I have been trying to capture a question that sums up the mental look over the horizon for schools after the Covid-19 pandemic has gone.
For some it may be too early and many teachers are still in the midst of teaching online for the first time. For others we may be back to normal very soon. This question from Megan Townes nailed it
I am sure things won't change overnight so a focus on 12 months is great. I am worried that we have not spent long enough teaching online for there to be the transformational shift in the way our kids experience school. My school is back after 4 weeks of home learning and I worry that it will be business as usual (tests of shallow stuff, exams, homework, repeat). The assessment driven system almost demands this.
The exponential growth in tech skills has been amazing and will surely yield huge dividends in the future IF teachers choose to challenge themselves about how they run their courses. Do they feel they have permission to try new things, to challenge the status quo? If so then newly developed skills mean some classrooms may never look the same.
I believe in the possibilities afforded a teacher who adopts a flipped/blended model - if you have just come back from a fully online mode of teaching, what elements of that can be incorporated in a traditional face-to-face classroom?
Could some content be placed online for students to review in their own time?
Can some of the instructional material be transformed into video?
Could video content be placed online so students can review multiple times the parts they don't understand?
Can formative assessment be embedded in this content so teachers can see where students need help and what concepts need attention?
Could teachers be available at different times during the day to answer questions?
Can students work through a course asynchronously leveraging the above ideas?
Can technology serve to connect students and create community, rather than isolate them at their devices?
Could students have more agency to demonstrate their understanding using technology?
Is it possible that freeing ourselves from a rigid timetable structure that dictates that learning for a particular subject happens only at a specified time could actually help students?
Do some students learn better online than in a traditional classroom?
Can subject barriers be softened so students can work collaboratively on multi-discipline projects?
Of course the answer to all of these, as most teachers know now, is yes. A blended approach combines traditional face to face classes with online content, but more importantly it transforms what happens in the group, shared, classroom time. If teachers are freed from the usual instructional time studies show dominate classrooms, all kinds of opportunities open up. Students can get 1:1 attention, peer teaching happens, projects based on inquiry have time to happen. All kinds of good things!
I just really hope the answer to the question "will we just reset?" is no. No to doing things the way they were always done and yes to adapting to what could be.
Is this moment the great realisation in education? Time will tell.