Tag: COVID-19

Post-COVID Teaching: Almost Everything is Different!

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback).

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

Firstly, I’ll begin with a big hello and a salute to every teacher reading this right now. Many of us taught through the grueling COVID years and made it (unscathed, albeit exhausted) to the other side.

That is an achievement in and of itself.

Those of us who stayed in teaching have shown tremendous resilience. COVID destabilized so many schools and demoralized so many teachers – so much so, that more teachers are leaving the profession than those that are applying for open vacancies.

For those of us who did decide to stick to our guns, post-pandemic teaching has brought with it some new challenges that were somewhat unexpected:

  • Children are fed up of doing online tasks, and now expect more human-interactivity in lessons. Teachers need to be more active within their lessons than ever before – we simply cannot get way with setting our kids some work to do whilst we check e-mails and do admin. This kind of dovetailing simply cannot happen anymore.
  • AI has been thrust upon us – possibly the biggest challenge to education since COVID
  • Many of our students are way behind, since they picked up misconceptions and did not learn deeply enough during the COVID years. Many of us are now trying to teach advanced concepts to children who have little foundational knowledge.
  • The ways in which we taught students before COVID are not necessarily the ways we should teach students in the post-COVID years

As a result of these challenges, we need to be more organized than ever before if we are to stay in the game. So, are you ready to level up and become even more efficient? Well, you’re in luck! In this blog post, we’re going to explore five practical ways you can boost your efficiency in 2023 and beyond. Get ready to embrace new strategies, tools, and ideas that will make your teaching journey a breeze. So, let’s dive right in!

#1: Embrace the power of technology (but don’t let it take over)

In this digital age, technology is your trusty sidekick. From interactive whiteboards to educational apps, find tech tools that align with your teaching style and make your life easier. Harness the power of online platforms for grading, communication, and lesson planning. Let technology be your secret weapon in conquering classroom chaos!

  • Utilise live quiz apps like Blooket, Quizlet Live, Quizziz, Kahoot! and iSpring Quizmaker to get your students interacting with lesson content. It’s important that the teacher is active during these tasks too – comment on scores along the way, use humor and walk around the classroom to help students.
  • Use G Suite tools to aid with collaborative project work. Google Sheets, Docs, Sites and Slides all allow students to create high-quality outputs in real-time, in groups. Think of ways to utilize these tools to your advantage. Some ideas are given here.
  • Utilise Virtual Learning Environments to share resources and communicate with your students. Google Classroom, Firefly, Moodle and Class Dojo are all great platforms that I highly recommend. Share slides and summaries ahead of time if you can – this will allow your students the opportunity to read ahead.

Technology warning – do not replace human teaching with technology-driven teaching. Whilst there’s so much great software out there that will literally teach children all they need to know about a subject or topic, the children attending school today do not want this. They’ve had enough of educational software as they were heavily exposed to it during the COVID years when they were learning remotely. It’s back to basics, I’m afraid – paper-based tasks, spatial learning and active engagement are in-vogue and will be for some time to come.

#2: Streamline Lesson Planning

Create a system that saves time and energy during lesson planning. Organize resources, templates, and activities in a central location for easy access. Collaborate with fellow teachers and share ideas to lighten the load. Remember, a well-planned lesson is a successful lesson! Read my top 7 strategies for efficient lesson planning here. Here’s a quick summary:

  • Plan in a way that works for you personally: The methods of lesson planning that I use personally have changed and evolved over the course of my career, just as I have changed and evolved too. The methods I use work for me, and that allows me to express myself in the best and most natural way possible.
  • Always get a quick starter activity ready: You’ll often find that there are many great workbooks full of activities and worksheets published and ready for you to use. A small investment of money in resources like this can save you loads of time that you may have spent making resources from scratch. 
  • Always include a quick plenary: This can be as simple as getting the students to stand at the front of the class and do some quick-fire questioning, playing a learning game or even getting groups of students to verbalize their own summary. 
  • Keep your plans and reuse them year after year: There’s no point in reinventing the wheel. Keep your planners safe and organised and use them again and again when you teach the same or similar content. Modify as you go along. 
  • Look online for Schemes of Work, Programmes of Study and lesson plans that other people have created: You’ll be surprised at the wealth of information available. I’ve personally done this many times in the past. A quick search on a search engine can pull up many documents that you can use, modify and change to suit your own lesson planning.
  • Use published Schemes of Work to assist you: All examination boards produce Course Guides or syllabuses, and some will even provide Schemes of Work. Use the content from these to inform your lesson planning, particularly if you’re filling in an ‘Objectives’ or ‘Learning Outcomes’ section.
  • Take a long-term view: If you teach students who will take exams in May, for example, then you should know which exact topics you’ll need to cover each month in order to give you enough time to do revision and get the students ready for their exams on time.

