Teaching and Learning News
Teaching and Learning News
I’ve been reflecting a lot this week about remote learning and how we can best support students to engage, learn and feel happy during these difficult times, which also includes what we can do to make things easier for families.
As you can imagine, there has been an explosion of research about effective remote learning strategies. Here’s a quick summary of some of the key points:
- 20% of students find it difficult to persist with tasks and/or engage in remote learning
- Compared to face-to-face teaching, online learning has been criticised as being less social, lacking the social presence and non-verbal cues that are imperative for effective learning
- Asynchronous online learning (where students are not interacting with a teacher or peers live online), in particular, is regarded as putting learners at greater disadvantage due to:
- physical separation
- lack of immediacy in communication
- text-based nature of the communication
- These perceived disadvantages can be overcome through the use of media-rich resources and strategies that support a strong (virtual) social presence
Our teachers have a lot in place to address these concerns, but this week, we will be participating in some professional learning to enhance our understanding and explore further strategies we can use to keep children motivated and learning, with a focus on the two areas mentioned above.
If you’re struggling to maintain the motivation in your household, the following tips might be helpful:
To motivate children and to release working parents from stress, parents can do the following 6 things.
- Manage our own stress. ...
- Let go of control on our kids. ...
- Encourage learning, not doing. ...
- Focus on relationship instead of homework. ...
- Be supportive and teach stress awareness. ...
- Provide a stress-free environment.
You can read more here if you’re interested: https://www.parentingforbrain.com/motivate-children-in-distance-learning/
And the short video on this site gives some simple ideas as well:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/keeping-kids-motivated-for-online-learning
I hope you have all settled into a routine that works for your household and I can’t wait until we can get the children back at school in person!
Stay safe
Annie Facchinetti
Teaching & Learning Leader, Literacy Leader