FROM EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING TO QUALITY ONLINE LEARNING Christine Voelker

CROSSING THE BRIDGE FROM EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING TO QUALITY ONLINE LEARNING

By Christine Voelker

You are AMAZING. When asked, you stepped up and made the quick shift to remote learning. Think about your biggest accomplishment during this time. If you cited BASIC SURVIVAL, you are not alone. That accomplishment alone is worth celebrating.

MEETING THE CHALLENGE

When you first heard about the move to remote teaching, you may have felt a little excitement over the challenge it would bring. Like the beginning of the school year, there was anticipation. However, for many, that feeling quickly dissipated as reality set in. Teaching well, in what to many was a new type of classroom, felt different and unfamiliar. And it wasn’t easy. Honestly, it was unsettling — going from feeling comfortable one minute to uncomfortable the next. And it was all caused by a situation that was out of your control.

Despite the challenge, you did the best you could with the constraints you had. But for many, the magic wasn’t there. Why? Because online classes are not the same as face-to-face classes. Teaching online also isn’t the same.

What happened this spring, though, wasn’t online learning. It was emergency remote instruction or pandemic pedagogy. But there is good news. You can take what you learned this spring — both the good and the bad — and build on that. You can move forward to success and cross the bridge to quality online learning.

Start with Remote Success — develop what worked well and incorporate lessons learned

Focus on Foundational Design — improve and ensure alignment

Elevate Engagement — design presence, interaction and engagement into your course

Incorporate Online Policies and Practices — include unique considerations for online learning

Many of you are familiar with QM’s Emergency Remote Instruction Checklist (ERIC). The checklist — along with the K-12 Companion for IEP & 504 Plans — was designed to aid schools and teachers with moving classroom-based courses to temporary remote instruction.

The checklists provide actionable tips and strategies to address critical issues, including preparing your new learning environment, guiding students in their learning and teaching effectively. But the checklist is just a starting point. More work needs to be done to create quality online learning experiences that encourage engagement and support student success.

With uncertainty hanging over the 2020-21 school year, now is the time to improve on what you did this spring and create an online learning experience that will support you and your students. It’s time to think about the design of your class.

The biggest mistake many teachers make is simply migrating their materials online. It’s an understandable instinct, but we can’t expect this to result in the same type of quality learning experience we have in a face-to-face setting. Besides, working out the class design before the class starts frees you up to focus on teaching once the class begins.

FOCUS ON FOUNDATIONAL DESIGN

Just like designing a home, you want your class to have a strong base. That means creating actionable, measurable learning objectives that are supported by the course’s assessments, activities, materials, and technology. This concept is known as alignment.

Alignment occurs when all of the critical course elements work together to ensure that learners meet your desired learning outcomes. It’s a primary component of the Backwards Design model. 1. Begin with the end in mind. What are the desired results? Those are your course learning objectives or outcomes.

2. Look at your formative and summative assessments. Each one should have a connection to one or more of your course learning objectives.

3. Move on to your learning activities and instructional materials — what learners will do and use during the course to learn concepts and develop new neural pathways. They’re also the primary way that we engage students through interaction and application.

4. Examine the technology you will use. How does it support the learning objectives?

We know that alignment is not a new idea, but it is a foundational one. And while it is easy to understand, it can be difficult to achieve. But it’s important. Without alignment, students may spend their time doing busy work — interacting with material that we never ask them to apply, or completing an assignment that only allows them to partially show evidence of their learning.

ELEVATE ENGAGEMENT

Once alignment is in place and all of your course components are working together to support learner success, you need to think about engagement. Engaged learners feel a sense of belonging and are active participants in the online learning community. Engaging students, though, can be difficult and is really dependent on your course design. The activities, content and technology you choose help elevate engagement in your course.

Interaction is one way to really elevate engagement. At QM, we talk about interaction

SUPPORTING EXCELLENCE

The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy is an internationally-recognized center generating research-based education policy. We analyze the impact of educational interventions, provide evidence-based counsel, create tools to evaluate curriculum and school culture, and support district, charter, and private school networks across the country. We are non-partisan, sector-agnostic, and evidence-based.