#3: Automate Routine Tasks

Don’t let paperwork and administrative tasks steal your precious time. Seek out apps and software that automate grading, attendance, and reporting. Free yourself from the never-ending stack of papers and focus on what you do best—teaching!

Check out these blog posts and sites for some great ideas on how to automate some of your routine work:

#4: Prioritize Self-Care

I’ve mentioned this point many times before in blog posts and podcast episodes, but I really must emphasize again that we must PRIORITIZE self-care.

When we look after ourselves, we are better able to teach. It’s that simple.

Burnt out, stressed teachers occupy too many classrooms (often through no fault of their own). We must do what we can to counteract the stressors that affect us.

Being an efficient teacher starts with taking care of yourself. Remember to recharge your batteries, both mentally and physically. Get enough sleep, exercise, and enjoy hobbies outside of the classroom. A happy teacher is a highly efficient teacher!

Read more tips on how to be a happy teacher in this great blog post by Jessica Robinson.

#5: Embrace Flexibility

The ability to adapt and be flexible is a superpower in the ever-changing world of education. Embrace innovative teaching techniques, experiment with new approaches, and adjust your lesson plans to meet your students’ evolving needs. Stay open-minded, and your efficiency will skyrocket!

Read this great blog post by Gill Murray (Founder of Alba English Class Online and Homestay) on the topic of being a flexible and adaptable teacher for some great tips you just can’t miss!

Conclusion

We stayed in the profession despite the massive challenges we faced during COVID, yet new challenges have presented themselves since schools reopened. Being a teacher in the post-COVID years is, and is going to be, more challenging than it has ever been before. For those of us who are tired and fed up, we MUST find ways to raise our energy levels so that we can engage our students. Our paperwork, once a task we could partly do within lessons, must be completed in our free periods and our free time – and that requires good organizational systems to be in-place.

On top of all of these new challenges we face professionally, we also find ourselves on a common personal battlefield – that of our wellbeing. Here’s a big newsflash just in case you missed the memo – your school, your district and your government are NOT responsible for your personal mental and physical health and will probably do little to help you anyway. We must prioritize our own happiness and wellbeing. For some of us (me included), this means that everything must change – from how we wake up in the morning, to how we embrace fitness opportunities and get deep, restful sleep.

Forth eorlingas!

Recommended further reading

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The Impact of Covid-19 on International School Recruitment

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback)

On Wednesday of this week I had the pleasure of attending a webinar hosted by Diane Jacoutot of Edvectus: one of the world’s most respected international teacher recruitment agencies.

The webinar’s theme was centered on the impact that Covid-19 has had on international school recruitment, along with predicted trends for the near future. However, I found that the conversation between Diane and Dr Stephen Whitehead covered many important topics that are relevant to anyone currently teaching overseas, or those who wish to make the move one day.

You can watch a recording of the webinar at the Vimeo link below. However, in this blog post, I will provide a bulletpoint summary of the key points I took from this excellent dialogue, for those who prefer a quick read.

