Teaching with Tech: Five Tips for Navigating K–12 Distance Instruction

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by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

It would be an understatement to say that these are challenging times for teachers. Plunged into lockdown with no time to prepare for it, educators are quickly adapting to the new realities of distance instruction while getting up to speed with technology platforms, unfamiliar teaching techniques, and changing district and institutional guidelines. Throw in pressures to ensure students don’t fall behind juxtaposed with advice to refrain from overwhelming students and their families, and the situation becomes even more delicate.

Technology has without doubt been the great enabler of education during the COVID-19 crisis. Had the pandemic struck 10 years ago, teachers and learners wouldn’t have had access to the abundance of tools and innovations that are making home learning possible today. Many educators’ approaches vary depending on geographical and socio-economic factors, circumstances, and grades and ages, but there is not necessarily a right or wrong way of going about it. The following handy tips are for teachers who are embracing technology for distance instruction.

Bored elementary school girl taking an online course with the teacher on screen

Start from a single hub

There are a number of digital platforms available—Classdojo, Edmodo, and Seesaw, to name just a few. These enable teachers to communicate with their classes, set tasks, monitor progress, evaluate work, and check in with parents and guardians. Establishing a single user-friendly app-based hub that can form the foundation of a virtual classroom, and be easily accessed on desktop and mobile, is a key first step in building out a distant teaching program. However, one of the perils of using these platforms is that teachers, especially those with large classes, can often find themselves spending too much time responding to queries and individual concerns of parents, and an always-on approach can be exhausting. Many districts and institutions have tried to manage both instructor workload and parents’ expectations by setting fixed times for teachers to log on to assign work, comment on students’ projects, and respond to parental queries.

Come to grips with video conferencing, or don’t

Many teachers have been using video conferencing in order to replicate the classroom online and re-establish face-to-face communication with students. Some have found video conferencing something of a revelation when it comes to maintaining a focused class and garnering classroom solidarity, but safeguarding incidents have occurred that have led several states, such as New York, Washington and Utah, to ban or reassess its use in an educational context, while Singapore has ruled out its use altogether. Before embarking on any class-wide video conferencing, assess your goals and whether it is necessary before setting expectations and parameters. Make sure you have read up on safeguarding advice so you are aware of the dangers and are able to take the necessary steps to mitigate risks around “Zoombombing,” screen sharing, and private messaging, while taking a transparent approach with parents. But remember, touching base and checking in on parents and students with one-on-one telephone or Skype conversations on a weekly basis can also be effective.

Encourage online and offline learning

Communicating online has become the new normal during the lockdown, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the bulk of classwork has to be carried out online too. With many parents already concerned about the amount of screen time their kids indulge in, distance learning does not need to further exacerbate these concerns. The best practice is to find a balance between tasks that can be completed using online resources and those that can be carried out by hand and then uploaded to the virtual classroom for assessment. Not only will parents be grateful for this dynamic approach, but students will also respond favorably to a more varied learning timetable.

Go easy on apps and resources

When it comes to individual discipline platforms and apps, we are spoiled for choice. If you search for interactive math tools alone, you are likely to find thousands of options. But simplicity is key, as many teachers have found, and subscribing to too many different platforms can be not only costly but also overwhelm students and parents, not to mention overcomplicating the job when it comes to monitoring progress and grading. It’s best to look for user-friendly generalist tools that are the most useful and engaging for students, and ideally select one per subject. 

Take advantage of the freebies

In our recent Education Publishers Rise to the Challenge of Lockdown Learning post, we explored how teachers and students now have free access to a plethora of new online resources, from e-textbooks to online courses, and lesson plans to digital learning hubs. So be sure to explore what is on offer and work out how you can creatively weave these resources into your current curriculum and plans. It would be a shame to miss out!

We are all learning as we go. Some teachers are embracing technology whole-heartedly, while others are taking a more cautious approach and using it in moderation. But, whether we like it or not, technology is very much at the forefront of learning during the time of COVID-19, and the pandemic will likely change our relationship with technology forever.

KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (formerly Cenveo Publisher Services) is the industry leader in editorial and production services for every stage of the content lifecycle. We are your source for intelligent automation, content creation, accessibility compliance, digital learning solutions and more. Email us at info@kwglobal.com.