As schools transition to remote learning, existing inequalities are being exposed: Over half of the nation's public school children live near the poverty line — and an estimated 12 million lack broadband Internet access at home.
over from the mild winter. In Chicago, teachers are offering enrichment resources only, instructed to make sure there's"no new learning." Harking back to an earlier era of distance education, Los Angeles Unified is partnering with the local public television stations to pair educational broadcasts with some online resources.
"We've partnered with the [state] Department of Education to work with the school districts to support teacher professional development at the district level, to help them ramp up and to be able to teach students online," says Courtney Calfee, executive director for global services at FLVS. "Really, when we considered how this rollout was going to look, we needed to provide tools, especially in the beginning, that teachers and students had a high comfort level with."
Interestingly, Justin Reich, an online learning researcher at MIT, says this isn't necessarily the best approach to use, especially in the younger grades."Young people don't have the attention or the executive function skills to be able to sit and learn online for hours every day on their own." After that, Nelson makes herself available for virtual"office hours" from 9 to 11 a.m., so parents can check in. Families are also contacting her throughout the day on their smartphones using ClassDojo, a program she was already using to keep in touch. She's encouraging parents to read to children every day, and even to have some kind of recess.
Most of all, Nelson is wondering why her district threw"a ton of work" into creating an online model when many of the students she calls"her babies" don't have adequate resources to connect right now."Some of them have laptops. Some of them have siblings that will be sharing that technology. So, you know, that will make it more difficult." Others, she says will be using a parents' phone at best.
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