Audit as a school what different subjects | teachers already do? Use a protocol such as Gallery Walk and | or Market Place to collate current practice. Consider:

• Which online platforms do you use?
• Which online tools | technologies do you use? (e.g. padlet, zoom)? Refer to my page Educational Technology Tools for a curation of tools
• How and when do you use these tools: in class | homework | extended work?
• Who are our 'champions' within the staffroom who can support other staff? What training do we need as staff?

Curate a group of top tips based on your experience of using these tools - i.e. what guidance would you share with each other to ensure trhat you use these tools effectively?

Create your list of TOP TIPS to give to students when undertaking online learning at a distance. For example click HERE to find an example produced by the Open Polytechnic, Kuratini Tuwhera, NZ.

The courses

Courses are often made up of several elements:

• Modules | Units: This is where the content of the teaching is presented: made up of learning engagements and assessment assignments. In most modules there are supporting documents that are available for the student to download (from Resource Library).
• Discussion Forums: This is where you will post your responses to learning engagements and reflections.
• Completion Criteria: This is where you will know (from the outset) what you must do to complete the learning. It will contain key objectives and assessment criteria.

“Online learning is all about connecting with others and fostering the relationships we have with our students and colleagues. Whether you’re designing for students or adults, keep the relationships central. You can create strong, healthy communities online. This becomes vital when students and teachers feel isolated or disconnected.” (Global Online Academy)

“It should not be assumed that teachers (or students for that matter) automatically know how to communicate or behave online (Coghlan 2001). Many do not and require professional development or mentoring in the skills and techniques of facilitating.” (Effective Online Facilitation Australian Flexible Learning Quick Guide Series, 2003).

“The job of an online teacher is the job of an offline teacher is the job of a teacher. Connect to people and help them to feel connected to you and to the dimension of the world you are leading them to experience.” (Reshan Richards and Stephen Valentine, “A Letter to Educators Teaching Online for the First Time”)

• Make the virtual classroom use-friendly: Online learning platforms need to be user-friendly and interactive.
• Be present: Students need to know that you are present on the site, looking at their work and engaging with them. At least daily. But also establish expectations of when you want them to be present. Regular, thoughtful, daily presence shows the students that the teacher cares about who they are, cares about their questions and concerns, and is generally present for them to do the guiding, and challenging that teaching is all about.
• Identify clear learning and assessment objectives for lessons | pieces of work. Fight the urge to simply write these learning objectives at the top of the online page or course - instead, communicate your goals via a video, infographic or other multimedia tool. Links to material on other websites should be carefully considered in view of the quality of learning outcomes they support. Keep task instructions short, simple and clear. Use command terms where possible - and provide a glossary for each of the command terms. Students find it more difficult to read lengthy instructions. Here are two examples for Geography, (a) for AQA, and (b) IB geography command terms.

• Create a supportive online course community: Vygotsky's theories remind us of how much we learn as social beings within a social context. When you have students in front of you it is easier to make connections. Online it can be trickier, and teachers need to work in a slightly different way. It may be worth thinking of the three dialogues of teacher to learner | learner to learner |and learner to resource.
  The teacher to learner dialogue can be accomplished by short mini introductions to the work, video podcasts, one or two announcements during the week and then interactions with the students’ work (posts | discussions in forums).
  Encouraging the learner to learner dialogue through introductions (e.g. activators, provocations, reflections) | use discussion forums (or coffee shop space) for students to post requests for help and advice on how to approach the work – it is a space where students can give advice to each other, brainstorm ideas and support one another | creating group tasks and student teams – as opposed to individual student tasks - so that students can work together on completing a task

"You will not get through all the content you might in an on-campus environment. At first, this will feel like a loss, but you will see that this acknowledgement will open up exciting possibilities for what you ask of your students. Online learning is not about replication of what you are doing in on-campus settings. Rather, there is an opportunity to reimagine learning in new spaces. Educators may need support in learning how to teach online."(Global Online Academy)

