Thursday, April 2, 2020

Remote Learning is Drawing Teachers and Students Closer Together in Crisis Times When Closeness is So Needed





Reflections of a Literacy Instruction Leader on her school’s overnight plunge into remote learning.  




By Dr. Rosse Reissman



Positives? Yes, there are positives for teachers to take away from their mandated sudden immersion in remote learning.


Once the shock of schools suddenly being closed for what may be weeks or months settled in for families, students, and school staff, they struggled to transition to remote learning. Even the terms “remote” or “distance” brought with them negative overtones for students and teachers accustomed to the dynamics of on-site interactions rich in gestures, smiles, vocal nuances, and the nourishment of communicating with friends and colleagues.



But, as the weeks since the close of school have gone by, this crisis has revealed in its sudden transition, an important undercurrent of closeness and connection. While teachers remain at their various homes, “remote” from their students and colleagues, remote learning is accomplished through an online connection of uploaded assignments and student responses, along with colleague to colleague messaging brings: all of it reestablishing close​ness.​​



If a school has a dynamic student newsfeed of shared events and projects as does my school, Ditmas IS 62 K (a Brooklyn middle school), it can use this central site as the showcase network for students and teachers from various classes. It becomes a ‘go to’ hub where student work may be published and displayed, a virtual place in which members of the school community connect in ways that go beyond the general understanding of COVIC-19’s social distancing required remote learning.


How can that be when ​teachers​ can no longer “see” their students onsite, face-to-face? The connection is achieved through “seeing” the students at home ​​using Zoom or other web-conferencing resources, or​ even reading what the students have written and submitted online through Google docs and giving my reactions and feedback quickly. In our school, student work may be uploaded to our Ditmas Life website  where it may elicit reactions from many members of the community and students may see one another’s responses to the same prompt, as well as the reactions of community members to those.




While perhaps not as satisfying to either the teachers or the students as personal, onsite interactions, these words ​and images (sometimes students post photographs of their art) ​ certainly maintain a rich ongoing connectedness.



The key to the closeness that is inherent in remote learning

lies in the teacher to student exchanges;​ exchanges that yes, functionally provide instructional communication, but that also establish relationship, something that all of a sudden in this time of social distancing stands out as crucial


The teacher, for each student, even if a teacher works with 120 of them (a typical assignment in NYC), through back and forth, uploaded Google docs or email reads each “voice”- or perhaps views an uploaded drawing and without the distraction of

 classroom management or whole class scheduling, reacts to it.


As was the case previously, in every on-site classroom and now in the virtual space established for remote learning, an emphasis is rightly placed on class participation in order to foster learning that addresses the speaking and discussion standard of CCSS and also to help students who are not able to demonstrate their knowledge on tests.​



Unfortunately, while this participation certainly enhanced all students’ learning as they all listened to conversations, for many shyer students or those for whom English is a second language, or those who are simply quieter, their personal challenges in participating in typical classroom conversations barred them from connecting in person with the teacher or with other students. True, “in their heads-internally” they might have recognized similar ideas and connections to themes studied; but they were ultimately too shy or self conscious to raise their hands to participate.​



Ironically, our new “distance” or “remote” learning opportunity equalizes for, and provides such students with equitable access and opportunity in class discussion ‘in a way few educators would anticipate!. Suddenly everyone’s ideas can be received and reacted to by the teacher. No student has to worry about what peers might say or how they might react to the students’ comment.​ Now, in remote learning, when a reading task or prompt to which the entire class is invited to respond is assigned, competition for attention is a far lesser factor.  And unlike​ in a real world classroom where another student may quickly, if called on first, utter a response very similar to what a student wanted to say or one that takes up a lengthy time of the allotted discussion preventing the student from being called on, in the remote classroom every student has time to think about the prompt, formulate a response as well as equitable access to the teacher’s attention.


This opens participation floodgates for many students who teachers in the face-to-face classroom may have known were filled with original ideas and the need to communicate them, but simply could not cross their personal social barrier to do so, except, on occasion, through extended written responses, something not often called for in the typical day in, day out format of teaching and learning.  



In a typical class lesson, there is at best sufficient time for 6-8 student responses to which the teacher can respond with a comment before moving on to the next segment or class. However, remote learning allows the teacher to comment on all the responses and to take time to react personally to all of them if the teacher deems that important.



