Schools in Thailand are not asked to close (yet). We are monitoring the situation very closely and making great efforts to ensure our school community members are safe and healthy, following all the guidelines. When it’s still possible, we want to stay operational as much as possible.
Having said that, we do want to build our capacities and develop preparedness for online learning. Although I am not sure if we can truly feel ready and confident when it happens. In the past, we had sudden school closures because of political unrest, flooding, and air pollution. Based on my observation and experience, students and parents, in general, hate online learning as many teachers often just create more ‘homework’ or ‘assignments’ for students to complete. There were lots of assumptions in this situation, such as students can access the internet without any issue; caretakers or parents understand the instructions so that they can help; this task will only take students 20 minutes to complete. What if there is a power outage? What if caretakers or parents are negligent or they don’t speak English? And the truth is assignments likely take twice as long to complete at home because of different factors.
Our step one is to develop teachers’ awareness of the online teaching guidelines (O.R.E.O) and suggest familiar web-based tools or apps teachers have been used in my school. Teachers are encouraged to explore these tools and find out how to use them through colleagues who had experiences with them.
Our step two is to do more prepping and develop online teaching capabilities. It has been wonderful that there are many educators sharing their experiences and reflections via social media which provided me with many ideas on what online instructors should do and should not do. Of course, just like everything else, we always need to consider our very own school context, environment, policies and think about how these ideas might impact our school community and the school system. That’s why we have decided we will not implement synchronous learning at this stage, although there are many benefits. We consider pastoral care issues, the internet speed, our refugee students’ living conditions, child protection policy, teacher training, and so on and we, as a school, feel that we are not quite ready for synchronous learning yet. We will only use videoconference to check in and build relationships with students, but not for content delivery.
After reading as much as I can and discussing with my secondary school academic leadership team, we have come up with Online instructors @ KIS: Do this, Not That to provide guidance for our teachers.
One thing that might not be clear in the poster and teachers have questions about is “Be online during office hours to provide support, answer questions, or clarify confusion via a system.” What it suggests is to create a system to collect students’ questions in advance, such as using Padlet or Google Form, so teachers can have time to consolidate these questions and prepare answers. If you teach 120 students, what you don’t want is to have 100 plus emails coming to your inbox!
Do-This-Not-That-Online-Teaching-@-KIS-3I am very aware of the benefits of conducting synchronous learning. I have mentioned previously, our school is not ready yet. That’s why the title of the infographic is “Online Teaching @ KIS”. We will start our online learning model for two weeks today. I am sure after our two-week pilot, we will reflect on what works well and what does not work, including asynchronous learning vs. synchronous learning. In case your school is ready to implement a combination of asynchronous learning and synchronous learning, here is a modified version of the infographic.
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Your graphics are always so thought-provoking! Thanks for generously sharing with everyone.
Regarding the idea on "don't do... synchronous learning," I am in coronavirus-ground-zero Beijing, China. Over the past four weeks of school closure online learning, I have observed several successful teachers, in particular Math teachers, offering online clinics that leave satisfied students (and parents) because of the opportunity to ask questions to their kindhearted teachers.
The process involves a period of (suitable) struggle with worksheets, inquiry questions, thought provokers that set students for roll up sleeves and try, an exploration; followed by the synchronous lesson, a clinic or a debrief, a sort it out discussion.
Another benefit of the synchronous session is the presence of the teacher, the educator, the mentor. Knowing that we are safe, that we care for each other, that thanks to technology, our classroom literally extends beyond the physical walls of the building.
My ten cents.
I would be very grateful if you could tell me how could I get the "Do this Not that" infographics. Thank you very much
Dear Patricia,
If you click on the picture, you will be able to download the PDF file.
Best,
Alison
I have used your infographic on my blog (with attribution). Thanks for this resource. We will use it to support faculty next week as we are transitioning them to online.
Thank you. Glad it's helpful to other teachers.
Alison
Dear Alison
I'm a university teacher at teacher university of St.Gallen Switzerland. In Switzerland all schools are closing by monday. So our teachers will need help for distance learning and supporting home schooling. I found your very helpful and worthy blog content and speacially this infografic (do's / dont's). I've shared this by Creative Commons Licence Non Derivative. Now I would ask, if i can use your infographic and translate this to german because of our germanspeaking teacher stuff in Switzerland? This would be very kind of you!
Kindly regards from Switzerland and many greetings from teacher to teacher.
Manuel Garzi
Dear Manuel,
Thank you for your message. Of course! Please do translate this in German so that it might be helpful and provide some ideas to online instructors. Please follow the creative commons license and share alike. An example can be found here: http://bit.ly/39SvyR1 (except my last name is YANG. :D)
I'd love share your German version after it's translated.
Kindly,
Alison
Dear Alison
Wow, what a fast response! Thank you very very much! I’m very happy to have this permission. I would immediately begin with the translation. Of course I’d share the german version! Should I send it to you by mail, when I've finished the infographic?
Kindly
Manuel
Hi Manuel,
Isn't it amazing that we can connect so fast online?! Sure. You can send the PDF version to my email: ali0323@gmail or alternatively, feel free to share on Twitter and tag me @alisonkis.
Stay healthy.
