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AFL Tools and Remote Teaching   Jamboards

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AFL TOOLS FOR REMOTE TEACHING - SLIDO WORD CLOUD

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Remote teaching guidance:
This guidance draws upon recommendations from the EEF's Covid-19 rapid evidence assessment and associated resources, several other sources, and from our experiences of teaching synchronous lessons to Year 7 and 11 classes between March and July 2020. The approach we took regarding the teaching of live lessons remotely was a decision based on our context. The guidance below is provided to support teachers to plan a series of lessons. Some of the strategies are likely to be used every lesson, whereas some might be used once or twice in the teaching of a topic.

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Remote teaching guidance: This guidance draws upon recommendations from the EEF's Covid-19 rapid evidence assessment and associated resources, several other sources, and from our experiences of teaching synchronous lessons to Year 7 and 11 classes between March and July 2020. The approach we took regarding the teaching of live lessons remotely was a decision based on our context.

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As of 4 January 2021, all schools have closed to all pupils except children of critical workers and vulnerable children. You must provide remote education to all pupils learning at home.

The DfE also expects you to have systems to check daily whether pupils are engaging with their work.

Stay up to date on the full list of expectations (pages 46 to 50 of Restricting attendance during the national lockdown: schools ).

Decide what engagement rate you're aiming for

Work out the ideal rate for your whole school

It's up to you to decide what's a 'good' engagement rate for your school - the Department for Education hasn't set any required level of engagement you should reach.

Consider:

How much work you're setting and how much of it you expect pupils to complete (see this article for advice on how to choose your approach to remote learning)

How experienced pupils and parents are at accessing and submitting work

How many of your pupils will have access to the internet, and how much time they'll have to access it if they share devices with others in their household

Whether you expect this rate to vary by subject or year group, and for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, or other additional learning needs

According to a report from the Sutton Trust, the national picture is that:

23% of pupils aged 18 and under are reported to be taking part in live and recorded lessons online every day

However, this number varies by socioeconomic background - it goes up to 30% for pupils from middle-class homes and down to 16% for pupils from working-class homes

44% of pupils in middle-class families are reported to be spending more than 4 hours a day learning, while 33% of pupils in working-class families are reported to do the same

These figures are based on a survey of 1,508 UK parents.

Let teachers determine what's reasonable for individual pupils

Teachers will know their pupils best and will be able to determine whether a child is engaging sufficiently.

Ask them to judge:

How much pupils are engaging (e.g. are they logging on every day? Are they viewing the files you upload?)

The quality of engagement (e.g. is the work submitted to the expected standard?)

See the section below for advice on how to get evidence for these 2 points.

Gather evidence of engagement

Track who has submitted work

When you set activities where pupils are expected to hand in work, make sure teachers keep records of who submitted work to the expected standard on time.

Use the features of your digital learning platforms

If you're using one, see what options you have available. For example:

This monitoring does have its limits though, particularly if you're linking off to resources on another website. For example, you can't monitor who's viewed a YouTube video.

Talk to your school community

Survey parents and pupils about how much work pupils are doing, how challenging they've found it and what else could be limiting their engagement with work.

This should give you an idea of who's struggling and what the common issues are.

Set up a monitoring system

Here are 2 approaches set up by school leaders we've talked to.

Ask teachers to flag pupils they're concerned about

At Ribblesdale High School:

Every 2 to 3 weeks, teachers identify pupils in each of their classes who are causing the most concern

This information is added to their existing behaviour management system

The data is then managed centrally by their pastoral support team, and:

If a pupil is failing to engage in 1 to 2 subjects, the head of department gets in touch with the parents via email or phone

If a pupil is having issues in more subjects, the pastoral team makes a phone call home

Create a spreadsheet of all pupils

At Windsor Academy Trust, which includes 5 primary and 4 secondary schools, they:

Have a spreadsheet covering all pupils and all the subjects they take

Ask teachers to fill this spreadsheet in weekly, flagging where they feel pupils aren't sufficiently engaging

Have the headteacher review the completed spreadsheet and work with the pastoral team to decide who needs a call

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Remote learning: monitoring pupil engagement

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As of 4 January 2021, all schools have closed to all pupils except children of critical workers and vulnerable children. You must provide remote education to all pupils learning at home. The DfE also expects you to have systems to check daily whether pupils are engaging with their work.

