What have you learnt?
In 2020, schools across the world briskly adopted new learning approaches, technologies and platforms to contend with dramatic and unanticipated change. Teachers had to abruptly consider how to navigate engagement and relationships with students that were suddenly distant and anxious. They confronted a changing work environment that was both difficult to predict and that presented repeated unanticipated challenges.
Changes were made in schools over a few days that previously might have been considered and implemented over years. It was exhausting, sometimes confronting and amongst the sometimes spectacular failures and unanticipated successes many teachers’ encountered new ways to work. Some of those success stories were revelatory.
Teachers uncovered unanticipated benefits of remote learning, or embraced the opportunities offered through the use of digital tools they hadn’t encountered before. They learnt to engage online in spaces that perhaps had been something more peripheral to their practice in the past.
As teachers slowly returned to the classrooms this year, some with an eye on what they have transitioned through, some in a rush to recover familiar ground, it’s crucial that we reflect properly on what has transpired.
The default for many of us when confronted by unanticipated change can be to return to our default values and approaches. We are more secure in working within the bounds of what we know already, more comfortable in territory we’ve traversed before. We know the lay of the land, we have muscle memory to rest on and it can feel like a relief to reflexively settle into old routines.
Reflecting on what worked and why, and where we did not find success and why could not be more timely. Not just to consider more carefully what we might take back into the classroom with us that we’ve learnt over a long stretch of remote learning, but to grieve. Grieve for what we’ve lost during a long period of uncertainty, but also to ensure we are clear about what we may lose in returning to what we did before.
The new rituals we found ourselves in over the last two years, even if we found them particularly challenging, also hold opportunities. In the pandemic we uncovered new ways of working, new ways of thinking about how we learn together. If we take the time to unpick our experiences, to shine a light on what we encountered we’re also going to feel less resentful of the experience, and less grief about what we might have lost during that time.
To support this process, I’ve developed a template for schools to guide reflection. It’s intended as a resource that can be used independently by teachers, but ideally it should be employed a guide to discussion within teaching teams.
I’d strongly encourage you to take the time to pursue considered reflection on the change we were faced with and what we learnt as a result.
- You could work through the questions below in one sitting, however I’d suggest that each of these sections is a significant conversation. My advice is to present each part as a spur for reflection over a period of five to six weeks.
- Each feature of a plan for change, when omitted, can result in an outcome that can point us toward where we might improve. A lack of skills can cause anxiety, a lack of resources can result in frustration etc. Use the points below as a prompt when considering where you may have been challenged, to identify what type of response you received and to consider what it might point to.
A lack of a clear vision for change can result in confusion
A lack of needful skills can result in anxiety
A lack of incentives for change can result in resistance.
A lack of needful resources can result in frustration
A lack of a clear plan can result in a sense of stagnation
- We know as teachers, that we are more effective in improving student outcomes when we closely analyse our practice through reflection. At the conclusion of the questions, I’d recommend each team identifies an area of practice they can pursue as a PLC (Professional Learning Community) through iterative analysis.
Teaching and Learning
· Evaluating impact is crucial to successful student outcomes.
Where did you encounter success in the measurement of your impact on learning?
What new approaches might be brought back to the classroom?
· Building practice
What development opportunities presented themselves both formal and informal?
Were you able to participate in observation of practice during this time?
· Planning
How was planning approached differently at your school?
Was your remote planning more or less effective overall?
Think of a time when your planning was particularly effective working remotely. What was it that made it particularly successful?
· Assessment
Consider the assessment methods below and identify one in which you adopted a new approach during remote learning. What made it particularly effective or ineffective and why?
Formative assessment
Interim assessment
Summative assessment
· Strategies
Did you employ new pedagogical approaches during remote learning?
What methods were most successful?
How did you measure the success of those approaches?
What strategies worked well in remote learning, that you have not considered in your return to the classroom?
Building a successful climate for learning
STRONG positive relationships between students and the adults around them are at the heart of their attainment of successful learning engagement and wellbeing. Relationships sit at the heart of everything we do as teachers. The following discussion points prompt reflection on the things that flow from and through those relationships. School pride, empowerment and inclusion make a school.
· School pride
How did you build and support school pride in your school / classroom?
What were the incentives you introduced to develop school pride?
What was the key ingredient in your planning that made the difference?
What was different about the ways you encountered school pride when you were remote?
How did you use the digital tools you employed to build positive student associations with their school?
Did these approaches reach students that may not have been previously engaged?
How did you measure school pride differently in your students during remote learning? What were the measures of success?
· Empowerment
How did you support students to build their capacity to contribute?
