underneath it. 

8) There will be long-term effects of learning remotely

At the moment it is all exciting and new but there are concerns as to whether/how pupils will stay motivated in the longer term.  There is a danger that pupils might receive 5 hours of lessons each day, from 5 different teachers, that involve them watching a PowerPoint and answer questions online for every subject.  This will force the students to be in front of a screen for much of the day and will become very samey. 

It will be increasingly important for pupils to receive feedback; some are already starting to ask “what’s the point in doing this task?”.

When work is set with a deadline, rather than being provided for a specific lesson time, the students are spending different amounts of time on it.  This will hit disadvantaged children the most and the learning gap will only increase in the long term.

The teacher cannot give thought-provoking extension questions, or targeted support to specific pupils.  This means there will inevitably be a change in how pupils are learning and the sorts of things they think are important.  It will take a while to settle back into learning in school again.

We had a long discussion about independent working skills, with some seeing it as a good thing that pupils will have the opportunity to develop these skills, while others are concerned that this is a difficult thing to do and that access to a quiet working space, structure and access to resources will be important for this to be possible.  Many children will need a considerable level of support to become more independent. 

Where do we go next with this?

It will be interesting to see how things continue to evolve over the first few weeks after Easter and whether schools switch to a model of having a tighter structure to the week for pupils and an encouragement for teachers to set different types of activities that might take pupils away from a computer.