Remote Teaching Tricks

Image: Pixabay

So it seems that 2021 is going to start with a period of remote teaching and it is likely that there will be periods when some of our students will need to isolate and be online learners - again.  This is not ideal but having been through a long period of lockdown already we now have a better idea of how to enable our students to make progress.  (For more on blended learning read here).

Whether you are able to deliver live lessons or not I believe it is important to remember and follow your usual teaching steps as much as you can.  That is, daily review, deliver new material in small steps, ask questions, provide model answers and so on.  This is how students learn best.  Indeed, you will recognise these steps as coming from Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction and to the best of my ability, in my lessons, I aim to follow such steps.

I have recently tweeted a list of tools that have been important for me during lockdown and will remain important beyond this time.  I consider these tools to be of the utmost importance when 'live' lessons are simply not an option for teachers and in this post I am going to consider how we can teach our students remotely using some of these tools when Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams are not part of the equation.

My top 🔟 #edtech tools ⚒️ perfect for the hybrid classroom of 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣1️⃣

☑️@OneNoteEDU
☑️@SpiralEducation
☑️@LearningAppsorg
☑️@Carousel_Learn
☑️@flipgrid
☑️@quizlet
☑️@quizizz
☑️@edpuzzle
☑️@padlet
☑️@wakelet

What say you #teachers #edutech #edutwitter ?

— Baz (@basnettj) December 30, 2020

One Stop Shop - Padlet

First off, I recognise that not everybody is lucky enough to have access to Microsoft Education's Class Notebook or Google Classroom, however, if you are, then it is a good place to start as you can map out your lesson on here - a week at a time, is a good idea.  The benefit of this is that you can embed activities via links so that the work is easily accessible to all students at all times.  It's a sort of one stop shop containing everything necessary to achieve progress.

The other benefit of this is that if students do their work in the Class Notebook or in Google Classroom you can see at a glance with the review tool how your students are progressing.

If these are not an option then you could use a Padlet to embed your links and activities.  With all these tools you also have the option to deliver your instructions to your students orally or even to record a detailed grammatical instruction orally which can be helpful when faced with a tricky point that needs explaining.   Of course, having a video of yourself also makes the whole experience more personal for your students.  You could also go down the bitmoji route - which I believe is a very popular for many of the #mfltwitterati.  I confess that this is not something I have really explored, but do read Esmeralda Salgado's thorough post on it here).

Even though you might not be able to deliver lessons live, once you have mapped out the steps of your lesson and students know the route they must take you will still be able to go through the usual teaching steps. 

Daily Review/Retrieval Practice/Checking for Understanding

Use Spiral Education  to ask a few questions about previous learning or to check for understanding.  Spiral Education provides opportunities to create formative activities that allow students to engage and learn at the same time.  It is a low-stakes way in which to spark memories, encourage learning and garner information on any misconceptions your students might have. The activities are quick to set up and can be delivered live or can be set as an assignment.  

Spiral Education: Setting Assignments

Ask one or two questions that allow students to revisit previous learning and remind themselves of what they might need for the day's lesson.  Obviously, as the teacher, you can check from the feedback data where your students are in their learning and can thus provide support as necessary.

Carousel Learning allows for similar activities and has the added benefit of having a revise mode which means that students can review prior learning and practise topics to embed knowledge in long term memory.  This website is excellent to test longer answers and has the facility for students to reflect on their answers.  It is also fantastic for retrieval practice  - you could set up a quiz with five questions revising an important verb, or some useful topic vocabulary at the start of your lesson.  Like Spiral Education, teachers are able to look at the rich data available to assess their students' progress.

Quizlet can also be incredibly useful to review prior material and indeed to work on new material.  We normally associate Quizlet with single terms of vocabulary but there is nothing to stop you providing and testing chunks of vocabulary.  Quizlet allows for some gamification too and if you are live obviously a Live game would be a way to assess knowledge in a low-stakes way and to build rapport with students.  I've never done this before, but, if 'live' lessons are not an option,  I wonder what it would be like to provide the QR code/or 6 digit code to play a Quizlet live game at a pre-allocated time?  

Modelling/Independent Practice

It is easy to think that we can not provide models or do live modelling when we are teaching remotely. Nevertheless, we can provide some next best alternatives.    Learningapps is a fantastically versatile tool for most subjects and for modern languages there is the added benefit of having text to speech and audio functionality for you to upload video or audio from YouTube.  Provide a model response with gaps for students to fill in, as in example 1.  Or create a matrix with a whole load of activities where each task provides model responses with tasks to complete.  You can see in example 2 based on La Technologie (Click here for tasks) that students have to complete a variety of tasks including a listening task.  Students can screenshot their correct responses in order to save their work and keep model answers that they can then draw on in their own writing (and of course, if they share with you, you can check in on their progress).  Learning Apps does allow you to create students accounts and then check on their progress in that way).

Example 1: Learning Apps Gap-fill

Example 2: Learning Apps Matrix

Edpuzzle is a great resource with a rich catalogue of excellent videos to choose from.  Students can develop their language and build their cultural understanding via some carefully selected videos that you can annotate as you see fit - either by adding multiple choice questions or perhaps by adding some open ended questions.    Again, the ability to check for pupil progress is an added bonus.

If you wanted to do some 'live' modelling to show students how the process works and to demonstrate how it is an iterative process where you can go back, refine and improve then consider recording a live model example.  This example here I recorded using a Flipgrid short because I find it super easy but there are a whole host of ways to record yourself nowadays such as via PowerPoint or using Loom which is a very intuitive online tool.  I was able to write my response, but typing a response is just as valid.  It is powerful to model the process of writing and indeed speaking because students can see that it is just that - a process and it is possible to do this even when teaching remotely.   Flipgrid is a great place to record some sample oral answers too and get your students to respond. You can set up these spoken responses to a topic so that only the teacher hears the student speak and you can then provide individual feedback for each student.  You can do this orally - an asynchronous conversation which can be, nonetheless, more personal than typed responses.  

I am aware that I did not mention Wakelet or Quizziz but this does not mean that they are any less useful.  Wakelet is a great place to store resources and can contain links and open-ended questions for your students to consider.  It is also possible to collaborate with your students on this platform and could be a place for sharing ideas.  Here's a link to a Wakelet collection on Great Teaching Tools that gives you an idea of how you can embed links and add your own notes.  I have written about Quizizz before and you can read more here: Quizizz for Retrieval Practice 

Remote learning is going to remain a feature of our teaching for a short while to come and I hope that the ideas here will help you to deliver lessons that are worthwhile for your students, allowing them to make progress and you to understand their levels whilst not being an exhausting process for you.

Good luck and let me know in the comments below how you get on.