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Great to see the @VicUniWgtn report, 'We’re online...... New Zealand senior secondary school
students’ experience of learning online during the first
Covid-19 closure of schools.' being released by @AnneSYates, @LouiseStarkeyNZ , @ben_egerton and Florian Flueggen 1/
students’ experience of learning online during the first
Covid-19 closure of schools.' being released by @AnneSYates, @LouiseStarkeyNZ , @ben_egerton and Florian Flueggen 1/
Having contributed student voice to the report, we at Wainuiomata High School were appreciative of the Wainui specific report that was released alongside the main report. 2/
I think it is worthwhile explaining our approach and some lessons we have learnt through the lockdown, and our conversations with family/whanau, and students. 3/
Advantages of a ready teaching staff: WHS was incredibly fortunate to have gained considerable centrally funded professional development from @EducationGovtNZ. The excellent @craigrenderPE, and @jonicolnz led this. 4/
Our focus with this PD was to raise staff fluency in e-learning tools that increase student agency, digital fluency, and help us step away from lecture based pedagogy 5/
Four years of good, hard slog meant that our staff were already fairly knowledgeable in how to use @MicrosoftTeams to share, collaborate, administrate and more 6/
Some staff had chosen PD in @OneNoteEDU and were able to use Class Notebook to give feedback, manage formative and summative assessment, and deliver meaningful lessons using co-construction and small group tasks /7
But back to lockdown. How did we react to lockdown? We didn't. Myself and a small team of teachers had been talking about Covid19 and what was happening overseas for a few weeks before lockdown. NZ is a major holiday destination and we have a travel bug that can't be tamed. /8
So we knew Covid19 would hit and it would hit soon. Two weeks before Lockdown was announced on the 23rd March, we had discussions about how to run a trial of distance learning to ensure staff and students were ready. This level of pro-activity and autonomy is the NZ way 9/
I consulted the Principal and she agreed, a trial was a good idea. Quickly I wrote a protocol, pulling in ideas and knowledge from the school community. Key questions cropped up: synchronous or asynchronous learning? expectations of time and availability? Teacher home lives? 10/
The end result was a two page document outlining the principles by which we would operate which boiled down to three principles: 1) Connection is the primary need, 2) asynchronous learning tasks were preferred, 3) Keep instruction to around 3x 20 minutes per course per week. 11/
By connection I mean that the emotional and morale needs of our students needed to have priority over assessment or any other objective. Unhappy, disconnected students don't learn well. 12/
We were preparing to run the trial on Thursday 26 and Friday 27 of March, with the Wednesday put aside as a Teacher only day to prepare trial learning activities. 13/
Instead of this, as we all remember, the lockdown was announced on the 23rd and went into effect on the 25th. But even though our trial would never run, the staff were as prepared as they could have been given the situation. 14/
So what did we learn from our time teaching and learning during lockdown? Well, we were wrong, and we were right. Connection was the most important factor. Asynchronous learning allowed for us to set tasks that students could do when their lives allowed 15/
Our students are often the sons and daughters of essential workers, with brothers and sisters they are responsible for. To force them into our schedule, while they were acting so responsibly and helping their bubble-mates would have been unconscionable. 16/
What I got wrong that others got right: While I knew connection would be a huge concern for our kids I was initially concerned that synchronous Zoom sessions would be point less to the students. Too long, too drawn out, too one sided. 17/
But the beauty of Zoom and synchronicity is that the teacher can step back and encourage connections between students. Between members of the community. 18/
Some of our staff nailed this. Creating moments for students to express themselves, their fears, their struggles, their needs, their successes, their joy. Making games for kids to compete with each other and draw kids back out of lockdown shells. 19/
On this side of lockdown we are still dealing with the negative impacts of lower student progress, and there are students who will need significant extra help to get them across the assessment gain line and achieve. 20/
But the return to school, and the collective effort to show manaakitanga, share what we have, be human with our students, and engage kanohi ki te kanohi has the potential to reframe how we do school. An increased focus on equity and the structural issues in Ed is necessary 21/
Anyway, I hope all of this makes sense. We are all, as a society, still tired in our bones, and it is tough at the moment to be on top of our respective games. Arohanui and a special thank you to the researchers and students who gifted us with their thoughts and perspectives. END