• Set clear expectations around communication and time: make it really clear how you expect students to communicate with you and other students.For example, whilst emails remain a good channel for individual pastoral support questions and advice they are not helpful for communicating on the assignment. Be clear as to how much effort and time will be required on a weekly basis keeps surprises to a minimum. Be clear when you will be available to respond e.g. by live classroom, e-mail, or phone, particularly when students are likely to be working on an important assignment. This is an example of clear rules by Corpus Cristi College, Perth, Australia:
   

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• Use a variety of individual, small group and large group work experiences. Build in opportunities for students to work both individually and in groups. Ensure differentiation of work set to meet the varied needs of students.

“To start, ask yourself, “What low barrier to entry thing can I have my students do this first week?” Maybe you want to start by just having them engage in a discussion in a Blackboard discussion board. Give them a prompt or two and have them write and chat with each other. Maybe that’s enough at the outset. Get them started without much pain.” (Jonathan Becker, Preparing for just-in-time remote teaching / learning)

• Design your page - curate information: Think ‘how might the look and feel of a page invite student to interact with it?’ Elements such as images, graphs, videos, hyperlinks, and negative space can create a smooth, intuitive experience for your students. Make sure there are items for students to read, watch, and listen to. Let students pick and choose. Less is more. (There are two great blogs HERE & HERE about curating and designing pages).

• Use bullet points rather than lengthy instructional narratives. Add hyperlinks to instructional words | key resources (note, do not give URL since they can be messy) e.g. please find the LINK HERE to the resource ... Chunk the learning: think in terms of small self-contained learning engagements linked to clearly identified resources. This helps reduce the burden on cognitive load.

• Use both real time (synchronous: same time, different places) and static (asynchronous: different time, different places) activities. "There are two kinds of online learning and teaching that schools will need to balance based on their circumstances: synchronous (happening collaboratively and at the same time with a group of online learners and usually a teacher) and asynchronous (happening at any time, not necessarily in a group, but with teacher feedback). Schools should not assume that synchronous teaching is required or even desirable in order to support effective learning. The goal is not to try to re-create face-to-face (F2F) classrooms, which is impossible to do. Online and blended learning provide opportunities for learners to work more independently, expand their agency, and learn to use tools and strategies that they otherwise might not have." (IB: Online learning, teaching and education, 2020) 

Real-time (synchronous) activities are possible using web tools and smartphones (e.g. chat, video messaging). This makes it possible to do almost everything that we do in face-to-face classrooms. Static (asynchronous) activities enable students to work at their own pace – think, plan, write and reflect. The variety of activities now possible online makes it easy to create many types of effective learning environments.  

“I always send my students some activities to print in advance so they’re not looking at the screen for the whole lesson.” (Viral)

Zach and Stephanie Groshell, The unproductive debate on synchronous vs asynchronous learning. Quoting Transactional distance theory (TDT, Moore, 1996) they suggest that in online learning higher learning outcomes are achieved by reducing the psychological space between participants and instructors through pedagogy. Teachers can do this by using the discussion and collaborative tools in their learning management system to increase dialogue and interaction. “Teachers should update their profile pictures, post video greetings, and stimulate dialogue between students through the use of written, audio, and video comments.” Research would also suggest that “courses with high structure and high dialogue (+D+S) tend to be the most effective in reducing transactional distance”.

• Embed videos, links, documents on a page because clinking on multiple links can become confusing.

• Consider infusing project-based learning activities to provide opportunities for students to consider their interests, delve into their passions, and respond to real-world challenges.

• Ask for feedback about how the learning is going. Different students will have different experiences, depending on their preferred learning style, which may not be the same as in the face-to-face classroom. It is important that the teacher checks in on this by asking such questions as: What's working thus far? | How could your learning experience be improved? | What do you want or need help with? | What are the top three to three understandings you have learned thus far?  Make sure you provide ways for students to reflect on their learning. This graphic was created by the Western Academy Beijing.
  