General points on teaching overseas

  • Making the move to teach overseas is a life-changing decision that should not be made lightly. Host culture, school culture, cost of living and your ability to teach the relevant curriculum/curricula are factors that should be considered.
  • International schools teach various curricula (e.g. the IB Diploma, the ‘British’ curriculum, the ‘American’ curriculum, etc.), and embody various approaches of applying said curricula (e.g. enquiry-based learning, Montessori pedagogy, traditional techniques, etc.).
  • 80% of international education caters for the host nationality/populace. This means that international school teachers are typically working with many students who are ESL/EAL/ELD. In addition to this, one has to consider native sensibilities when applying an international curriculum to a host culture (e.g. teaching freedom of speech and freedom of expression related-issues in China requires extra consideration. Teaching sex education in some southeast Asian countries can be tricky, as the host culture may not teach this until a later age than, say, the UK or US, and may not be as open to ideas related to gender fluidity/homosexualtiy as a western culture may be).
  • Culture-shock hits you regardless of where you go, or how many countries you’ve been to. In addition, many international school teachers face reverse culture shock when heading back home after a number of years. This is because not only has their home town/city changed in the interim, but they have changed too.
“An AMAZING Book!”

Transitioning from a state school in your home country to an international school overseas

You may find that:

  • There’s less paperwork and systems are more ‘streamlined’.
  • Class sizes are smaller.
  • Some schools can be very ‘corporate’ and business-driven.

It’s a good idea to do your due diligence before making the decision to take up a job at an international school. Ask if you can be put in-touch with a teacher who works at that school. If the school is reluctant to do this, then that’s a definite red flag.

The effect of Covid-19 on the current international education jobs’ market

  • Vacancies are down by about two thirds/66% and the market is depressed.
  • Lot’s of online teaching is happening right now.
  • Having a poor internet connection can be a major disadvantage now, as this is increasingly becoming a prerequisite for getting an overseas teaching job.
  • Key skills that schools are looking for now include being tech savvy (why not become a Google Certified Educator?), being adaptable, evidence of outstanding teaching abilities and good subject knowledge (as teaching from home means that you can’t rely on your team as much as when you’re physically at school).

Schools are basically recruiting teachers with online teaching capabilities in-mind (preparing for the possibility of a second lockdown, or in some cases, for the lockdown that’s already in-place).

  • China is now open for applications, and it’s pretty much business as usual there.
  • In the Middle-East it’s 50:50 – around half of the teaching that’s happening right now is online; half is in-school.
  • Kuwait is still in total lockdown. Schools are shut and online learning is taking place.

Presenting the best impression of yourself in the application process

Make sure you have a great C.V.:

  • Talk about the things you’ve actually done. Don’t just copy tidbits from the published job description of the job you are applying for.
  • Describe what you’ve done to get excellent results (attainment is an especially important consideration for schools right now).
  • Explain your tech skills. Get tech skills if you don’t have them!
  • Demonstrate good communication skills – schools are really looking for this now, as you may have to teach online in the event of a future lockdown.
  • Show that you are resilient. Schools will look at your C.V. to determine this. A big factor will be how many schools you’ve worked at, and how long you’ve stayed at each school. Do you come across as a ‘job hopper’ or a loyal, stable employee? Schools are really looking for stability right now, so try to capitalize on any evidence of ‘sticking with it’ that you can show, If you’ve left a school in the past, then why? Does this demonstrate resilience?
  • Reputation is more important now than ever: and that means your current school’s reputation as well as your own. Develop a strategy: Teach abroad for a few years at a decent school before moving on to a more elite establishment (with higher pay and more benefits). Be careful about what you post on social media: your personality will be judged (e.g. openly supporting Hong Kong protesters may not be looked upon favorably if you’re applying for a job in China).
  • IB (International Baccalaureate) experience is extremely valuable. If you don’t have any IB experience, then it will be probably be worth doing some IB courses (e.g. IB Category 1 courses in your subject area, which can be done online) prior to applying. Getting into IB schools when you have no IB experience can be tricky, but it is possible if you are tactical: look at less desirable locations to teach at an IB school for a few years first (e.g. Kyrgyzstan) – this will give you valuable experience that you can use to support an application to a top-tier school in a more desirable country later on.

The basic theme that you want to keep in-mind when preparing your application is this: Can I cope with the unknown? Can you show a potential employer that you are adaptable?

The international education market experienced an explosive growth track in the years immediately prior to Covid-19. The market has now been effectively ‘dampened down’ by the pandemic. The market is still expected to expand, however, but in different ways to years prior.