Alison
In Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany we published the infographics and the OREO Online Learning Wayfinder in one publication.
https://schuleonline.bildung-rp.de/fileadmin/user_upload/schuleonline.bildung-rp.de/20200323_Anregungen_onlinegestuetzter_Unterricht_zurVeroeffentlichung.pdf
In addition to the OREO Online Learing Wayfinder we have made a short video explaining it.
https://vimeo.com/400331058
Kindly
Joachim
I am Coordinator "Education in the digital World" at Pedagogical Institute of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Can we change colors, The main-headings and the format(size) to use it in a Tutorial.
Kindly,
Joachim
Dear Alison
Like promissed can you found here the german translation of your infographic. Thank you very much for your permission for doing that:
http://bit.ly/dl-to-dis-not-that
So fast! I will share it in LinkedIn and Twitter.
Alison
Dear Alison, this picture is spreading all over facebook. In Canada, we've just been asked to move instruction online because of COVID-19. This infographic is INCREDIBLE and a useful tool for folks around the world right now as they move to online instruction for the first time in some cases. Thank you so much for sharing it.
Wow! Thank you, Matt. I have no idea it will be this popular. Hope it is useful to teachers.
Kindly,
Alison
I'm also sharing this infographic at Mohawk College in Ontario, Canada, in our effort to help faculty move online. Thank you.
Dear Alison, this is a great overview graphic. A colleague from the states posted it, and I tracked down the origin to your blog. Thank you so much sharing, it is very helpful indeed!
Dear Henri,
Thank you so much for your message. I am glad this is helpful. I hope you and your family are healthy and stay strong while we are all doing this social distancing.
kindly,
Alison
Alison, I can see why you have made these suggestions for KIS. As you mentioned in the blog there are some issues specific to your context, including the reliability of the internet. The infographic clearly shows your approach to online learning but I’m concerned that some people outside your school see this as researched based information on what teachers (including those in other parts of the world) should and should not do for effective learning to take place. Research suggests a combination of asynchronous and synchronous leading - the later important for students social and emotional well-being. Please be careful with this. If you share such infographic on social media and they do go viral then the approach you have suggested may be implemented in other contexts and students in those schools will suffer. They need to have a chance (if at all possible) to synchronously connect with peers and their teachers. Your infographic does not suggest that. Seriously consider what you share on social media, since it could be context specific and a practice that harms students. I know of a case already of your infographic being used as justification for limiting all online instruction to asynchronous learning. This is dangerous.
Hi John,
Thank you for your message. I will agree that combination of asynchronous and synchronous learning will be important on schools, students, parents, and teachers are ready to do so. We can't ignore researching findings.
As everything else shared on social media, it's always a good practice to consider how one practice fits in one context that might not be true in another context as there is simply no one-size-fits-all approach. Schools and educators need to consider their purpose, environment, culture and policies in their very own context. We live in a world in which everyone always has an opinion about something and we should not discourage educators share the prototype they have created on social media. Their feedback and opinions can engage us in a cognitive conflict and discuss solutions for improvement, just like what we are doing now.
I am very aware of the debates of asynchronous and synchronous learning and that's why you can see the title for the infographic is Online Teaching at KIS, rather than Online Teaching.
Is it dangerous? I am not sure we need to go that far. For the school you mentioned in your writing that limits online learning to asynchronous learning, have you observed any behaviors that harm students? If yes, please do kindly share so we can all learn from their experiences and reflections. I would also say it's very dangerous for us to judge based on a case before we collect and verify data.
In the process of implementing or adapting a new model, I would hope schools make adjustments and modify their approach when things are not working for them. If we bought a beautiful pair of running shoes, it hurts our feet after wearing a couple weeks, will we continue to wear them?
Kindly,
Alison
Thank you for creating a revised version of the infographic. I understand and appreciate that teachers share ideas (and infographics) in social media and that it is important that we encourage some healthy
and critical discussion. That helps us all. Now, however, we face a significant challenge with a large number of teachers having to move at short notice to online learning. For many teachers this is a new and unfamiliar environment so they may (and yes, I do have an example and hence your blog came to my attention) misinterpret your original infographic and think that the practices you outlined for KIS instructors are ones that they should employ as well. Teachers elsewhere need answers and need them fast. For that reason I suggest that anything you share on social media is something that is transferable to other contexts. We need that right now. And, as I mentioned earlier - students need to feel connected to other students and their teachers - and some synchronous learning is one important way to do that. Teachers are being relied on to provide emotional and practical support. And they need it too (see today's CNN business article titled "How to work from home without losing your sanity"). We are not talking about buying a pair of sneakers. This is a serious time when need research-based facts and ideas applicable to ALL shared on social media. Please help spread them.
Thanks, John. No problem. The new version of the infographic is shared now via my PLN. You can also help share it if you think that helps.
Best,
Alison
Hi Alison and everyone else in this thread.
Thanks for this Alison. It is very helpful.
We are new candidate MYP school currently preparing for authorisation and have been been forced to close as part of the preventative measures put in place here in the UAE to restrict the spread of Covid-19. We will be starting with online learning on the 22nd of March and would really like to get some advice around what works best to promote authentic online learning for the MYP including those subjects those that are traditionally e-Portfolio subjects. I am happy to connect on LinkedIn should that work for a one-on-one conversation. Thanks.
Hi David,
Thank you for your message. I am not an expert on the online learning. I share the documents and experiences in the hope that it might benefit someone. I know it's a very messy time right now and lots of information shared that might overwhelm teachers. It is really important to help reduce teachers' cognitive load so that they can support students. I am happy to share with you what we are doing at my school.
Kindly,
Alison