Given the recent and rapid developments amid the COVID-19 pandemic, educators across the country have sprung into action, working to design and implement remote learning, often on the fly. At Springpoint, we are increasing our support to partners, continuing to coach and support school leaders. We are also convening weekly peer sharing calls where leaders can learn from one another by sharing best practices and common questions and challenges. We’ve also collected a bevy of resources, and are collaborating with like-minded organizations to develop future joint efforts. Throughout, we’re focused on listening and being responsive to student and educators needs and ideas.
As we support partners’ important work, we are grounding ourselves in this guiding question: what makes learning transformative in the first place?
First, we know that young people will thrive in schools that offer them opportunities to develop identity, form authentic connections, find purpose, and master competencies that are meaningful and linked to their goals for the future. At its core, transformative learning combines rigor and relevance to interest students in the work, to give them a compelling problem to solve and grapple with and to help them practice the thinking of the academic disciplines. We know more directive lectures and task completion can be adapted to online learning, but can transformative learning happen virtually?
In considering this question, it’s important to simultaneously acknowledge major concerns around equity and access, two essential areas of focus that can either stymie or support the presence of truly transformative learning. We are encouraged by the dialogue in the education field acknowledging how inequities have been amplified by our current reality. Our partners are continuing to work to ensure that all students can access transformative learning experiences as a way to ensure post-secondary success.
We have found that a set of questions can help educators as they patiently and thoughtfully work to move deeper, transformative learning forward in a virtual context. We are helping our partners answer some key questions during this transition phase:
What tools can help us create the type of engagement that can support student-centered learning at this time?
For many schools, the first step is to ensure that every student has a laptop and a way to get online. Boston Day and Evening Academy handed out 117 Chromebooks to students to enable the continuation of their learning, and Urban Assembly Maker Academy in NYC delivered computers to their students. The Urban Assembly network is working to raise money that can support students have at-home access to technology across their entire network. Our partners at Next Wave/Full Circle in Somerville, Massachusetts are leveraging peer-to-peer support to help students without internet access sign up for free internet provided by Comcast. Since the easiest way to sign up is online, students who are already online are helping their classmates get connected.
As schools worked to provide students access, we worked closely with them as they continued to deliver rigorous and robust student-centered learning experiences, including tools that can support learning. For example, educators at Nowell Leadership Academy in Providence, Rhode Island knew that they wanted their students to continue building arguments using evidence in writing and discussion, so they leveraged Padlet as an asynchronous brainstorm tool for students to collect their thoughts and arguments as the basis for engaging in discussions. Next, teachers led students to the “breakout room feature” on Zoom where students could conduct small group discussions using their prepared evidence to support arguments. Teachers popped into various breakout rooms to observe conversations and provide that robust feedback to help students further use evidence in building their arguments.
How are we using time? How can we structure time to be both flexible and structured?
Though this rapid transition to online learning has created a slew of challenges, it has also lifted some constraints that educators may have faced in a traditional school context. Namely, educators are exploring whether they still need to employ a traditional school schedule when there are more online options. As educators design learning experiences for the digital space, we have seen them thinking more broadly and purposefully about how they interface with students, how students engage with each other, and, importantly, how students engage in learning and produce work.
For example, some educators are engaging small groups of students on video conferencing platforms at a set time, while others are focused on supporting students to work on their own and present work and assignments; some schools have pre-recorded videos as another asynchronous option. Other tools in a teacher’s toolbox could include one-on-one conferencing with students, whole-class meeting times for group learning, delivering pre-recorded lessons, and supporting and/or guiding students as they work independently. At Nowell, classes are still meeting synchronously while at Opportunity Academy, in Holyoke, Massachusetts learning has moved toward an asynchronous model with more one-on-one check ins. Our partners at Phoenix Academy Chelsea in Chelsea Massachusetts have a growing library of videos as one option for students.
No matter what type of schedule educators decide to try, this is an opportunity to explore what engages students and how to ensure that transformative learning takes place. Remote learning both removes old constraints of in-person learning, while layering on new challenges to navigate. For example, in Chelsea Massachusetts, where two of our partner schools are located, around 80 percent of residents are essential workers. Many students not only have these important jobs but have seen their work hours increase, meaning that some now work during school hours. Other students grapple with personal and family commitments, mental health issues, and uncomfortable scheduling adjustments. Our partners are finding that they need to select an approach that is tailored to their community, and that they need to be flexible and shift the structure if it isn’t working.
