The coronavirus outbreak has closed physical schools and pushed learning online, causing teachers to develop remote and online learning plans in as little as a couple days–but not all teachers feel prepared to meet this sudden and potentially lengthy challenge.
ClassTag surveyed more than 1,200 U.S. teachers in mid-March to collect and share best practices, ideas, and common approaches to remote learning. More than half of those surveyed teach in public schools (66 percent) and more than half are elementary school teachers (60 percent).
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Perhaps the most concerning survey result is that more than half of teachers (57 percent) say they do not feel prepared to facilitate remote and online learning.
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Teachers are being tasked with important decisions during school closures. Forty-three percent of individual teachers say they are making decisions about which tools to use during school closings. Thirty-six percent say decisions are made at the district level, and 19 percent say school leaders are making such decisions.
Elementary schools
At the elementary school level, roughly 54 percent of teachers are not relying on an LMS. Roughly 36 percent are using Google Classroom and 4 percent are using Schoology.
Teachers are using a mix of remote and online learning methods to keep teaching students, including documents such as study packets and worksheets (about 69 percent); educational and learning apps or resources, especially free ones (55 percent); video recordings such as read-alouds, greetings, or lessons taken from places such as YouTube (about 34 percent); and video streaming such as live video interactions (13 percent).
There has been a deluge of free apps and resources in the wake of school closings. In fact, as the survey notes, there is such a wide variety that the most popular apps and resources are used by just 3-7 percent of teachers. The most popular resources include Epic, Raz Kids, Prodigy, iReady, Read Theory, and ABC Mouse.
Teachers’ tips for maintaining parent communication to support remote and online learning include:
Enabling access for all, validating that parents are reached and are receiving communications and materials, overcoming language barriers, sharing documents and links, initiating interactive two-way collaboration, and supporting video sharing and/or streaming opportunities.
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