  • Top-tier schools are not offering as many high-end packages for teachers as before.
  • Dubai and other countries in the Middle-East have local education markets that are very much dependent on oil prices, which have been very low for quite some time. Covid-19 has added fuel to this fire as fewer people can, and are, travelling there. At the moment, the Middle-East is understaffed and when lockdowns are finally lifted and travel resumes, demand for expatriate teachers will be at an all-time high.
  • High fee-paying schools have been losing students to mid-level schools, and this trend is expect to continue as we enter 2021.
  • China is expected to continue running normally. China is closest to the ‘old normal’ than any other international school market on the planet right now. There are around 3.6 million Chinese millionaires in China and there exists a ‘pent-up’ demand for international education in wake of restrictions on international education being recently lifted.

Global demographics of international schools

  • British curricula (EY, KS2, KS3, IGCSEs, ‘AS’ and ‘A2-Levels) are taught in roughly one third to a half of all international schools globally.
  • The American system is popular at affordable schools in the Middle-East and Japan. Approximately 15-20% of all international schools follow an American curriculum.
  • The remainder of the schools are IB World Schools, and these tend to be high-paying, top-tier establishments with great expatriate packages. As mentioned earlier, IB experience is extremely valuable on the international marketplace.

Predicted trends

  • The market will recover, albeit in different ways depending on location.
  • Africa and Latin America are expected to recover slowly.
  • The Middle-East is expected to be depressed for a number of years: this region has been hit with a ‘double whammy’ of Covid-19 and low oil prices.
  • One-year contracts are becoming the norm in many schools, but some clients are asking for two or three-year contracts (and schools sometimes offer these). Permanent contracts are extremely rare at international schools (due to visa and immigration regulations).
  • The application and renewal of contract process is expected to keep moving to earlier and earlier dates in the calendar. Teachers will be expected to notify their school of their intentions early (typically in Term 1/the first semester) and more and more schools will begin recruiting in November (or earlier) for the following academic year.

Questions and answers

  1. Is this a bad year to be thinking about changing jobs?

Yes and no. On the one hand, there are fewer teachers on the market this year, so there is less competition for jobs. On the other hand, there are fewer jobs available. Early years positions, for example, have seen a massive drop globally as this is non-compulsory education (and parents are choosing to keep their kids at home).

2. Have leadership posts changed?

Not really, but again: this is regional. Senior management positions are relatively unaffected, but many schools are cutting middle-management positions in order to save money.

As mentioned earlier: China is relatively unaffected. 200 new international schools were planned to be built in China (prior to Covid-19). Around 100 of those are actually happening and are being built.

3. Have contractual obligations been affected?

For the most part, no, but there have been anomalies. Contracts are dependent on teachers getting a visa. If you can’t get a visa, then a contract may be cut. Recently, contracts at some schools have been cancelled prior to the position starting due to a drop in enrollment.

4. Will a gap year due to Covid-19 reduce my chances of getting a job?

It depends. A potential employer will most certainly want to know what you’ve been doing to keep your ‘finger in the pie’ whilst you’ve been away from work. Think about taking some online courses (e.g. through Udemy, Coursera or EdX). There are many great online courses in educational theory/pedagogy that are free to take.

Please watch the full interview at the top of this blog post to hear answers to more questions (such as ‘Does age matter?’ and ‘What do you need to be considered as a ‘qualified teacher?’)

Recommended book

The hosts of the webinar recommend International Schooling: The Teacher’s Guide (a forthcoming book authored by Dr. Stephen Whitehead and Denry Machin) for anyone who is interested in teaching overseas.

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Good Teachers Are Also Good Students

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An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management)

Accompanying video:

I have always loved mathematics, but I’ve not always been ‘good’ at maths. I got a grade A for GCSE Mathematics when I was 16 years old (a grade I worked really, really hard for) but I struggled with mathematics at ‘AS’ and ‘A’ – Level (the UK’s pre-university qualifications). 

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“An AMAZING Book!”

It just so happened that mathematics wasn’t a subject I needed as a prerequisite for my university course anyway. So, in a sense, I committed the cardinal sin of thinking that it ‘didn’t matter’. I was planning to study molecular biology at university, and my admissions tutors were mainly interested in my biology and chemistry grades.