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This good practice guide should be used by staff responsible for the curriculum and its delivery in schools, including the named senior leader with responsibility for the quality and delivery of remote education provision.

It offers suggestions to help schools meet the expectations for remote education set out in the schools coronavirus (COVID-19) operational guidance. Further support and information for teachers and leaders can be found on Get help with remote education.

We recognise that schools vary significantly in context. This may mean that what works well in one type of school may not be suitable for other kinds of school. However, the principles below apply in many contexts, and some approaches have worked well across a wide variety of schools.

Ensuring access to remote provision

Most pupils returned to school full time on 8 March 2021. Despite this, there is still a risk of localised outbreaks of coronavirus (COVID-19) or of small numbers of individual pupils being unable to attend school.

Where a class, group or small number of pupils need to self-isolate, or there are local or national restrictions requiring pupils to remain at home, we expect schools to have the capacity to offer immediate remote education. For details of the remote education expectations schools are required to meet, please see the schools coronavirus (COVID-19) operational guidance

The period since 23 March 2020 has been one of great innovation in remote education. A wide range of approaches has been developed, tested and refined. Despite the challenges, remote education has made a significant contribution to enabling students to continue to learn and progress during the pandemic.

What matters most in remote education

This good practice guide for remote education focuses on approaches to the delivery of the curriculum. This presupposes clarity about what is to be taught in a carefully sequenced curriculum.

Replicating the classroom remotely

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has found that the effectiveness of remote teaching is determined by many of the same factors as determine the effectiveness of live classroom teaching. For example:

ensuring pupils receive clear explanations

supporting growth in confidence with new material through scaffolded practice

application of new knowledge or skills

enabling pupils to receive feedback on how to progress

These characteristics of good teaching are more important than the medium of delivery, be it in the classroom or through remote provision (whether that remote provision is, for example, live or pre-recorded). It is important that schools consider how to transfer into remote education what we already know about effective teaching in the classroom.

Live classrooms enable important interaction between teachers and pupils through, for example, questioning, eliciting and reflective discussion. These complex teaching skills in the classroom are not always easy to recreate in a remote environment, but where remote education recreates at least some aspects of this interactivity and intentional dialogue, teaching is likely to be more effective, support pupil motivation and lead to better progress.

Pupils in the early stages of their formal education are likely to have particular needs which cannot easily be addressed in the same way as those of other pupils. Likewise, some pupils with SEND will require specific approaches tailored to their circumstances. Some suggestions are given for these cases later in this document.

Access to appropriate devices and connectivity is essential for technology-led approaches to remote education. However, securing access for all pupils is a significant challenge in many contexts. To help mitigate potential digital barriers that certain children and young people may have, it may be helpful for schools to:

maintain an up-to-date record of which pupils and families do not have sufficient devices or appropriate internet access

consider how school technology resources can support pupils without sufficient remote facilities. This could include providing laptops and chargers to identified families with any usage or loan agreements necessary to help safeguard school property

ensure that any equipment obtained under DfE's Get help with technology programme is clearly identified and ready to be re-distributed for a similar purpose

Where pupils and students continue to experience barriers to digital remote education, schools should work to overcome these barriers. This could include distributing school-owned laptops or supplementing digital provision with different forms of remote education such as printed resources or textbooks. Where printed resources are used, these should be supplemented with other forms of communication to keep pupils and students on track or answer questions about work.

Effective remote teaching provision

Since pupils experienced disruption to their education from 23 March 2020, schools have made huge progress in developing their remote education provision.

While there are a number of ways to implement high-quality remote education, remote-access technology offers many advantages which enable schools to continue a relatively normal programme of teaching across all or most curriculum subjects.

Interactive platforms

Schools are expected to use a single, interactive platform such as Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom for their remote education provision. By using these and similar systems, it is possible to create virtual classes by drawing information from schools' Management Information Systems, enabling a single point of access for all lessons and resources and allowing teachers to host both live and recorded explanations and lessons.

Government-funded support is available for schools and colleges to get set up on one of two free-to-use digital education platforms. They can choose to use either:

G Suite for Education (Google Classroom)

Office 365 Education (Microsoft Teams)

The Key for School Leaders provides feature comparison and case studies on how schools are making the most of these platforms, to help them make the most appropriate choice for their school.

It is possible to enhance these platforms by using applications which allow for easy video recording of teachers teaching, explaining and questioning. Loom is a popular video recording application which many teachers find straightforward to use and can easily be linked to platforms such as Microsoft Teams.

