Third Edition: Teaching at the Covid Face: What our Curriculum Leaders are Saying

Teaching at the Covid Face

Compiled by Gráinne Dennison, Joseph Lynch, Dr. Joe O Connell, Gina O Connor

In alignment with the Department of Education and Skills Statement of Strategy Cumasú: Empowering Through Learning 2019-2021, Limerick and Clare ETB School’s Division under the leadership of Donncha O Treasaigh, Director of Schools, supports the LILTA (Leading Inclusive Learning, Teaching and Assessment) initiative. This initiative supports school leadership and staff to lead inclusive learning, teaching and assessment in pursuit of improved outcomes and experiences for all students in our schools. A core focus of this initiative is to build on the developmental work at individual and inter-school level, therefore, deepening their understanding in relation to curricular reform within the context of both national and international policy frameworks.

This approach fosters collaborative structures in and between all schools in support of an inclusive approach to learning, teaching and assessment. The structures within schools are led by two or more nominated Curriculum Leaders. To support inter school collaboration these Curriculum Leaders attend three inter-school clusters per year. With the closure of schools due to Covid-19, the most recent cluster on 2 April 2020 was held virtually using Google Meet with thirty six attendees.

This cluster meeting focussed on learning and teaching remotely. The conversation was framed by consideration of the challenges and successes encountered across our schools at this time. Minutes were taken of this recording and a transcript was taken from the comments posted during the Google Meet.

The following summarises that professional dialogue and sharing of practice.

• It was clear from the conversation that schools and students had enthusiastically and creatively engaged with the new online environment.
• Where there was evidence of reduced or non-engagement the reasons included students working in family businesses e.g. farms, students having a ‘carer’ role - minding other siblings while parents worked, students lacking technology/broadband access, students with AEN (see link at the end of document for resources) and engaging the historically non engaged students.
• Among the many interesting points raised was what we mean by motivation and how we support intrinsic motivation amongst students?.

Solution-Focused Interventions and Strategies
Among the solutions suggested to strengthen engagement was;

• the need for a coordinated and whole school approach where the subject teacher firstly identifies the non-engaging students 
• follow up contact was then being made with the home and the student by one designated staff member.

One school effectively used the class tutor system to ensure a coordinated approach and to mitigate against a student / household receiving any number of phone calls from different teachers from the school. It was important that the purpose of this call was to identify as to why the student was not engaging.

Often this nonengagement could be solved quite simply - for example one school delivered a chrome book from the school stock to various students.

It was also noted that departments within schools had to work closely together i.e. class teachers, subject departments and the SEN Department, HSCL, student support teams and school completion in order to promote and strengthen engagement.

What emerged from this dialogue was the agreement that supporting human connection and relationships was a key factor for the online teaching environment to work. This connection allowed teachers to tap into ‘student voice’ and indeed many of our Curriculum Leaders acknowledged how important this was. As a result, practice changed.

The ‘newness’ of the virtual school also highlighted the need to preserve both teacher and student wellbeing. To foster this our ETB designed protocols for working on-line with the cooperation and advice of our teachers. Teachers came to realise that a mix of synchronous and asynchronous teaching works best. Teachers were connecting with their students through organising virtual meetings using Google Classroom and Meet/Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Teachers pre-recorded some material by adding voice over to existing Powerepoints so students could engage when their time allowed thus giving more flexibility to students who had other responsibilities or challenges in terms of logging on. Teachers also set timed emails to send during timetabled classes with student work. Others were setting virtual office hours where they let it be known that they were available to answer questions regarding the assigned work.

Teachers realised that working on-line was taking longer for both teachers and students and they suggested that small ‘bite size’ pieces of work with relevant feedback was working best. To that end, key elements of AFL supported classroom work, the teacher considering;

• What do I want the students to know, understand and do (Learn)?
• Sharing the learning intentions with students
• What tools will I use to support this? e.g. Tools from Microsoft and Google for Education, Screencastify (see end of document for links )
• How will I know they have learnt it? Google doc using comments was found to be beneficial for this, also using form to set quizzes.

The week before the Easter holidays, some schools had begun to reflect on how things were going. One school sent questionnaires to students and parents and used the SSE process to guide them on how best to adjust their practice for after the Easter holidays. Schools also received supportive phone calls from Department Inspectors and participated in their questionnaires. This welcome development displayed the concerns of the whole system in supporting students and learning at this time.

At the beginning of this final school term and acknowledging that students, teachers and schools are at different places and in different contexts, we move forward wiser and more prepared for the next six weeks ahead.
Some key points are worth reiterating;

• Teachers can't necessarily recreate the classroom.
• However, we can support the human connection and relationships that make schools the unique social and learning environment that they are.
• Critically, we need to think about and listen to our students, their motivation and their feeling of a sense of staying involved.
• The more we affirm students, make connections with students and encourage them the better. To support their learning, getting the balance between the quality and quantity of the work is emerging as key.
• All students need to experience some form of success in the online environment.
• Collaboration not competition is a critical factor to support all moving forward. Collaboration in our schools between our staff, between parents and school and between schools has enabled them to rise to the challenge of distance learning.

We wish to acknowledge the support and involvement of our Curriculum Leaders, supported by senior management in schools, who have over the years since inception carefully and thoughtfully put in place many of the foundation stones that we stand upon and have enabled us to deal with the current Covid-19 crisis.

We look forward to the next Curriculum leader cluster to continue this professional dialogue and collaboration. It will take place on 7 May and an email will issue with the details.

Further guidance can be found through the links below:

How to set up Screencastify: Thank you to Conor Power, Colaiste Chiarain, Croom for creating this simple to follow guide - https://youtu.be/LoOj-K1rync Guidance on using Google and Microsoft resources for education

How-to guides, resources and training to support educators and students transition to distance learning.

Google distance learning resources

Microsoft Education: Remote learning

Thanks to Desmond College Teacher Ms. Catherine Creed who has created two very useful and informative padlets to support students with AEN and PE
AEN can be accessed through this link: https://padlet.com/catherine_creed/xterfs6vulof65zo

PE can be accessed through this link: https://padlet.com/catherine_creed/4bzco35pvoq7

We would love to hear from you in relation to any tools, resources, tips you have that would be of use to others with a view to publishing them on this blog. If you would like to be included, please email either Grainne@lcetbdrive.com, Joe@lcetbdrive.com or Gina@lcetbdrive.com.