“How do you do this training thing?”
Cristina Compton has heard this factor multiple times since the COVID pandemic derailed classical learning in mid-March.
“Pedagogy and practice were so focused on face-to-face training that teachers felt stagnant, scared, and felt they couldn’t do anything good,” says Compton, director of program progression at Teachers College Vocational Training Center. .
But not in Finland, a country that began to become a hybrid of online and in-person learning seven years ago.
“Teachers have moved very temporarily to distance education,” Jari Lavonen, a member of the University of Helsinki University, told a virtual audience at CPET’s 2020 Global Learning Alliance Summit last August. “There have been some disorders with Internet platforms and, but not huge. “
Lavonen’s presentation referred to a report through finland’s National Education Agency on the reaction to the pandemic, just one example of the classes shared at the biennial summit, which brings together school leaders from around the world for timely discussions on school research. , pedagogy and practice. Normally held at rotating sites in Finland, Asia and the United States, this year’s New York-scheduled Summit took an online position, a move that is fully in line with COVID’s global focus on transitioning to e-learning.
People are willing to step back and say, “Okay, I tried this, what worked and what didn’t?”
– Little G. Faith
“We searched after the Summit to see what other people have done so far and what might be next,” G said. Faith Little, senior CPET program manager and co-coordinator of the summit. “People are willing to step back and say, ‘Okay, I tried, what worked and what didn’t?””
[Read Little’s article on framing methods to train the current COVID crisis. ]
Finnish educators know what works because they have been working with hybrid training models since 2013, when their country did what Levonen described as a “digital leap” toward automatic final exams and other online strategies. Therefore, the big challenge in Finland has been to identify tactics to combat social isolation: a challenge that some schools have solved as a component by inviting older students to sign up for virtual pizzas.
IN THE BACKGROUND (left), Compton and other members of the CPET team that the Summit has introduced productive dialogues between participants from all over the world (Photo: TC Archives)
China, the first country to be devastated by COVID, has also been grappling with socio-emotional consequences, not just those affecting students. Chinese teachers, separated from their colleagues and students, found themselves “lost and trapped in deep loneliness. ” Yubin said. (Leona) Lin, director of programs for YouCH EDU, a non-profit progression organization. “COVID has taught us a lesson,” Lin added, “Teachers want your socio-emotional connection, regardless of your independence. “
Chinese schools have re-established this connection by facilitating virtual instructor meetings, informal career progression sessions that in some cases have arrived with educators from the United States, Canada, Egypt and France.
“We were talking and talking and talking and recording until we felt comfortable,” Lin said, adding that the procedure had led to “a deeper exploration of the topics” and “the point of trust needed to check something new. “
Other presenters highlighted the desire for greater communication on the front lines.
“You mean ‘location, location, location,'” said principal Tamala Boyprod Shaw, who in early August received the first elegance of sixth graders at Mississippi Delta Academy, a new autonomous school she founded. “Well, I say” communication, communication, communication. ” Send plans to students and parents in advance and make sure their decisions are based on knowledge and that parents know that their voices are being heard. “
Shaw spoke on a panel of educators from three other southern states that opened in August.
Jenan McNealey, a school counselor in Forsyth County in suburban Atlanta, said her district allows Forsyth families to send their children home or continue their learning. to new platforms and virtual learning modules.
Digital platforms can create cutting-edge learning pathways for academics while maintaining a socio-emotional connection with teachers and classmates. Technologies can provide a portal for academics to document their interests, share the percentage of a story, or introduce classmates to the family circle and relate to self-produced videos.
“It was wonderful because in March we weren’t ready and it was a disaster,” McNealey said.
Tangela Williams, director of the learning network at schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, said that for her district, March mistakes served as a time of training in the run-up to the 2020-2021 school year that will begin virtually. In particular, Williams and other leaders have discovered the benefits of asynchronous virtual learning (an instruction in which teachers and academics are not all in one position or interact in real time.
Asynchronous technology, according to Williams’ estimate, presents an “excellent opportunity to balance game regulations and put our interest on the court in terms of fairness,” precisely because it allows academics to go back and review pre-recorded courses, and therefore most of the complicated course content.
Similarly, Compton cited the methods of student participation used in an exam he designed for a CPET spouse school that also highlighted the possibility of technological advances in the way other young people learn. In particular, he said, virtual platforms can create cutting-edge learning pathways for academics while maintaining a socio-emotional bond with students and classmates. Technology can provide students with a portal to document their interests, share a story, or introduce classmates to the family circle and network in self-produced videos. Platforms can also inspire marriages from small organizations that “can get young people to communicate with each other before moving on to discussions of giant organizations” around classes and class goals. To illustrate this point, the first CPET Digital Summit sparked online conversations between participants from around the world.
Still, Little said that the format, mediated through virtual space, still wants more spaces for spontaneous exchange of concepts that take place in assemblies where participants debated face-to-face: “There is something to gain from user-to-percentage assembly that we do with young people in other situations and in other circumstances.
Tags: Teacher Preparation Digital Learning Assessment and Learning Analysis Education K-12 COVID-19
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