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I blog on Brain-Based Learning, Metacognition, EdTech, and Social-Emotional Learning. I am the author of the Crush School Series of Books, which help students understand how their brains process information and learn. I also wrote The Power of Three: How to Simplify Your Life to Amplify Your Personal and Professional Success, but be warned that it's meant for adults who want to thrive and are comfortable with four letter words.

Easing Into Distance Learning - The First 2 Lessons

March 27, 2020  /  Oskar Cymerman

Easing Into Distance Learning For Teachers
“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.”
— Etty Hillesum

This is my fourth post on Distance Learning. You can check out the other three by searching for “Distance Learning” in the search bar on the right. All posts are intended to help make the transition from traditional to completely-online learning easier. Please use the comment section at the bottom to share helpful ideas, tools, and techniques you use.

Monday’s the day hundreds of thousands of Minnesota students are coming back to school. They’re not walking the sidewalks, riding their bikes, getting off buses, nor parking their cars in their usual lot spots. They’re coming and staying at a distance all at the same time - learning from a distance as their teachers teach through screens and empty buildings are replaced by busy minds but hopefully not lagging Internet connections. Starting is hard so start easy. Easy does it.

Easing Into It

At first, I was “just gonna dive into it” like the novel coronavirus-caused hiatus never happened. But then someone smarter helped me see the light.

The images of the first two lessons are below. Click on each hyperdoc image if you’d like to copy it into your Google drive and edit for your purposes.

The First Lesson

The First Distance Learning Lesson

The First Distance Learning Lesson

I decided to use day 1 as a chance to do three things.

First, I wanted to help my students and their parents better understand how learning from home will look like. The “How This Distance Learning Thing Will Work” document is a Google doc that contains a list of most important routines, things to know, and how school-home communication will happen.

Second, I wanted to show and practice “doing” attendance. For each day, I created (and will create for all future online learning days) a Schoology assignment that allows student submissions I call the “Daily Attendance Bell Ringer.” For clarity, I will be using the Day, Date, Name format. Thus the first one is named “Monday 3/30 Attendance Bell Ringer.” You can set up something similar in other LMS platforms such as Google Classroom, Blackboard, or Moodle.

Third, I wanted to reach out to and keep in touch with my students so I created a discussion for each class which allows me to see how everyone is doing and provides an additional way to communicate. The nice thing is that I get an email every time a student posts a question or a comment to the discussion so I can respond quickly.

The Second Lesson

My Second Distance Learning Lesson

My Second Distance Learning Lesson

Day 2 gives another chance to reinforce the attendance procedure and an introduction to the three online apps we’ll predominantly use: Flipgrid, Adobe Spark, and Piktochart. I also plan on using Pear Deck, EdPuzzle, and a few other tools but I think three hit the getting started sweet spot.

The rest can be introduced individually during content lessons. Chances are though that you’ve already used most of the tools you plan on using during distance learning in your classroom so they are not completely strange to your students. It is important to note however that first introducing and then scaffolding the totally new tools will lead to fewer hiccups and less frequent headaches. But sometimes you just gotta to rough it.

The Benefits of Starting Slow

  1. Less stress for teachers and students as everyone is given additional time to get used to the new normal before the impending doom of summative work.

  2. Teachers who teach 2 or more courses can use the same lesson plans for the first few days for each class.

  3. Fewer “How do I…” or “Where can I…” questions and a smoother transition to distance learning as routines are established first.

  4. Being a human being?

Key Points

  1. Take at least 2 days to ease into high school distance learning and perhaps longer if students are younger.

  2. Establish and practice procedures and routines and keep some constancy.

  3. Do everything you can to reduce the stress and keep breathing normally.

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Hi! I'm Oskar.          I teach, write, and speak to make learning better.

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