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I achieved my goal of going to uni and doing my PGCE in order to become a fully qualified Science teacher in 2006. I was happy for several years, but my failure to complete my mathematics education at school kept gnawing at me like an annoying itch. I needed to do something about it. 

I decided to complete the Certificate in Mathematics course with the Open University in 2009, after three years of being a full-time science teacher. This course covered everything in my ‘A’-Level syllabus with some extra, university-level topics thrown in. It was challenging and offered me just what I needed: closure. As a distance-learning course, it also offered me the chance to study and work as a teacher at the same time. 

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As I started studying the course and handing in assignments (which had to be snail mailed to the UK  – I was living in Thailand at the time), I began to realise how much I had become disconnected from the student experience as a teacher. It had been around three years since I had ever studied anything seriously, and this mathematics course was teaching me how difficult it was to:

  • Meet deadlines
  • Seek help when in doubt
  • Have the self-discipline needed to study at a regular time-slot each day

These skills were, of course, things I had to do whilst completing my degree course and schooling earlier in life, but it had been a few years since I had been immersed in serious study like this. I was slowly losing empathy for my students: that was until this course gave me a wake-up call. 

Another big thing I took from this experience was just how stressful it can be to prepare for a difficult exam (and to complete it). I had to fly to the UK to take the end of course mathematics exam (a three hour beast), and along with the intense revision that came in the few days running up to the exam I had the misfortune of not sleeping so well the night before the big day. And then, once sat down and actually completing the paper, three hours felt like it went by in an instant.

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I guess I’m trying to make a number of points in this trip down Memory Lane – namely that by immersing ourselves in the ‘student experience’ we can, as teachers:

  • Regain, or enhance, our true understanding of just how many hurdles await our students on their race to the exam finish-line.
  • Learn new skills and concepts that can be applied to our roles as classroom managers, leaders and ‘purveyors’ of specialist knowledge.
  • Build self-discipline, and pass on the lessons learned to our students in our roles as mentors, homeroom teachers, form tutors and coaches.

One final point to stress is that, whilst we can study almost any subject we want via online platforms like EdX and Coursera these days, it’s also important that we take the time to thoroughly reflect on a regular basis. Keeping a journal of things we’ve done well, and things we messed up, can be a great way to have a written record to read over when we want to celebrate successes and remind ourselves of lessons we have learned on our journeys as educators. This video I made a few years ago goes into this in more detail:

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‘COVID-19 Will Change EFL Teaching Forever’: An Interview with Tatyana Cheprasova

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

We all know how important it is to maximize the progress and attainment of our students, but how do we work to ensure that we make progress as teachers? What are the key strategies that teachers should deploy in the classroom? Today, I’ve invited Tatyana Cheprasova (Senior Lecturer and EFL/TEFL instructor at Voronezh State University, Russia) to share her insights and tips for educators.

Accompanying video (very compelling and interesting, and goes into more detail than the written responses below. Well-worth a watch!):

Tell us a little about yourself

My name is Tatyana. I am a senior lecturer and EFL/TEFL instructor at Voronezh State University, Russia. I have been teaching English for more than 15 years to various groups of students with a diversity of learning needs and backgrounds. I am also doing my MA in ELT: online at the University of Southampton. I love cycling and swimming, and training my Akita Inu dog when I have some free time.

Why did you choose to become a teacher in the first place?

I think it mostly happened due to the fact that when I was a student and was doing TEFL as a part of my major I was lucky to have a fantastic instructor. She was a brilliant lecturer, a very charismatic one, and she somehow managed to inspire many of my course-mates to become EFL teachers and to launch our teaching careers once we got our diplomas.

What advice would you give to someone who is new to teaching?

Presumably, there is very little advice to be given here as we all operate in very different teaching settings and cultural contexts. I do think, though, that all a novice teacher needs to gain in the first place is experience – as much as possible. Not to be afraid of making mistakes can become the order of the day, too. Self-reflection and self-evaluation are also very important here. In my opinion, these are the two vital skills a novice teacher needs to develop on their way towards professionalism. Hence, working in close cooperation with more experienced colleagues can be an effective practice.

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What is your personal teaching philosophy?

