Length Of A Virtual School Day.

 

For many this is the second year school districts are having to teach virtually all or part of the time.  I'm aware of at least two districts which have had to flip back and forth depending on the number of cases in town.  Unfortunately, most places automatically assumed that one should just move the classes to online using basically the same length and content. 

Unfortunately, moving the class to online in the same form it is in real life does not always work. In real life, students often have breaks, teachers design activities so students can move around, activities can be in person or based online depending, and it is easy to pivot should a teacher need to make a change.

As far as a virtual class that is happening live, it is hard for students to sit through 6 different classes where students are expected to sit quietly and pay attention to a screen without trying to multi-task or get distracted by what is going on around home, or even have technical issues.

In addition, much of the school day has breaks with movement built in such as time for students to change classes, visiting lockers, going to lunch, recesses, etc which doesn't need to appear in on-line classes.  In fact, the National Board of Teaching Standards recommends that elementary students spend no more than two hours in an online class while middle school students shouldn't be in class for more than 3 hours and high school students should have no more than 4 hours of online instruction.  Think about this.  I don't know of any college students who are in class for 8 hours of instruction, 5 days a week so why do we expect all students to do it?

It is possible to design virtual classes so they use both synchronous (real time instruction) and asynchronous (projects and "homework") instruction rather than only synchronous which is what most schools use. It is also important to keep in mind that many of our students are trying to learn at the same time as their siblings and this may make it hard for everyone to be online at the same time.  In addition, older siblings may be taking care of younger siblings while mom is at work and may not be able to attend the "full" school day.

Let's look at the two types of instruction to see how they can be utilized to the best advantage for our students.  Synchronous instruction allows for two way communication and interaction.  It is the time for collaboration with breakout rooms, live assessments, polling and certain types of games.  Asynchronous instruction is one way communication where feedback is provided at a later point. It might be used for a short lesson provided by the teacher, presentations done by the students, or completed assignments are posted to be graded later by the teacher.  

Furthermore, it is recommended teachers recored all lessons so students can go back and watch them to provide the needed support.  The videos are available for asynchronous use at any time, especially if a student cannot get to class during the expected time.  In essence, synchronous instruction is the live element of the lesson where the teacher provides instruction and activity that works best when everyone is together and asynchronous is for other times when students are able to work alone or need to review lessons from earlier.

So when looking at teaching virtually, look at how long you really need to provide instruction to students in a live situation and how much of the class can be done in asynchronous form. Once you've figured that out, go for it but I realize many districts are just throwing classes online expecting it all to work the same as if everyone is face to face.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great weekend.