THE INSTITUTE PROVIDES: • Research and policy recommendations to national membership organizations, including Chiefs for Change, the CCSSO, the Alliance for Excellent Education, and the National Council for Private

School Accreditation • Program evaluations, measuring the impact of high-quality materials on student learning • Research partnerships with several dozen state and local chiefs to support: • Deep and intellectually challenging curricula - through our Knowledge Maps™ in English • Highly effective instruction – our teacher survey on materials creates a full picture of language arts and social studies that what teachers know about standards, their measure content build and text quality use of curricula, and their satisfaction level • Strong school cultures – with our comprehensive School Culture 360™ - a full analysis of the conditions that we know • with materials School models that meet families' unique needs support student success • Content-rich assessments LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR WORK

A strong school culture, understood as the underlying ethical claims and habitual practices of a school, is linked to numerous positive academic and civic outcomes – from short-term assessment performance to long-term civic engagement and educational attainment.

The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy has designed a best-in-class survey that identifies the alignment of a school’s mission with its practices and determines whether a school’s enactment of practices correspond to those we know support academic achievement and civic formation. In elementary schools, administrators, teachers, and parents undertake the survey; in secondary schools, students also participate.

Because COVID-19 necessitated an immediate migration to at-home learning, the Institute designed a related survey for the remote-learning context.

THE SCHOOL CULTURE 360™ SURVEY EXPLORES:

Academic emphasis and academic excellence

Whole-student development (including practices associated with strong citizenship formation)

Organizational coherence (the mission and practices align)

Sense of belonging (communality)

Trust and support among adults across the school community

SCHOOL CULTURE 360™ WEBINAR

Dr. Ashley Berner and Dr. David Steiner join Ms. Lisa French, Director of Student Engagement and Success in the Office of Academic Content at the Louisiana Department of Education, and Dr. Eric Watts, Director of Instruction and Student Achievement for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, to discuss school culture: its key components, its role in educational outcomes, and its use as an analytical framework for assessment.

WATCH IT HERE

as happening in three different ways:

• Students interacting with one another • Students interacting with course materials • Your interaction as the teacher with students

Online, your plan for interacting with students is something that needs to be considered and incorporated into your design. Consider the following.

MAXIMIZE YOUR PRESENCE

Many online learning designers use the Community of Inquiry framework, which provides a framework for how the educational experience happens online through interaction and engagement. It’s the intersection of teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence. Presence is something that must be purposefully designed into an online course in thoughtful ways. The three types of presence correspond to the three types of interaction: Teaching Presence begins with design and extends through delivery. Design includes the selection, the organization and the primary presentation of course content, as well as the design and development of learning activities and assessments. So, when your students enter your online course on day one, they already have a very strong sense of who you are as an instructor and what they will learn because you have organized the material into a learning path with logical and efficient navigation. And, since the design is done, you can focus your time during the course on interacting with and guiding students via feedback, check ins, office hours, announcements, and more.

Social Presence is crucial for your students. It’s what allows them to feel like they are a part of a learning community rather than simply a participant in a remote class. Your design choices can really heighten interaction and presence by focusing on quality interaction between peers early on so that they can develop the trust and rapport necessary to

develop that sense of community.

Your presence is really a catalyst here. Online, you can’t see a class of confused faces that tell you to circle back and provide more explanations or examples for a topic. It’s vital that students have low-stakes opportunities to check their learning progress. These should be appropriately timed and sequenced so that students can use your feedback to improve future performance.

Cognitive Presence focuses on quality cognitive engagement. Consider sparking that intellectual curiosity from day one by introducing learning units with, for example, essential questions (backward design). Model learning behavior. Encourage students to share insights, make connections, analyze concepts, and reflect on their knowledge gains.

This is also a great time to explore new opportunities unique to the online environment. For example, LMSs have private reflective journals, allowing students to check their knowledge gains, while providing a way for you to connect with your students on a different level. You might also consider using online discussions, synchronous tools for things like upcoming assignment introductions and screencasts to talk through your grading process. But don’t forget to account for the time it will take students to learn a new technology. Lessen the cognitive load by using common or low-tech options instead. That way students can spend their time applying their new knowledge via activities and assessments instead of learning a new technology and tool.