Tests and quizzes are an important part of effective teaching and can be easily created to precede or follow teaching sequences. When teaching live, it is possible for teachers to question individual pupils and for pupils to pose questions to teachers or peers, for example using the 'Chat' function. Google forms, Kahoot, Classkick, Socrative, Edpuzzle are just some other examples of other software which work well for rapid feedback and allow live marking.

Schools can use these media to continue to deliver most of their normal planned curriculum, and, where available and relevant, textbooks (both 'hard copy' and electronic) could be issued for pupils to use at home to complement and support lessons.

Where lessons are recorded, they can be accessed later by pupils, making flexible use possible in the context of limited or shared device access (for example where a pupil might be sharing a device with a sibling or parent). These and similar platforms can make it easier for teachers to monitor pupils' progress because work can be viewed or submitted through a single system. This in turn may make it easier for teachers to adapt work in the light of pupils' progress.

Other resources, which include other good-quality free and subscription-based online resources, can be linked or embedded. For example, DfE-funded Isaac Physics provides free online teaching resources in physics. Teaching resources are available through good teaching practice and resources on Get help with remote education.

Because these platforms enable the creation of simulated or virtual classrooms, it is easier to carry over what we know about effective teaching from in classrooms to the virtual environment. This can include clear teacher explanations of new content which are sequenced to build on previous learning, targeted questioning, and scaffolded practice.

Maintaining aspects of school life online

These platforms can also be used beyond the individual lesson context for other events such as whole staff briefings and professional development sessions, and for teachers to lead events such as year or whole school assemblies. It is important that these aspects of school life are maintained during any period of disruption.

In some cases it is possible to expect a normal school day to be worked remotely by both pupils and teachers, incorporating recorded or live direct teaching time as well as time for pupils to complete activities independently. Recognising that this will not always be practical, where it is possible the routine can prove beneficial to pupils and support them in the management of their work and time.

Sometimes, it is necessary to operate more flexibly, for example to accommodate contexts where pupils are having to share a single device within the home, meaning that access to recorded lessons is also needed. However, frequent contact between pupils and teachers is crucial. This contact may, for example, be through presence in a remotely delivered lesson, questioning, feedback, or some other form of exchange about schoolwork and wellbeing as part of pastoral support.

Continuing the planned curriculum

Continuing to teach the normal planned curriculum in the remote environment is important. Subjects where this is more challenging are those that would normally include significant elements of practical work in the live classroom, for example sciences, music or technology. However, in these and other cases, video demonstrations (and there are many ready-to-use examples linked to the curriculum available on platforms such as Oak National Academy or YouTube) can substitute well for practical work, particularly if accompanied by teacher explanation, commentary and a text book or electronic resource.

Physical education

Supporting pupils to be physically active is important for their physical and mental wellbeing. There may be challenges to delivering physical education remotely, but resources and advice are available from organisation such as the Association for Physical Education and Youth Sport Trust. Remote lessons are available on Oak National Academy.

Technology training

It is important to ensure that training is regularly refreshed with teachers, and that appropriate trouble-shooting support is available, so that transfer to the remote environment can happen seamlessly when needed.

Support for teaching staff to set up and use technology effectively is available. A peer support network of schools and colleges are in place through the EdTech Demonstrator Programme offering training on ways to embed digital platforms and devices to strengthen recovery plans and secure long-term, sustainable practice.

Communication

It is essential for staff, and preferable for pupils, to use school email addresses. Set up groups to streamline communication with a whole class. Use existing online resources and packages with school or teacher-created resources including:

worksheets

tests and quizzes

video or sound recordings of explanations hosted on platforms such as YouTube, or available on a school, remote-access area

It is important to note that high-quality remote teaching is far more than setting work for pupils to complete, although setting tasks to complement sequences of teaching plays an important role. Evidence shows that lengthy or open-ended projects or research activities are in most cases less likely to lead to strong progress or outcomes. Such approaches should generally be avoided in favour of the more interactive, teacher-led approaches to delivering the school's planned curriculum described above.

Finding solutions in remote provision

Schools identified some common challenges in the provision of remote education across the pandemic. Here are some suggested solutions to those common challenges.

Safeguarding and online safety

Keeping children safe online is essential. The statutory guidance keeping children safe in education provides information on what you should be doing to protect your pupils online.