So far I haven’t given it a particular thought. I tend to think that it resides in many aspects in the main populations of Positivism as a philosophical paradigm, where experience and observation play an important role. EFL teachers often find themselves at the forefront of ideological confrontations, be it a never-ending struggle with language policymakers or the government. Anyway, we often find ourselves striving for learners’ equity and the protection of their rights, hence, enhancing positive changes in the society.

What changes do you see happening in the future with regards to the teaching profession?

I am convinced that the world of TEFL will never be the same once the situation with COVID-19 gets back to normal. What I mean here, is that EFL teachers worldwide will no longer be able to neglect the need to actively implement the digital constitute in their teaching procedures. No longer will they be able to exclude the development of digital literacies as the vital component of their CPD. The era of Digital Natives has arrived and it is here to stay, so teachers will have to customize and adjust their teaching strategies in many ways.

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What are the biggest lessons you’ve learnt in your journey as a teacher?

Not to let yourself become rusty. For me, this means to stay always curious, to be quick to pick up new skill sets, to challenge myself with something totally new and unexplored. Once you start to think and look like Master Yoda, you are lost for this profession.

What’s next for you and your career?

I would love to take part in an international research project and to have its results published in a TEFL journal. This would be an absolutely unforgettable experience for me!

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“An AMAZING Book”

Thoughts and reflections from Richard James Rogers

Thank you, Tatyana, for taking the time to share these really helpful and insightful tips and experiences with us. Some key takeaways for me personally were:

  • A great teacher can really have a massive and profound effect on his/her students’ lives (as exemplified by your reasons for becoming a teacher in the first place – you and your classmates were inspired by a great instructor).
  • Don’t become stagnant (or ‘rusty’, as you aptly phrase it): continue to develop yourself and learn new skills along the way. Be a ‘reflective practitioner’.
  • Gain as much experience as you can and don’t be afraid of making mistakes along the way. I can personally endorse this wonderful advice – I’ve made a tonne of mistakes in my time as a teacher! I think it’s a good idea to write mistakes down in a journal of some form (so you don’t forget them!) and read over this journal on a regular basis – it’s a great way to ensure self-reflection and constant progress. Don’t forget to record ‘victories’ in your journal too – things you did well and personal successes.
  • COVID-19 has accelerated the digital transformation of the EFL/TEFL ‘edspace’, and teachers really do need to skill up, or face being left-behind. One place I would suggest that all teachers start is by becoming Google Certified – it’s a cheap, yet prestigious qualification and the training you receive is great for bringing practical edtech into the classroom.

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Assessing Students Remotely: Four Ideas to Consider

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An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management, The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback and 100 Awesome Online Learning Apps)

Updated May 31st 2021

Accompanying video:

School closures due to lockdowns have presented teachers with two major challenges:

  1. How to teach students effectively using online tools
  2. How to assess and give feedback to students accurately and efficiently via remote-learning technology

Most of the books and blogs I’ve read deal primarily with the first of these two challenges. In fact, I even jumped on this bandwagon with some blog posts of my own (here, and here and here) and by publishing my latest book: 100 Awesome Online Learning Apps (which also includes some advice for assessment when teaching from home).

100 Awesome Final Cover

This focus was understandable in the early days of COVID-19: teachers had to adapt quickly and schools had to put systems in-place that were safe and efficient to use. We’ve now reached a point, however, where we need to start thinking seriously about the ways in which we are going to assess our students and provide high-quality feedback whilst teaching from home. 

Thankfully, I’ve done some of the serious thinking for you. I’ve been testing a number of methods with my students over the past two months and I’ve distilled the mix down to to a few methods that seem to work best. 

Tip #1: Use screen-share functions to quickly assess, give feedback and offer guidance

Any kind of screen share in a video-conferencing tool can be amazing for providing quick feedback. I currently use Google Meet with my students, and I use the screen share in the following ways:

  1. To quickly see student work and offer some verbal feedback and encouragement (students share their screen with me).
  2. To guide students through a process, because by seeing their screen I can show them where to click and where to navigate.
  3. By showcasing excellent work with the class. Oftentimes I’ll do this by asking exceptional students to share their work via screen-share with the whole class.