ONLINE POLICIES AND PRACTICES

With a shift to online also comes a shift in thinking about topics such as accessibility, technology access and skills, student privacy, participation and/or attendance. Some policies may need to be changed or even created. For example, do you have to develop guidelines around how students need to be present online and how often students need to log into the course? You can support compliance by designing smaller formative assessments during the week and a more summative assessment due on Monday so your students have the weekend. Your design then encourages your students to log in early and complete that first activity.

You’ve likely also had to consider student data and policy concerns, accessibility needs of students, copyright issues for materials, and technical support. It’s important to include information on these topics so students know what to expect and where to turn for assistance — just another way of creating a quality online learning environment that sets students up for success.

YOU’RE NOT ALONE ON THIS JOURNEY

Connect with your supervisors and content specialists in your district. They are there to help you! Quality Matters is here to help as well. Use the “Bridge to Quality: A QM Online Course Design Guide” — a step-by-step approach to completing the hands-on, iterative work that is central to creating a quality course.

Christine Voelker is Quality Matter’s K-12 Program Director. She brings over 20 years of K-12 education experience to the position, including expertise in distance learning, library media, instructional technology, and professional development. She has an advanced certificate in Administration and Supervision and a Master's in Library and Information Science. Connect with Christine on Twitter: @voelkerc.

GIVING KIDS FREEDOM TO DEVELOP FUTURE-PROOF SKILLS

Q&A with Andrea Keith, Vice President of School Programs for Let Grow

Let Grow supports social-emotional learning through a unique approach. What differentiates your approach to SEL?

Our programs are designed to provide opportunities for indirectly building and practicing SEL in real life by recreating the unstructured, unsupervised free time and drive for independence that childhood has largely lost. Our approach, whether in the traditional classroom or in a distance learning setting, changes the expectation that constant supervision is expected or required. When children engage with our programs, they establish independence, and parents get a better picture of how well their child can do things for him/herself. Students practice goal setting and self-motivation, naturally discover new interests and opportunities for success, and develop confidence and resilience.

What are some of the ways Let Grow supports educational equity?

For students with varying backgrounds and home situations, our programs are flexible and build independence within whatever parameters make sense for each unique family and the community they live in. They are based on giving children some freedom and trust so they can grow which can happen in any language, environment, and income bracket.

Another important factor with respect to equity, is how do we ensure teachers have the capacity to give students their best? Incorporating Let Grow programs reduces teacher stress, eliminating many time-consuming concerns and providing more time for planning and instruction. It maximizes time for school cleaning, an essential concern during re-entry this year, and also serves more students safely with limited time and space on campus.

In short, what are the specific programs you have available for schools?

We currently have three programs for schools, each of which is simple to implement and completely free: • The Independent Classroom Kit puts classroom management in the hands of the students, even the youngest learners, with fun resources for in-school or at-home.

• The Let Grow Project has been used around the country as a simple way to encourage kids to become more independent and parents to let them do more things on their own. • Let Grow Play Club provides mixed-age unstructured free play without adult intervention. It decreases teacher and student stress and increases students’ socialization, supporting successful school re-entry.

Learn more about Let Grow’s school programs that help kids become more capable, confident, and resilient: Letgrow.org/schools.

BRINGING EDUCATION EQUITY TO THE UNDERSERVED AND DISENFRANCHISED A Q&A with Thom Jackson, President and CEO of EdisonLearning

Thom Jackson is President and Chief Executive Officer of EdisonLearning, one of the largest, vertically integrated K-12 educational services providers in the country. EdisonLearning has nearly a generation of experience creating effective and sustainable solutions to raise student achievement. Thom is among the small segment of unique business leaders who can build relationships, trust, and rapport – that, in turn, result in solid partnerships and alliances. This quality was best exemplified when in 2014, he brokered the acquisition of EdisonLearning and directed the company's restructuring.

Thom's leadership has deepened the company's focus on growth and "Operational Excellence," ensuring that the domestic field operations are implemented with fidelity to the company's proprietary Academy Development Rubric™, Achievement Framework™ and Intentional Pathway to Commendable™ tools. He successfully retooled the company's enrollment function implementing an effective and efficient account management model, coherent communications, and social media strategy, all strengthening the company's strategic alliances.

