TLAC 101: Principles for Remote Instruction
A few weeks ago I attended an Uncommon Schools webinar for remote instruction — 101: Principles of Remote Instruction. I was motivated to attend one after reading Teaching in the Online Classroom and this brilliant summary from Tom Sherrington. Uncommon Schools are the organisation behind Teach Like a Champion, the outstanding books from Doug Lemov. Oh, and how could I forget about the outstanding Get Better Faster and Leverage Leadership by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo.
Now let's get to the what I took from the workshop.
It all starts how it starts
The workshop leaders were so full of energy, enthusiasm and knowledge and I can’t thank them enough, they were Brittany Hargrove and Hannah Solomon of Uncommon Schools and the workshop started with a fascinating discussions on how to start our remote instruction.
They suggested that we should start our lessons with an Orientation Screen and we were shown great examples of this from Alonso Hall’s and Linda Fraser’s classroom. A good Orientation Screen is clear, simple and helps our students get organised and helps them feel successful right from the off, especially when this is coupled with a warm greeting, by name, and backed up with verbal directions. It says to the students that this lesson will be purposeful and we will be learning today. Check out the start to Denise Karrati’s lesson and note how she welcomes the students individually making them feel seen and gives them clear directions, frames expectations and gets off to a fast start. Engaging the students early after a warm, welcoming introduction really gives purpose to the lesson and mirrors much of what we would do in our physical classrooms.
At this point I was delighted to meet Athena from Philadelphia as we were sent to a breakout room for a Turn and Talk to break down what we liked and what we would steal from Denise Karrati’s introduction. Why not watch it and consider what you liked and what you would steal?
The beauty of the workshop as it used to much of the strategies I could then go and use in my remote teaching. Genius.
Asynchronous Lessons
With asynchronous lessons our students have agency over the video but the presenters stressed that we should use these to add depth and rigour to the learning. Unlike live remote lessons the students can pause, take their time and even access their teacher to ask questions to help with the work. What came up again was something that I have written about before and there is a whole chapter on it in the book Teaching in the Online Classroom and that is Pause Points.
The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that there is a nice big pause icon on my orientation screen and I use them throughout my lessons to highlight to the students that we will be pausing and I will be asking them to do some thinking or some form of practice tasks. It is also useful to note that you can leave some useful information on these slides so that if the student needs to recap what they are to do they can see it on the paused screen.
Check out some videos from Marine Academy and notice how they use big pause icons and verbalise instructions so that students are clear on what they need to do and know clearly that they need to pause the video and complete some practice tasks.
Synchronous Lessons
The important ingredient of successful live remote teaching is the personal engagement. Note how in Denise Karrati’s video we spoke of being warm, welcoming and ensuring every student feels seen. This carries on throughout the lesson and I like to consider the principles of building academic culture and maximising student participation in remote instruction. And this came through in droves during our breakout room discussion.
What is key is that there should be positive narration throughout that enforce and reinforce positive habits for learning. Note in this video how Eric Snider thanks the students for their responses, and just how much of a boost does Amari get when Snider recognises that he went ‘above and beyond’. This continual positive narration creates a classroom culture where students are engaged and with you in their learning.
We also explored Habits of Discussion and we saw this great video from Susie Kim’s classroom. Isn't it just wonderful when you hear the student start his response with ‘I respectfully disagree with you..’. This was clearly taught prior to any lockdown but a great discussion.
A further point that was emphasised was that as teachers we need to develop a process for Everybody Writes. This is something where all students can write an answer that you can then use for Show Call or to Cold Call students for discussion. I recommend using whiteboard.fi and either PowerPoint on MS Teams of Google slides if you are using Google Apps for Education.
Semi-Synchronous
A hybrid model to remote instruction was discussed as a possible good use of time and this involves, in short, a live introduction involving instruction, worked examples and engaging dialogue, followed by a period of independent practice where the students are on their own but the teacher is ‘here if you need me’, and finally you reunite and recap what was completed in this time possibly with some Cold Call, Show Call to check for understanding.
Watch how Eric Snider skillfully demonstrates this model and also check the blog for a much better interpretation of semi-synchronous lessons.
Dissolve the Screen
The workshop closed with one of my favourite techniques for live remote instruction, Dissolve the Screen. This technique asks us to break the barrier between us and our students and to do this we need to use names relentlessly right from the off, ‘good morning Jessica, great to see you Michael, well done Elizabeth’ and so on. Think about how Eric Snider did this while the students were active and engaged in responding through the chat.
Notice in this video how purposeful Ben Esser is in how he starts his asynchronous recording, “a king gets toppled today” and “one of my favourite chapters”. I also absolutely loved how he then went on to praise great work and asks the students to ‘snap it up’ for their peers and then he Show Call’s some of the work from the previous day. This tells the students that he ‘sees the work you’re doing, and it matters’.
The workshop was a 90 minutes really well spent and I can't thank Brittany and Hannah enough for their engaging and knowledgeable manner. I followed this up with attending 301: Check for Understanding which I will blog about soon. Sadly, I couldn't fit in 201 due to work commitments but if you have some time I would recommend attending one of their workshops. They really do love teaching, much like me.