Safeguarding and remote education during coronavirus (COVID-19) provides guidance to help schools, colleges and teachers support pupils' and students' remote education during coronavirus (COVID-19). This includes guidance for schools on safeguarding and GDPR considerations when delivering live lessons.

A lack of devices

Schools can distribute school-owned laptops accompanied by a user agreement or contract. Where schools need additional devices in order to support disadvantaged children, they should contact DfE's service team at covid.technology@gov.uk. Affected pupils can be supported to come into school to use school resources within any rules in force at the time.

Additionally, textbooks can be used at home to provide a structure to learning, supplemented with other forms of communication to keep pupils on track or answer questions about work.

Where mobile phones are being used by pupils to access content (and where pupils are having to rely on mobile phone connectivity) there may be limits to the amount of data they can access without incurring significant expense. Schools can get technology support from DfE for issues with devices and internet access.

Pupils having difficulties submitting work

Multi-functional remote platforms allow for the submission of most kinds of work. Email can also be used to send work to teachers for review and feedback and screenshots can be taken and emailed as attachments. Additionally, smartphones can be used to photograph work which is difficult to submit in other ways. Post or school drop-off points can also be considered.

Keeping pupils motivated and engaged

As set out in the schools coronavirus (COVID-19) operational guidance, schools should monitor pupil engagement with remote education provision. Schools can log participation and motivation levels and feedback to parents, either individually or formally through regular reports. They can also contact pupils or parents by telephone to explore ways to secure re-engagement.

Schools can create whole-class or whole-school feedback loops. For example, a weekly newsletter which pulls together examples of excellent work and awards points and rewards for excellent engagement or outcomes. This could be emailed to all parents and pupils, or posted to those without digital access.

Assessing pupils' progress

Teachers can use quizzes or tests on core content as a regular feature, asking pupils to complete these in a specified time and email them back. Using the features of a multi-functional platform, teachers can create regular, pre and post-lesson quizzes. Consideration should be given to ensuring availability for pupils without ready online access, including through distribution of hard-copy versions.

Organising structured remote teaching suitable for very young pupils

It is recognised that very young pupils are likely to have particular needs which cannot easily be met in some of the ways described above. For such pupils, it is likely that the priority will be progress in early reading. Ensuring continued access to appropriate reading books and resources for early readers should be considered as part of remote education planning.

Helping parents, carers or other adults at home to continue to support children in their early reading, where appropriate and practical through structured practice of phonics content, is another important part of remote education for children at this stage. Schools should teach children to read using a structured curriculum of systematic synthetic phonics. Any online education offer should mirror that which is taking place in school as much as possible. Parents could be signposted by schools to any phonics resources that could be used at home, such as catch-up videos and any other resources. These may be provided as part of the Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme being used by the school.

Other content for these pupils is likely to include providing guidance for supervising adults to ensure that time is used as productively and developmentally as possible. Schools should also encourage parents to read with their children and out loud to their children as much as is possible and practical. As well as phonics resources, where possible schools should signpost parents to any online reading schemes they have bought into, or to where high-quality books and stories are freely available online.

Supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

For many pupils with SEND, the teaching envisaged by this guidance would need to be adapted. SEND pupils have a wide range of specific needs. Their teachers and schools are likely to know these needs best, and how they can be most effectively met to ensure pupils continue to make progress wherever possible if they are not able to be in school.

It is likely that more individualised planning may need to happen in many cases, and that the support of adults in the home will be a significant advantage where that is possible. However, in some cases, the suggestions in this guidance may also be useful for pupils with SEND and so should be considered on their merit.

The National Star College is available to offer guidance and training on ways to ensure the curriculum is accessible and inclusive for all pupils. This includes guidance on assessments to ensure intervention is boosted where possible through technology. Support is available until 31 March 2021 accessed through National Star's . Further support for 2021 to 2022 will be released in due course.

Further support for SEND and vulnerable pupils is available on Get help with remote education.

Teachers having difficulties creating online content

While many schools will want to retain the tried-and-tested education resources they already use, some may find it helpful to use resources such as Oak National Academy to offer lessons in most school subjects. Oak delivers a sequenced curriculum, with some elements of choice, which can be used flexibly by schools as their main remote provision - or to complement other parts of remote provision.

