Some ideas on how to transition back with your class after a break from face to face.
- This is a chance for us as their teachers to evaluate this whole experience and get feedback on our teaching and the students’ learning experience. It is a chance to show your human side, to empathise with them, to check our assumptions,
and ask what went well? and what would be even better if? and ask the students from this experience what would they keep continuing, what they would change or what they think should be grown? (ie do more from this experience both upon return and for if we ever have to return to this situation again in the future)
This feedback is important as all students will at some stage be learning from home from instructions left or Zooms or pre recorded videos.
Why would we want to know the student experience?
- To find out what the student experience was really like for them and thereby if necessary, set plans in place to reduce student anxiety. For some students this whole situation will just play to their vulnerability and anxiety levels as they may be fearful that they will suffer repercussions for not having completed or understood all the work, for others it may have highlighted that they thought they were unintelligent as they could not attempt the learning set, whilst others may come back lacking motivation when they were unable to experience the success that they otherwise would have in our normal classrooms.
- To improve our pedagogical instructions for the future.
- To try to ascertain any learning gaps that have emerged, or indeed conversely ascertain whether anything done was an improvement to the learning experience.
So, what are some ways to get an audit of student experience?
- Class discussion
- Survey the class
- Quiz the class
- Look at their workbooks, folders, notes etc
- Ask them to submit you a self-reflection of their experience
What could we do with the information revealed?
- Re teach content which appears not to have been learnt or understood.
- Teach students how to build in self-reflection, metacognitive self-assessment opportunities so that they can monitor their own progress and reduce dependency on us as their teachers. Explicitly teach pupils metacognitive strategies, including how to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning.
- Affirm them that overall they have developed a level of resilience, determination and motivation in the most trying of circumstances.
- Suggest that this “re start” is an opportunity for those that need it to receive a “new start”, to demonstrate that they have had a chance to see school as the opportunity that it is, to appreciate it as a chance to kick start their attitude, to self-regulate and listen in class, not interrupting others and lastly to appreciate the phenomenally complex job that teaching is and to appreciate the value add that only we as teachers can give.
Finally on a practical note it would be very important to ask your students the following question. Who intends to return next week or in coming weeks? as this may help you decide whether or not you pursue a certain mode, unit of learning and whether you need to photocopy correct amounts of learning material and indeed whether you need to send out resources by mail for those remaining at home.
failthinklearn 