Teachers have successfully re-created many of the small-group student learning structures that support collaborative and higher-level learning, as seen in these breakout room examples. The value of student-to-student interactions.Simple practices like greeting students and being authentic help to build these relationships, as this video celebrates.
The importance of student-teacher relationships.Their efforts highlight the essential learning interactions. Many teachers have been creative in their remote classroom practices and these educators are to be celebrated. For example, most schools have continued to organize teachers and students in class groupings and follow modified school schedules, trying to replicate traditional teacher and student interactions in “Zoom classrooms.” Remote learning attempts to reproduce the organization, materials and activities in a different physical space. What Have We Learned from Going Online?įor me, remote learning has meant trying to re-create the traditional classroom online. The virtual approach is one we can-and should-take back to the physical classroom when we all return. We have learned a lot by going remote, but we could enhance our teaching even more if we leaned into virtual learning. We need to stop wishing we were back in a traditional classroom and focus our energy on more powerful learning possibilities and teaching strategies that are now in front of us. A national health emergency in the spring forced the move online, and although educators had more time to plan for online and hybrid classes this fall, they faced many unknowns: changing rates of infection, chaotic decision-making, and more.īut if we examine what we are teaching and how we are teaching it, rather than when and where we are teaching, the pandemic has revealed possibilities we had not considered before. And yet, in many ways, the move to remote learning has highlighted what’s essential in the classroom (and what’s not).
One of the major consequences of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a disruption to traditional classroom learning and instruction.
Virtual Learning Is the Way Forward for Educators