The curriculum is published on the Oak National Academy website, so schools can consider how it aligns with and complements their own curriculum. Oak lessons are available from reception to year 11, are free to use, and can be integrated with platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Google Classroom. Specialist content for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities ( SEND) is also available.

Teachers can easily collect results of online quizzes and tests to monitor progress. Oak represents a good option for many schools when remote education is needed, but headteachers should also be aware of other commercial, educational resources available. The British Educational Suppliers Association's LendED platform, for instance, provides a searchable list of resources for remote education. Other free, online teaching resources are also available, such as those from the department-funded Isaac Physics. A variety of teaching resources are available through good teaching practice and resources on get help with remote education.

Helping parents to effectively support remote education

Good communication between schools and parents (about the approach the school is taking) can help. This could include, where appropriate, group seminars, briefings, or one-to-one telephone calls where necessary, to inform parents and elicit their support.

The DfE has published information for parents and carers on remote education and how they can best support their child while learning from home, where this is needed. This includes resources and advice to help parents and carers on how to establish a routine with their child, and how best to support mental health and wellbeing during this period.

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[Withdrawn] Remote education good practice

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This good practice guide should be used by staff responsible for the curriculum and its delivery in schools, including the named senior leader with responsibility for the quality and delivery of remote education provision. It offers suggestions to help schools meet the expectations for remote education set out in the schools coronavirus (COVID-19) operational guidance.

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GOAL Journaling to Reflect and Grow Daily

GOAL journaling is a 4 step process, best executed when the first two steps are done at the beginning of a class period, a day, or a week, and when the other two steps are done at the end the period, day, or week.

The first two steps (G, O) are "looking forward steps" inviting students to express gratitudes (G) and set objectives (O) for a class period. These objectives are not directly related to the daily lesson objective, but to bigger personal objectives that students are invited to create every quarter.

The last two steps (A, L) are "looking back steps" inviting students to write personal affirmations (A), small wins for the day, as well as lessons learned (L) that can be inspired by mistakes made.

Students at every grade level and in every content area can benefit from practicing this routine. Modifications can easily be implemented for younger students to be able to record their reflections, instead of writing them, as the desired outcome of this strategy is to make all students more likely to reach their big goals by breaking them down into manageable steps. It is important that the students communicate these goals to themselves and possibly to an accountability partner to create a space for reflection, learnings, and gratitude, which helps students feel grounded and balanced between what they have accomplished and what they still have to do.
Implementation steps:

1. Decide whether your students will set Daily Goals or Weekly goals and familiarize yourself with the Daily GOAL Template and the Weekly GOAL Template.

2. Practice by utilizing the three templates yourself for a week. Set two to three big professional or personal goals for yourself for the quarter. Set your first weekly goals using the weekly template, and use the daily templates every day for a whole week. At the end of that week, reflect back on the whole week using steps A and L of the weekly template.

3. Leverage this personal experience to reflect on the ways this process has helped you (or not) be more productive and feel more balanced that week. If it has, then you will have great insight to share with students as to why you want them to engage in this strategy. Getting them to buy into the "why" will be critical to help them establish this new routine and be invested in it. If this strategy didn't help you, then you might consider not using this strategy or modifying it to make it manageable for your students.

4. Introduce the strategy to your students as well as the first backwards planning template to help them set up to three big goals and some potential actions to reach them. Leverage a time of year where they have just received quantitative or qualitative data that will help them set quality goals. Support them in writing quality objectives by reviewing the SMART framework with them.

5. Start by using the GOAL weekly template first. Have students write their gratitudes and objectives on a Monday. Organize stop-and-chats or turn-and-talks after these two steps to give them a chance to share gratitudes with other members of the community and objectives with an accountability partner you designate or that they choose. You can also facilitate these share-outs with a digital tool like Padlet.

6. Let the week go by, and on Friday organize a second activity during which students reflect back on the week and complete steps A and L in the weekly template. Then, have your students celebrate their wins for the week related to their goals and reflect on lessons learned and mistakes made. Have students start thinking about next week's goals. Repeat steps 4-5 every week for two weeks as your first experiments.

7. If possible, track students' objectives (O) on a weekly basis. A simple way to do this will be to create a quick Google Form in which they can write their objectives for the week. This will give you the ability to get a full picture of what they are working on and to create opportunities during the week for 1:1 check-ins, feedback, or celebration of effort and progress. It will make a big difference for them to see that you are paying attention to the process as much as the product.