What is the brief history of EdisonLearning, and what schools and students do you serve?

Historically, EdisonLearning has worked with many of the toughest and most commonly disenfranchised districts, and we have not shied away from our responsibility to make a difference in these schools. Our typical student in our alternative education academies is one that has, for a variety of reasons, been failed by the traditional system. For those that need an alternative path to a high school diploma, college entry, or a career path, we go where others will not. We take our responsibility seriously and ensure that we don’t lower the bar for ourselves or our students while providing equal access to high-quality education. Much of what we do involves managing charter schools, giving alternative paths to graduation, or delivering innovative online learning, but what it’s really about is being real about educational equity - helping students get out of poverty and on a track to achieving their dreams and living their best lives.

Many companies talk a lot about equity, but aren’t necessarily taking action. What sets you apart from the “talkers” and demonstrates how you make a difference?

We are unique in that we are directly serving the disenfranchised. It is now axiomatic that the quality of a student’s education in the U.S. depends on their zip code. Certain zip codes don’t allow access to the quality of education that can catapult someone into the types of careers that exist today. But we are addressing the fallacy that a zip code determines trajectory. Upwards of 92% of our alternative education students qualify for Title I’s free and reduced lunch program. We choose to go into low-SES neighborhoods and provide them with the quality education they deserve. We hold them accountable, and they hold us accountable.

One area of significant focus for us is on the charter school side, where we support students who have dropped out or are in substantial danger of dropping out because they are as much as 2 years behind their school cohort. The hard realities of life have interrupted their teenage years in some way, whether through pregnancy, homelessness, being a victim of violence, or in some cases, those who simply were not best served by traditional classroom environments. We offer a truly blended learning model to support students who are over age for grade in middle school, or dropped out of high school, to prepare them for employment, military service or higher education as they elect. The model has been applauded by districts – returning nearly a 90% graduation rate (this among students who had previously dropped out, remember), with 96% going on to college, career, or military.

We believe that there is an multiplier effect at hand, where a younger student or family member sees an older student succeed, and it creates the desire to replicate that success, to also graduate from high school or college, and thus builds both hope and academic resilience in the next generation in the former dropout’s (now new graduate’s) family. Our belief is that this multiplier effect has a way of digging in and making a change in today’s neighborhoods, ultimately providing equity where it has otherwise been lost.

What are you most proud of about your company in today’s educational world?

There are many factors I’m proud of, but mostly it comes down to the students, staff, community, and results. Our team is mission-driven and committed to change. Abraham Lincoln said, “Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality,” and that couldn’t be truer for all involved. This year, our alternative education academies will graduate their five thousandth student. We know that students who drop out of high school are more likely to earn substantially less than those who have high school diplomas, 47 times more likely to engage with the criminal justice system, and are even likely to have a lower life expectancy. There is an impact to this work that has a way of changing the world for so many. I am so proud of the students, the results, and the people at EdisonLearning.

How are you innovating in the digital learning space and how does this increase equity and access for all students?

Digital learning allows us to change school from a noun to a verb. Rather than where is the classroom, it's what is the classroom? Today’s student represents a generation of native technology users. They expect to learn through technology and, indeed, students are already learning on multiple devices. For them, classrooms are not just part of the brick-and-mortar structure. As classrooms evolve, we need to innovate around that to support our students.

It's not only K-20 but how students are learning over a lifetime. We are building a lifelong learning journey, with a platform offering immediately available chunks that are digestible from an intellectual perspective. There is feedback tied in that becomes applicable to students' lives on a daily basis. What is your vision for the future, regarding the role education plays in preparing students for equitable outcomes beyond their school days?

A lot of what frames my vision for the future is my own personal journey. I had an 8th grade teacher, the late Dottie Miller, who saw potential in me and took the time to mentor me and push my abilities. Every student should have the experience of having someone who believes in them and challenges them to believe in themselves.