Tip #2: Get your students to build website ePortfolios

Do you know what an ‘ePortolio’ is? It’s basically a website that each student creates. To this website each student uploads their work, either as photographs of their notes or more complex pieces such as Google Sheets, PDFs and Google Slides. 

Provided that you, the teacher, has the URLs for each students’ site, marking becomes a doddle. All you have to do is click through the list of URLs and mark the student work. With New Google Sites you can actually type comments onto the students’ websites (if the student clicks ‘share’ and then shares the site with you). With other platforms (such as Wix and WordPress), an e-mail to each student after checking the sites would work well. 

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Tip #3: Use automated assessment programs for your subject

I personally use MyMaths (for mathematics), Educake (for Science) and I have used Lexia (for English) in the past. Software like this often has to be purchased by the school, but the investment is nearly always well-worth it. Automated assessment programs usually come with detailed reports post-testing which can be ‘auto-emailed’ to the class teacher. 

Systems that cover a wide range of subjects include Kahoot! (which can be set as an assignment, providing excellent, quick whole-class feedback) and Quizlet (ask students to take a screenshot of their scores for tasks such as ‘Spell’, ‘Gravity’, ‘Match’ and ‘Test’). BBC Bitesize also includes a number of multiple choice quizzes at the end of ‘Learner Guides’, all of which provide model answers and explanations should students get questions wrong (Hint: Ask students to screenshot their responses and make a note of any model answers that come up to questions that were answered incorrectly).

Tip #4: Use verbal feedback in the same way as you would in a ‘real’ classroom (but with a twist)

Set students on a task, and, whilst this is being completed, have some one-to-one conversations with students about work that has been submitted prior to the lesson (e.g. last week’s homework). Use screen share to show the student their submitted work, and talk the student through the different parts. CRUCIALLY – ask the student to write down or type what you’ve said on the piece of work somewhere (e.g. “Mr Rogers said that I must make my diagrams larger and neater, and I must always label every part”). Then – ask the student to re-submit the work (so that you can check that those comments have actually been written). 

Bonus tip: Try exam.net

Exam.net is a place where you upload end-of unit tests or assessments, and students complete them at home, remotely, at an allotted time and for a set period of time. The students submit their work via a word document. 

Exam.net can be used at high-functionality for free, but also has some premium options available for schools who wish to use the software with multiple classes.

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COVID-19: Advice for Teachers, School Administrators and School Nurses

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Bestselling author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback).

UPDATED 17TH MARCH 2020

It’s the story that everyone is talking about, and that also has many school leaders concerned: COVID-19. 

The recent outbreak of this novel strain of coronavirus has caused a domino effect resulting in school closures, travel restrictions and a general, heightened sense of anxiety for many people. For schools, three major priorities now exist:

  • Protecting the student and staff body from infection
  • Having effective, simple plans in place to support students with their learning in the event of a sudden school closure
  • Educating the community about good hygiene practice and dispelling any myths about the virus that may surface, and which may add to anxiety

In this week’s blog post I aim to tackle all three of these priorities in a non-biased, objective way. Original sources will be hyperlinked and a full list of citations can be found at the end of this article.

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Priority 1: Protecting the student and staff body from infection

This has to be a school’s first priority right now, as not only do the symptoms of COVID-19 infection vary slightly from person-to-person, but the resulting disease caused by the virus can progress to a serious stage in some people. A community in which high numbers of people work in close proximity to one another (such as a school) is also an ideal place for human-to-human transmission to occur, should an infected person be on-campus. 

The latest official information about COVID-19 allows us to evaluate risk to some extent:

  • Transmission can occur from person to person, usually after close contact with an infected patient through droplet transmission. This is why it is important to stay more than 1 meter (3 feet) away from a person who is sick. (World Health Organisation)
  • Current estimates of the incubation period range from 1-14 days with a median estimate of 5 days (World Health Organisation)
  • At the time of writing (March 17th), official confirmed cases globally stand at 185,067 infected with 7330 total deaths and 80,236 official recoveries (Johns Hopkins)

This interactive map from John Hopkins University is a clear a quick way to track the official numbers. 