What did you do differently to celebrate students?
What was a small thing you noticed?
What was a large thing you noticed?
What did students find most challenged their involvement in programs?
What successes did you find in supporting them with these challenges?
What did you do that inspired hope?
Which student responses during remote learning had a significant impact upon your teaching? How did they differ from your previous classroom experiences?
Where did you encounter resistance and how did you respond?
Where did you encounter confusion and how did you respond?
Where did you encounter frustration and how did you respond?
What strategies did you employ that found success that could be employed in your face to face classroom?
· Inclusion
What new vulnerabilities did you encounter during the pandemic
In peers
In students
Think of an example of where you responded to those vulnerabilities with success. What was the key consideration in finding that success, the thing that made you LOOK!?
Did your views around attendance change?
Did your notions of achievement change?
Did your views on access learning and participation change?
What technologies did you employ to better facilitate inclusion? Were they successful or effective?
Think of an example of a student that you found challenging to teach during remote learning due to their inclusion needs:
What were the main constraints?
Determine the options you considered for each challenge.
What were the outcomes of those approaches and why?
What was successful and why?
Community development
Sometimes we become confused by the notion of community, their community, our community that community over there. School communities? Student communities?
Viewing our teachers, our students, our parents, our local businesses, our critics and friends, as one community, helps a great deal to recognise how to build from equity and solidarity. It’s not us and them, it’s just us.
The following questions are intended to prompt you to consider how your community thrived and struggled, climbed hurdles or fell flat. Sometimes extreme experiences can reveal things about who we are that we hadn’t anticipated …
· Community partners
Did you feel that your school community grew closer because of the challenges you faced and why?
Who amongst your parents felt challenged by the new learning approach?
Consider the change model provided earlier, and the frustrations you observed during remote delivery. What aspect of the change do you think they were most challenged by and why?
What opportunity was unanticipated in strengthening connections with your community?
Who in your community surprised you by their resilience to the challenges they faced and the support they offered?
· Networks broader than the school
Did you form new connections within your community during the pandemic?
What helped build those relationships when you were separated by distance or lockdowns?
What digital tools aided stronger connections? Was anyone left out?
What opportunities rose up through the community for your school?
Which voices rose up in your classroom in ways that were unanticipated?
Which voices fell silent in your classroom that you had not expected?
What did this tell you about the needs of your students and their community?
Digital tools
One of the biggest challenges some schools faced at the start of remote learning was the choice of which new platforms or digital resources they would need in the new working reality. Digital tools that would it was hoped, reduce the tyranny of distance, build new opportunities to collaborate and provide platforms for new learning networks.
Some chose to be Google schools or Microsoft schools or were already aligned with platforms such as these and began to lean more stridently on them. Others elected to grow learning ecosystems that were more eclectic and catered to a range of specific needs.
Some of these experiments failed in spectacular fashion, while even worse, others failed quietly. Picking digital platforms and tools that will engage and not impede the learning can be challenging.
Digital tools change just like every other resource we work with must be viewed through the lens of an iterative process of reflection on their purpose, continued benefit.
Which digital tools:
Did you introduce during the period of remote learning?
Were you using pre-pandemic, that you found either continued to be fit for purpose or were found wanting?
Better facilitated assessment?
Improved communication in your school?
Did your community draw on to connect?
Were employed by students in spite of the opportunities you provided!
Made your learning more inclusive?
Emboldened students and improved participation?
Did you find you rested on most heavily in delivering remote learning?
What made them a better choice?
Thinking about the digital tools you used, consider the following prompts with regard to their use?
Was there confusion or frustration evident in student use?
Did the tools have a clean design, free from distraction?
Could you master the basics quickly and without instruction?
Were the digital tools aligned with a clear purpose?
Was that purpose suited to the type of interaction you were striving for with students?
Did the digital tools you used allow for good cross contextual use? That is, did they play well together, were you able to use them interchangeably with little effort?
Did you encounter login frustrations or account constraints that caused frustration?
Considering the points above, which tools embodied the best of the points above, and found to be a pleasure to use with your students and what were the features common to your success with these tools?
Finding an area of focus for an inquiry
We know that the work we do in reflecting in professional practice teams on an aspect of our teaching has a significant impact on student outcomes. In this last section, I’d encourage you to identify an area of practice you observed as successful during remote learning. Choose something that was new to you, that you may not yet have brought back into your classroom now that you’ve returned to face to face teaching.
Create a question around your new use of that approach in your classroom.
Consider how you will determine success in its implementation.
Determine how you might gather data to gauge its effective use.
Set a period of reflection.