Remote Learning: Home Schooling On Steroids -- September 2, 2020

I am really, really excited about Sophia's first year of school, first grade, O. C. Taylor, Grapevine, TX.

Wow, the ISD certainly seems to be on top of what's going on. I am really, really impressed. 

It appears the administrative staff and the teachers have really taken on distance learning / remote learning in a very, very big way and their efforts this summer have really paid off. 

Interestingly enough, it's not uncommon for teachers to spend the summer taking a second job or traveling overseas but this year they were pretty much stuck at home, giving them an opportunity to prepare for a very, very interesting 2020 - 2021 school year.

In July, 2020, parents had to make a decision: whether to "return to school" in the autumn a) physically, in-person; or, b) remain at home, distance learning / remote learning.

At the time, July, 2020, the pandemic hysteria remained at near-highs and the family made the decision to return "remotely."

The first three weeks of school were a "soft" re-opening. All students remained at home (or their designated alternate location such as TutorTime) and learned to use WebEx and their school-issued iPad for remote learning. 

Wow, talk about a huge jump. 

Based on what I see Sophia doing, I am absolutely amazed how smoothly it went.  

This is the future: technology, tablets, software, video conferencing, coding, remote learning, etc. The Covid-19 pandemic telescoped ten years into less than a year. This is truly amazing.  

This is exactly how Sophia's mother got her advanced degree from one of top universities in the country: distant learning while living in north Texas with periodic in-person assessments in Chicago, IL. 

During the past two or three years, there was a lot of collective family angst about the amount of time Sophia was spending on screen time -- mostly the iPad. In hindsight, it appears to have turned out well. Wow, talk about a huge jump. Based on what I see Sophia doing, I am absolutely amazed how smoothly it went.

Look how she talks about her experience, only two weeks into the process:

Is there any doubt she gets it?

There appear to be three components to remote learning for first graders:

• video monitoring / video conferencing / "Zoom Resources" / 
• an understanding of apps -- almost all teaching is done on apps
• mastery of the iPad; reading adult-language instructions
  

The process includes a fourth component: periodic in-person assessment with the child's teacher.

Collaboration among the students was remarkable. Students, even at the first grade level, are talking to each other about what is important, shortcuts, and efficiencies, although they may not use those exact words.

I had originally hoped that Sophia would be returning to school immediately after the three-week "soft re-opening," but now that I've seen how well she has done to date, I am absolutely convinced another nine weeks remote learning was the correct decision.

The big reason? As stated above, this is the future. Even if she were to lag a bit in reading or math (which I doubt will happen), she will more than make up for it by becoming even more expert / adept at using the technology.

The big key to remote learning for K - 12 students: adult mentoring, adult monitoring, adult presence. In Sophia's case she will have all three.

By studying at home, Sophia will get music lessons (piano practice) something she would not get at school. In addition, she will get as much art as she wants. She will also learn social skills, such as hosting a tea party (which she certainly would not get at school) and she will also get a lot of "money" instructions: studying coins, for example, which incorporates quite a number of disciplines, including counting, subtraction, addition, history, etc. 

I was a substitute teach for middle school and high school for many years. My biggest take-away from those years of teaching, in which I taught almost every day: the incredible inefficiency of teaching / learning at school. A huge amount of time is devoted to administration, hallway movements, and discipline. In addition, teaching was often dumb-downed to those students that needed the most attention and/or time. Education often came to a stop when a teacher started to work with a single student that needed extra attention. The rest of the students became bored, and quickly disciplinary challenges appeared. 

I was also negatively impressed with the number of hours all students actually watched main-stream movies at school, like Frozen 2 for any a number of reasons. Movies were often shown when the teachers needed time to get caught up with their own administrative responsibilities. 

By the way, not mentioned: one school re-opens physically, there will be a lot of concern with all the "colds" and URIs brought into the school once the "cold and flu season" returns, which it will.

The apps these days are incredible. Sophia loves her "teaching piano" app. One area I'm probably deficient in with regard to Sophia is art -- she has painting apps on the iPad but those are "free-form." She needs some actual teaching. So, that's something to work on. 

By the way, speaking of the "piano" app, Sophia also has garage band which includes guitars and drums. She found those on her own and she was the one who taught me, not the other way around. 

I was somewhat surprised by how short the school day really is for first graders. Although she signed in at 8:00 a.m. the first synchronous activity was scheduled from 10:00 to 10:30. After that the students "were on their own" and would check back in from 2:00 - 2:30 p.m. That's about an hour of synchronous activity; the rest of their day was "on their own." 

The one downside right now: the teachers are overwhelmed with "homework" being submitted. The teachers have voiced a concern they are not able to respond to each bit of homework submitted by the students. The risk is that students will quit submitting homework if they get the feeling that their submissions are not being read.

Personally I don't think that should be a big concern. As long as there is adult mentoring, adult monitoring, and adult presence, this will all take care of itself. 

I'll provide an update a month down the road if not sooner. 

Oh, by the way: remote learning? No bullying. Is this a big issue? It sure is. The issue of bullying was the constant theme during the first week of soft re-opening.