Digital learning doesn’t change that; it merely provides a different way for teachers and students to interact. It supports equity by letting teachers and students from around the world engage in better ways. One might ask: What is the promise of digital learning? What is its real possibility? The answer lies in the global connectedness. Students in disparate locations, from Accra, Ghana to Anniston, Alabama, can collaborate on solving a drought problem to make sure people have clean water. These kids are not only able to learn together but work with one another to envision a world that they can join forces to make better. You can design models of learning that allow people to work together even if they’re not in the same physical space. Instead of educating within a narrowly defined neighborhood catchment, we can educate students across a country and a world, breaking down racial, economic, gender and national barriers, and bringing the best ideas of the most important race – the human race.

Looking Ahead

Thom’s mission is to see a world where the barriers to high-quality education are eliminated, and the boundaries between in-person and virtual, school, and the workplace, are removed and redefined. Through equitable access to relevant content, the global education system will increase opportunities for every learner, everywhere, to succeed in a meaningful career and as a valued member of society.

Visit EdisonLearning.com to learn about digital learning solutions that eliminate the persistent disparity of academic opportunities for students confronted with socioeconomic challenges.

NOT ALL LEARNING IS ONLINE, BUT EVERY LEARNER SHOULD BE.

By John Harrington

There is a growing gap between students who have access to a fast Internet connection and those who do not. This gap is sometimes referred to as the Digital Divide. More recently, the term “homework gap” has been used. But no matter how you refer to it, for students who lack the necessary resources, the inability to get online is a barrier to their success. Like access to running water and electricity, Internet access plays a vital role in providing students a quality education. It is time for our society to address digital equity by ensuring that every learner is online. Not all learning is online, but every learner should be.

NO INTERNET ACCESS AFTER SCHOOL

7.2 million family households in the United States who are not online -- millions of Americans who lack and cannot afford Internet access at home. For students, this means an inability to complete homework assignments, collaborate with their peers, review materials from their teacher, or access a Khan Academy video to help them understand a concept. They cannot check their grades, take a practice quiz, or ask a question via chat. In the best case, they can a visit the local library (inside, or, more likely, outside in the parking lot). But that is hardly an ideal learning environment.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

There is good news. The challenge facing our communities is surmountable. This is a not a

“moon launch” situation requiring us to stretch the limits of human knowledge. No, on the contrary, we can readily address now. It turns out there is quite a bit that can be done and there are legions of individuals lining up to help. The same technologies that connect most Americans to the Internet are accessible, or nearly accessible, to many of those who do not have it already. For a broad segment of the disconnected population, the cables or wireless signals needed are relatively close by. In a study conducted by Funds For Learning in 2016, we found that there were one million Americans living in public low-income housing within a quarter mile of a school or library with Internet access.

In other situations, school buses and library book mobiles loaded with Wi-Fi have been used to bring the Internet further out into the community. Cellular data plans and special “point-to-point” connections can also be used. The point is this: in almost every circumstance in which a student is offline, there exists a way to bring them back across the digital divide, and many of those options are quite affordable.

NO FEDERAL SUPPORT

If the technology is there, what is stopping online education? The piece missing is a serious commitment from the federal government to address the need of off-campus Internet access for students. A lack of financial support, combined with regulations that prohibit off-campus Internet

John Harrington is the CEO of Funds For Learning, a nationwide consulting firm committed to helping schools and libraries connect students to the Internet.

Learn more about Funds For Learning.

access, is the primary barrier to closing the digital divide. There are no federal funds specifically earmarked to address this need. For years, many of us in the “EdTech” community have been calling for additional aid to help these students. But no support has been made available. Furthermore, there is a perverse wrinkle in the current federal regulations. Schools and libraries are prohibited from extending their Internet connectivity to the community around them. If a Wi-Fi signal stays on school property, that is okay. But if a student uses that Wi-Fi signal across the street, then the school risks losing federal funding.

ACTION IS NEEDED

The lack of Internet access for students is a systemic problem that results in limited academic opportunities for far too many children. These impediments then fuel cycles of poverty and other social ailments. We can and should do better. It starts with understanding and communicating the need. Leaders and decision makers in Washington, DC, cannot address situations if they are not aware of them. We each have a responsibility to educate members of Congress and federal regulators to make sure they comprehend the scope of this problem, and then we need to hold them accountable to help our communities.

By prioritizing federal funding and cutting through unnecessary red tape, we can help connect all students to the Internet.