More popular at the high school level are lab rotations, where students rotate between online learning in a lab and learning in a classroom, and the “flipped classroom,” where the basic concept is that you take what’s traditionally been homework, and you do that during class. This allows students to have support from teachers as they’re working through problems and doing the more active learning activities. The foundational content instruction that teachers would often cover in a lecture is online. And that could mean that teachers curate online resources for their students to access and look at, or it could mean that teachers make their own online videos of their lessons. But you shift a lot of that foundational instruction online and have students do that outside of class, and then have them focus in class on deeper learning activities and really engaged learning where they’re working with and practicing the concepts they have learned.
Another model that falls in that category with online as the backbone is called “enriched virtual,” which was created by virtual schools that noticed students often need more face-to-face support than they can get when they’re fully virtual. And so virtual schools would set up learning centers, and students would come in two or three times a week for two or three hours at a time. They could meet with their teachers, build relationships with them, ask and answer questions, meet with peers on projects and activities — but most of the learning happens virtually and remotely. I think this is one of the models that has the most relevance for schools that are only able to open part time.
The bigger challenges are, if you really want to shift to things like mastery-based learning, if you really want to make a big shift toward student agency and having students do more self-directed learning — it requires shifting the role of the teacher and rethinking how we provide instruction. You have to ask what are things where teachers’ expertise is most important and most valuable versus what can be done online? Some of those shifts are harder, or at least take more time and thought to make. But I do think schools can start off with a basic model, and then hopefully, as teachers become familiar with those basic models, then adapt to what works best.
It’s important to keep in mind that there are a lot of interdependencies between different parts of the models that really aren’t well understood. Trying to figure out if the way instruction is being provided is accessible to families and if it is working for students. Do our communications work given that we’re not communicating in the ways we usually do? To help figure out how to work out all of those interdependencies, districts should have all the different stakeholders who are affected by a model at a table together planning things. Make sure that there are teachers, school site leaders and parents in different circumstances. Some parents may be working from home just fine, others may be struggling to figure out what to do with their kids during the day because they still have to go into work. So, having people from a variety of different perspectives at the table helping to figure out plans is really key.
If schools use online learning in conjunction with mastery-based instruction, it can be a way to be more targeted and focused in identifying and addressing learning gaps. In other words, instead of just assuming everyone is behind or everyone is at the same level, really using online assessments to find out where are different students at, and then using online resources to give students targeted instruction based on where they’re at.
A second thing I’d mention is that the more that educators can shift some of that foundational instruction online, the more time they can free up for doing more personal check-ins. I think that’s one of the things that’s needed most right now when everyone is socially distant — it’s hard to know the particular circumstances a student may be facing that are inhibiting their learning. The more that educators can free up their time to make personal check-ins with students, the more they’ll be able to identify those barriers and figure out workarounds for those barriers. I also think the more that educators can shift instruction online, the more that they can then identify the students on the margins who are slipping through the cracks and focus more of their attention on those students. Whereas, I think if you’re having to do all of the instruction yourself, many teachers probably feel like, “Hey look, I know some students are missing in action, and I just feel like I’m too busy trying to run my class to be able to figure out what those students need.”
Lastly, one of the assets board members bring to a district is their connection to the communities districts serve. As districts make plans for the fall, they need to make sure that all the people whose efforts are interdependent for supporting learning are involved in planning. This includes parents who are wrestling with different life circumstances. (For example, parents who work from home, work part time or don’t work are often better able to support their children with at-home learning than parents who have to work out of the home during COVID-19. Similarly, parents who themselves have post-secondary education are better able to support at-home learning than parents who don’t have a high school or college degrees.) Board members can be strong advocates for making sure that parents from varied circumstances are involved in planning for fall learning.
Kimberly Sellery is managing editor for California Schools.