How can we leverage relationships to support students in both their learning and as they navigate these uncertain times?
Trusting and supportive relationships allow educators to create opportunity and push students to meet high expectations. Relationships are also valuable in providing socio-emotional support, especially in uncertain times such as this. Our partners are masterful at building these kinds of important relationships, which will allow high expectations to carry on in a remote learning space. At International High School Langley Park in Prince George’s County Maryland, educators have developed an SEL plan for students that provides a continuation of the school’s individual and group counseling sessions. Principal Carlos Beato noted that the school’s transition to online learning has been less rocky because of strong relationships as well as the many structures and systems that were established to provide support to their community.
We are working with partners to ensure that relationships are not only maintained but deepened and leveraged in a way that helps to foster continuous learning and high expectations. For example, our partners at Nowell are finding ways to create advisory touch points so that teachers and students have a way to stay connected, check in with each other, and keep building the trust and goodwill that is the hallmark of a good school culture. And our partners in Holyoke conducted up 443 individual connections with students and families in the first four days of online learning alone! All partners have an outreach strategy, using many means of outreach to students, many nearly everyday.
How can we use data to understand what’s working and continuously improve?
Many of our school-based partners are meticulously tracking student engagement and touchpoints. At least three of our partners have developed shared documents that track the type of touchpoint conducted with each student (e.g., returned a text, joined a virtual class, turned in work, etc.) to figure out which students are engaged and who still needs to receive additional outreach.
Finally, our partners at Phoenix Academy Chelsea have developed a comprehensive virtual plan. Noteworthy is an approach to using data to determine the effectiveness of specific outreach efforts. For example, every daily lesson culminates with an exit ticket in Google forms, which enables easy tracking of completion. Further, leaders are keeping track of the number of students who are logging onto their school email every day. And importantly, the school has restructured advisory, breaking students up into even smaller groups than before closures; advisors conduct a virtual case conference with every student, every week. During these conferences, advisors help students set goals for the day and lay out a manageable daily schedule.
How can we continue to leverage community partnership connections?
Rigorous and relevant learning experiences often include a multi-dimensional performance task. When students present these tasks to authentic audiences, learning takes on additional relevance and more clear connections to the real world.
We are supporting partners to continue inviting experts in the field to join the class and share their expertise and feedback to student work. For example, the Nowell team is reaching out to experts, asking them to give students feedback on performance projects and join a virtual expo of student work. Recently, Kim Hare—a librarian and media specialist from Woods Hole—remotely joined students and teachers from Nowell who presented their Mindful Meal presentations.The virtual aspect may be an opportunity for our partners to connect with experts that are not local and who might be open to deepening their work with the school community in both the short and long term.
Beyond course projects, our partners at International High School Langley Park are deepening existing partnerships in the community. CASA de Maryland, a nonprofit that supports Latino and immigrant people, are offering online tutoring services to IHSLP students, as well as grant incentives and food pantry support. University of Maryland has reached out to the school to continue supporting the language program, specifically working with a group of students that they have been building relationships with all year. Finally the International Rescue Committee is conducting virtual tutoring and schoolwork sessions for students and have set up meal sites for those who live far away from the ones set up by the county.
So, what’s next?
As we continue to support educators to bring transformative learning into a virtual context, we are thinking about many things, including how we to maintain and re-conceptualize these critical elements:
- Community Partners: how might we continue to bring learning alive via engagement with community partners?
- Creative Projects: How might we create and refine meaningful projects/artifacts via virtual platforms?
- Authentic audiences: How might we continue to empower students to present their work to authentic audiences?
- Collaboration: How might we empower students to collaborate together in a meaningful way?
- High Expectations: How might we provide opportunities for students to be engaged in work that challenges them? To what extent are inquiry-based, hands-on lessons possible and what are the conditions that support this kind of learning?
During unprecedented times, we know equity, access, community, and relationships are more critical than ever in supporting students and help them continue learning. Once students’ needs are met, educators can begin to ask these questions and work to maintain and adapt the elements that make learning truly transformative.
We are encouraged by the creativity and dedication of our amazing partners who are shaping a path forward in an effort to ensure that students continue to have access to transformative learning experiences, which are rigorous and relevant project-based units of study. We will continue to highlight their challenges, best practices, and questions.