Even better, the teacher is not constricted in remote learning to a five or six period schedule, something that’s very difficult to alter. This being said, the teacher can develop a rhythm of grading and reacting to individual student assignments which allows for individual comments through online back and forth in order to emotionally and academically enhance students self concept and knowledge. In remote learning teachers can set aside time to respond to all students with messages and personalization and definitely to nurture the new voices they never accessed previously during onsite teaching.



But this all sounds abstract. How does this play out in middle school English Language Arts teachers’ remote teaching of writing - in my case, working with Title 1, inner city students from diverse ethnic backgrounds whose families have been economically and socially challenged way since before the public health challenge of Corona Virus kicked in?



At​ Ditmas IS 62, in Ms. Xavier’s remote learning program (shared with Dr. Reissman- the literacy support person) the same class discussion questions that targeted readings of literature or news articles and were introduced and then debriefed after readings (or other activities such as viewing Youtube videos or websites) can be asked remotely.


But suddenly, it is not just only six or eight, at the max, students who can answer and get responses from their peers: it’s every student in the class. Previously, even the students who enjoy responding and hearing the sounds of their own voices in class, the born talkers and extroverts, were stopped from answering because the lesson may have timed out or they already heard a form of their idea expressed by another student. Now they’re able to fully write and express their idea in answer to the written prompt.



A simple prompt such as: “What personal strength have you identified in yourself which you are proud to have?” suddenly​ elicited  (see school website section for Ms. Xavier’s classes)  very detailed responses from students who never or rarely contributed to any class discussion.
It was obvious as the students shared extensive details about personal strengths ranging from an ability to memorize to being able to make jokes to developing quotes about life experiences- that the students were relishing sharing their “voices” with their suddenly “accessible” teacher beyond the 20 minute teacher programmed discussion period. Even better, getting these responses remotely allowed the teacher to react to the student, comment in some detail personally for each student, and with the student’s permission share the student’s reaction on a school or class website.



Suddenly, thanks to remote learning, the barriers and gaps between the student extravert speakers and everyone else in the class who also has a reaction or a response to a prompt, have been leveled. This leveling not only enhances student sharing via a school website or a teacher curated site, but also​ facilitates students’ ability to function as digital citizens connected to one another,​even though the class is not meeting in person at itslocal school site. Sadly​, the students have already developed and are developing their capacities as Digital Citizens by doing remote learning beyond school control and innovating activities and schedules often with little adult input. They are then sharing these ideas in their school community - digital citizens brainstorming ideas. However, the new remote learning reality is an opportunity for school staff to model and inculcate proper Digital Citizenship, another unanticipated remote learning benefit. 



Rather than ponder the challenges and difficulties this crisis-driven, immediate plunge into the fresh waters of remote teaching has created for educators and students, why not step back to savor the students swimming alongside us? Many of these students have been brought closer to their peers and to their teachers through this new way of teaching and learning.



The goal of all teachers is to differentiate instruction and to access​

every​ student to excellence and equity in content. How wonderful and ironic that “distance” learning makes this “close” connecting possible and achievable every time the teacher and ALL the students log in.

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This article is the outcome of the Remote Learning Ditmas School initiative as realized by Writing Institute ELA  Ditmas Site director, Amanda Xavier and Writing Institute ELA educator, Dina Francis.  Mr. Carideo, technology educator, has developed and updates the Ditmas Life www.ditmas.life page .  Mr. Downes is the faculty advisor for Ditmas Buzz Newsletter and Ms. Xavier is the English Language Arts editor.

Ditmas IS 62 is a District 20, Brooklyn school under the leadership of Marielena Santiago, Principal and Michelle Buitrago, AP.

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The Ditmas IS 62 website mentioned in the article was developed and curated by Angelo Carideo, the school’s Software Engineering and Technology Talent program teacher.  www​.Ditmas.life​ is a web site used for chronicling Ditmas student events and stories and art.

More links to student activity samples:
Index or Ditmas Proud Home Page:

Mrs. Fancis:

Xavier Page 1

Xavier Page 2
..........


Rose Reissman
is the founder of the Writing Institute, now replicated in 200 schools including PS 191 in Manhattan, New York City.  She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. Ditmas IS 62 is under the leadership of Marielena Santiago Principal and Michelle Buitrago AP. The Writing Institute Team are: Michael Downes, Angelo Carideo, and Amanda Xavier.

Contact:
roshchaya@gmail.com

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