  

• Prepare discussion posts that invite responses, questions and reflections. This is one of the main differences between face-to-face classrooms and virtual classrooms – the ability to make thinking visible by encouraging students to engage in online discussions and forums. The main difference between classroom discussions and virtual classroom discussions is that (a) they are asynchronous, which means that students have time to think and reflect on the views of other students before they post their views. Furthermore, these posts and reflections are captured as part of the learning story | journey. Here are some tips: use open-ended questions that learners can explore and apply the concepts that they are learning |model Socratic-type probing and follow-up questions. "Why do you think that?" "What is your reasoning?" "Is there an alternative strategy?"| Ask clarifying questions that encourage students to think about what they know and don't know | don't post questions soliciting basic facts or questions for which there is an obvious yes-or-no response - he reason for this is obvious: once one student responds, there is not much more to say.

• "Assessments look different online. Instead of having students take a test or a quiz (although those can be used effectively as formative assessments and check-ins), have students demonstrate their learning in a way that requires real application of the material. Teachers will need to create new ways to summatively assess learning through culminating projects, peer-to-peer feedback, and teacher feedback." (Global Online Academy)

• Student support: "Inevitably, there will be some hiccups when it comes to online learning. Students may struggle to adapt to the environment, fall behind in their work, or even stop communicating. At other points, there might be confusion with directions or navigation. With regards to student support, it’s important to have a plan for proactive support (How can I anticipate needs?) and reactive support (How might I have to respond in a given situation?).” (GOA Online Academy)

• Conclusions and summaries: consider how you are going to bring the unit of work | module to a conclusion. It is a good opportunity for you to ask students to provide a summary or presentation of key learning points (in addition to providing your own summary).

• Standardize, templatize, systematize. Create a template course shell that all faculty members will use to structure their online courses. Then make sure all the syllabi, course materials and links that students need can be found in the same, logically organized location within the course shell.

Online learning is not just about how to use a computer and access the internet. It requires a different approach to teaching and learning.

5 stages of online learning

Gilly Salmon’s ‘5 stage model’ describes five stages that online learners need to go through to feel fully supported in their learning. This model provides a framework for teachers to design online learning experiences. The five stages are:

Stage 1: Access and Motivation: it is important for the teacher | facilitator to welcome students into the learning space and to motivate and encourage them.

Stage 2: Online Socialization: the teacher needs to create a learning community by providing activities which mean that students interact with each other online – e.g. share their thoughts on a topic. This is like an activator or provocation in a face to face lesson.

Stage 3: Information Exchange: this is where the teacher teaches (e.g. through podcasts | videos and signposting resources to read).

Stage 4: Knowledge Construction: students engage with the learning engagements | assignments. The teacher acts as a facilitator, prompting reflections, answering questions that arise.

Stage 5: Development:students apply the learning to their own situation throughsummative, analytical and reflective activities.

Doug Lemov, Mastering remote learning: Intro – Two types of Learning,18 March 2020. This is a helpful introduction to synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Jennifer Gonzalez, Distance learning: a gently curated collection of resources for teachers, 30 March 2020: this is a good introduction to distance / online learning.

A free Open University course on moving to teaching online.

Professor Gilly Salmon has a very helpful website containing many ideas, including e-tivities - online activities and frameworks.

Global Online Academy is a great website for advice. See: 15 Strategies for Online Learning When School is Closed, 6 February 2020 | 10 Strategies for Leading Online When School is Closed, 4 March 2020.

Teaching and learning online poses its own distinct safeguarding issues. You may find these resources helpful in revising your policies and providing guidance to teachers and students.

This is a very helpful guide from SWGFL on safe remote learning

Covid-19 advice for school Leaders: Pt6 - Home-Learning Paperwork, Mark Steed, March 25, 2020

Safer Internet Centre article on safe remote learning during the COVID-19 outbreak

LendEd (by BESA)’s tips on home learning include some important questions to consider when adopting new technology tools

Safe Remote Learning, SWGfL. A help website providing guidance on how to keep safe online.