8. After two weeks, analyze the impact you see on students' productivity and well-being. Track in their objectives of the week spreadsheet students who actually reach their goals. Collect some feedback from your students via a Google Form to get a sense of how much this routine is helping them.

9. If you see an impact, even moderate, and you would like to increase it, consider moving to a daily routine using the third template. Assess if having students state their objectives daily to themselves and to their accountability partner helps them better achieve their goals. Collect some feedback again from your students via a Google Form to get a sense of how much this change in the routine is helping them.

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GOAL Journaling to Reflect and Grow Daily GOAL journaling is a 4 step process, best executed when the first two steps are done at the beginning of a class period, a day, or a week, and when the other two steps are done at the end the period, day, or week.

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Education Development Trust

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As we move into a third national lockdown, with remote education for most pupils once again the default, we are of course very aware of the heroic efforts of leaders, teachers and staff in developing remote education.

Likewise, we know there are difficulties and challenges that schools, colleges and teachers face in doing so. This short guide, which draws on findings from our interim visits, research and literature review, aims to provide some useful tips.

What is remote education?

There are different definitions out there, but these are the ones we will use here:

Remote education: a broad term encompassing any learning that happens outside of the classroom, with the teacher not present in the same location as the pupils.

Digital remote education: often known as online learning, this is remote learning delivered through digital technologies.

Blended learning: a mix of face-to-face and remote methods. An example would be the 'flipped classroom', where main input happens remotely (for example through video), while practice and tutoring happen in class.

Synchronous education: this is live; asynchronous education is when the material is prepared by the teacher and accessed by the pupil at a later date.

Some common myths about remote education

Some unhelpful myths exist about remote education, which are not based on evidence.

These include that:

remote education is fundamentally different to other forms of teaching/learning

remote education is a different curriculum/offer to the content that would be delivered normally

the best forms of remote education are digital

the best way to deliver remote education is always through live lessons

the most important thing is pupils' engagement

None of these things are necessarily true. Below, we counter them with evidence-based pointers.

Here are 7 things to think about when providing remote education. Note that they are not in order of importance.

1: Remote education is a way of delivering the curriculum

Remote education is a means, not an end. The aim of education is to deliver a high-quality curriculum so that pupils know more and remember more. Remote education is one way of doing so.

This means that everything we know about what a quality curriculum looks like still applies. The remote education curriculum needs to be aligned to the classroom curriculum as much as possible. And, just like the classroom curriculum, it needs to be carefully sequenced and ensure that pupils obtain the building blocks they need to move on to the next step. Curricular goals should be made as explicit remotely as they would be in the classroom.

Remote education is not the same as digital education. Sometimes, it may be more effective to deliver remote education through worksheets or a textbook. All schools/colleges should have access to a digital platform so they can provide online education where that is the most appropriate method.

A good textbook can provide the curriculum content and sequencing pupils need. It can also be easier to access for some pupils. However, when using textbooks or worksheets it is still important to make sure that teachers can provide feedback and assess learning. Any worksheets should be aligned with the curriculum and provide meaningful work.

2: Keep it simple

Our brains don't learn differently using remote education, so everything we know about cognitive science and learning still applies. We don't have to make huge changes to the way we teach.

We also don't need to overcomplicate resources with too many graphics and illustrations that don't add to content. When using digital remote education, the platform we use shouldn't be too complicated to use. Just as we don't need 'all-singing, all-dancing' lessons in the classroom, remote education often benefits from a straightforward and easy-to-use interface. Simple graphics that highlight the key concepts and features we want to teach can be most effective.

More important is attention to the key elements of effective teaching. For example, it's useful to provide pupils with an overview of the bigger picture and where a specific lesson or activity sits within a sequence of lessons or activities. It's also vital to have clear and high expectations and to communicate these to pupils. Just as in the classroom, most pupils will be novices in what we are teaching them. We can't expect them to be able to discover new content for themselves through tasks, projects and internet searching.

There are of course some things that need more careful consideration when teaching remotely. For example, when using recorded lessons, clarity of explanations becomes even more important as we can't as easily correct misunderstandings or misconceptions.

Another example is the 'split attention' effect. Pupils can find it harder to concentrate, so the way we integrate words and pictures or graphs is important. Text can be integrated with images where that is appropriate and doesn't just encourage guessing. This can be shown in chunks in the appropriate place. This makes the words into a description of the images and allows pupils to focus on what is most important.

