2 Simple Ways to Improve Online Instruction

Name: Lillie Michael

Role: Connector
09/11/2020

Quote:

“Whether students are in classrooms or are working fully at home, teachers will
want to maintain personal contact with them, especially their most disadvantaged
students. Frequent check-ins—in person, over phone or email, or through the class
LMS—will help teachers better understand students’ needs, providing them the insight
needed to design more equitable lessons that address both academic and social and
emotional learning for disadvantaged students, and all of their students.”

Connection: Language Acquisition Teacher Assistant- Checking in with students

At my high school I was a Language Aquisition teacher assistant my junior and

senior year. Every year our high school gets a group of international students who come
in speaking little to no english. This course is designed to teach these students english
as a second language. Since this course was so small, the students we worked with
really relied on the one on one interaction they got with their instructors. Once Covid-19
hit and we went into quarantine, we made it a priority to check in with them every week
through zoom, emails, phone calls, facetime, texting, etc. When we met with them, it
somewhat had to do with academics but it mainly had to do with just asking them how
they were, thoughts going on through their heads, if they needed help with anything, as
well as a chance for us to get to know them better outside of a classroom and academic
setting. We would also ask them questions in regards to remote learning and what we
could change in order to enhance their remote learning experience. I think these
students (and even the instructors) really benefited from these interactions because it
provided a chance for them to get away and be distracted from these scary and
unprecedented times.

Connection to overall article: Students becoming future educators!! (Just like us!)

Unfortunately, a pandemic like Covid-19 could happen again in the future.

Students who are currently studying to become educators (like us!) need to be prepared
if something like this were to ever happen again. This article gave educators great tips
to use in terms of “remote” teaching strategies. I think that it would be smart for colleges
of education to have a course dedicated to teaching educators how to teach remote
learning. I think a course like this would be very beneficial for teachers in the long run.
Tips such as the ones taught within this article could be part of the course material for a
class that teaches you all about to teach remotely.