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According to the Washington State Department of Health, schools should be doing the following to protect their communities:

  1. Develop, or review, the school’s emergency operations plan. Review strategies for reducing the spread of disease and establish mechanisms for ongoing communication with staff, students, volunteers, families, and the community. Collaborate with local health departments and other relevant partners.
  2. It is advised that students, staff, parents and guardians, are excluded from sites if they are showing symptoms of COVID-19 or have been in contact with someone with COVID-19 in the last 14 days.
  3. When possible, regular health checks (e.g., temperature and respiratory symptom screening on arrival at school) of students, staff, and visitors. Those who are symptomatic should be excluded. For students experiencing homelessness, use your current procedures to ensure their safety.
  4. Older adults and individuals with underlying medical conditions that are at increased risk of serious COVID-19 are encouraged not to come to the child care and food service setting (including employees).
  5. Practice social distancing (i.e., limit contact of people within 6 feet from each other).
  6. Provide adequate supplies for good hygiene, including clean and functional handwashing stations, soap, paper towels, and alcohol‐based hand sanitizer.
  7. Follow environmental cleaning guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are followed (e.g., clean and disinfect high touch surfaces daily or more frequently).
  8. Plan ways to care for students and staff who become sick and separate them from students and staff who are well. Use face masks as needed should this occur. Staff should go home immediately if they become sick. Contact the student’s parent or guardian immediately if they show symptoms of COVID-19.

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Priority 2: Having effective, simple plans in place to support students with their learning in the event of a sudden school closure

I’ve come up with what I believe to be a simple method to facilitate learning in the event of a school closure:

The Online Learning Journal [A suggestion for schools]

Step 1: Every student in the school creates a website that will act as an ‘ePortfolio’ or learning journal. Each website should contain a separate page for each subject the student learns. Google Sites is amazing for this (it’s very user friendly), but Wix, WordPress and Blogger are also good (and free) alternatives. Just make sure the students are using their school e-mail addresses to sign-up to these platforms.

Step 2: The URL for every ePortfolio for every kid in the school is kept on a centralized spreadsheet (e.g. a Google Sheet or an MS Excel sheet) that every teacher has access to.

Step 3: Work is set by the teacher through the school’s online Virtual Learning Environment or MOOC (such as Google Classroom, Firefly or Moodle) or even via e-mail. Students are required to complete their work on their website (e.g. by writing notes on each page, uploading photos of work that’s handwritten, embedding Google Slides, etc.)

Step 4: Teachers simply need to click on the URL for each website of the kids they teach and check their work. Feedback can be written on the website itself (Google Sites makes this very easy, but the student needs to click ‘share’ and share it with the class teacher), or feedback can be directly e-mailed to each student. 

You can read more about this method at my blog post here. I also made an accompanying video:

I’ve done some recent research with my own students about which online learning platforms work and my findings are given below (please share this image far and wide):

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Priority 3: Educating the community about good hygiene practice and dispelling any myths about the virus that may surface, and may add to anxiety

Keeping good communication lines open and providing regular updates is always a good idea at times like this. Consider the following ideas:

  • Send out a weekly newsletter to parents that goes through the steps the school is taking to protect the community from infection and general advice about good hygiene and best practice.
  • Encourage parents to e-mail any questions or queries they have to a designated person, or to their child’s homeroom teacher.
  • Assemblies and meetings with students and staff to go through good hygiene measures and offer advice and reassurance.
  • Find out where everyone in the community is travelling to during school vacations (Google Forms is great for this – send it out and collect responses). Analyse the data received and plan accordingly.

References and Sources

  1. World Health Organisation Q&A on Coronaviruses [https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses]
  2. Johns Hopkins University Interactive Map of COVID-19 Cases [https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6]
  3. Washington State Department of Health: School Resources for Novel Coronavirus [https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus/Schools?fbclid=IwAR1N5BPyPXKhK-aCTQqEnYSsVca3QzjY5ejuHgc-vm6v-U4YsrG7er_gsng]
  4. Online Learning That Actually Works! Richard James Rogers [https://richardjamesrogers.com/2020/03/17/online-learning-that-actually-works/]

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