As it's harder for pupils to concentrate when being taught remotely, it's often a good idea to divide content into smaller chunks. Short presentations or modelling of new content can be followed by exercises or retrieval practice.

3: When adapting the curriculum, focus on the basics

We will often need to adapt our subject curriculum when moving to remote education, for example because some topics are hard to teach remotely. When we do this, we need to focus on the basics:

Beware of offering too much new subject matter at once. Make sure key building blocks have been understood fully first. We need to assess pupils' knowledge to determine this.

Consider the most important knowledge or concepts pupils need to know. Focus on those.

Consider what alternatives exist for traditional practical activities. What can be done at home, or using simulations, for example? Worked examples and modelling can work very well in remote digital education.

In many cases, practising and a focus on developing existing knowledge and skills, such as handwriting or simple arithmetic, may be useful.

4: Feedback, retrieval practice and assessment are more important than ever

Learning isn't fundamentally different when done remotely. Feedback and assessment are still as important as in the classroom. It can be harder to deliver immediate feedback to pupils remotely than in the classroom, but teachers have found some clever ways to do this.

This immediate feedback can be given through:

chatroom discussions,

1-to-1 interaction tools

interactive touch-screen questioning in live recorded lessons

adaptive learning software

Peer interactions can provide motivation and improve learning outcomes. It's therefore worth considering enabling these through, for example, chat groups or video-linking functions. They will also help pupils maintain their social skills.

It is important for teachers to stay in regular contact with pupils. If necessary, they can even do this by using technology to automate communication. Some teachers have set up automated check-in emails to pupils to identify where they are with set tasks. This also gives a perception that teachers are 'watching' while pupils learning remotely.

Assessment is built into some online platforms and most textbooks. Low-stakes quizzes can be built in to remote education, as can written assignments and retrieval practice activities. It can be helpful to make sure pupils are 'warmed up' and 'readied' for content through an introductory task or scene-setting. Pupils can then be invited to re-visit and process the main content further in an additional task or later lesson through retrieval practice.

5: The medium matters (a bit)

Quality of teaching is far more important than how lessons are delivered. But there is some evidence that the medium does matter, especially in digital remote education. Pupils tend to spend longer accessing a remote lesson when they are using a laptop than when using a phone (tablets are in between).

This means that we need to think carefully about whether pupils have access to the right kind of device when we're using digital remote education. If they don't, and we can't provide enough devices, it might be better to consider non-digital approaches as well.

When using digital remote education, we often rely on internet access. Again, we need to consider whether pupils have this and what we can provide if they don't. The Department for Education provides support on internet access, and on setting up a digital education platform.

It is also worth considering where to host content. In the battle for attention against the internet, we need to consider whether we avoid hosting video lessons on certain platforms like YouTube, for example, because of their advertising algorithms distracting pupils.

6: Live lessons aren't always best

Some think that a live lesson is the 'gold standard' of remote education. This isn't necessarily the case. Live lessons have a lot of advantages. They can make curriculum alignment easier, and can keep pupils' attention, not least as the teacher has more control over the learning environment. But live lessons are not always more effective than asynchronous approaches.

There are some specific difficulties in doing live lessons. It can be hard to build in interaction and flexibility. This means that giving feedback can actually be less effective than when we use recorded lesson segments followed by interactive chats, or tasks and feedback. Using recorded lessons produced externally can allow you to easily draw on high-quality lessons taught by expert subject teachers. The challenge here can be to make sure they are integrated with the curriculum.

Because evidence suggests that concentration online is shorter than the length of a typical lesson, filming a classroom lesson may be ineffective.

Different approaches to remote education suit different types of content and pupils. Mixed models may be effective in some cases. For example, you could use the so-called 'flipped learning' model. In this, new content is taught through an asynchronous recorded lesson. Practice, tutoring and feedback are then done synchronously.

7: Engagement matters, but is only the start

It's harder to engage and motivate pupils remotely than when they are in the classroom. There are more distractions, and as a teacher you're not physically present to manage the situation. Communicating and working with parents, without putting an unreasonable burden on them, can help support home learning.

A lot of attention has been paid to ways in which online education can be made more engaging. For example, we can make sure different types of tasks and activities are alternated, or build in rewards and incentives to make learning more 'game-like'.

While it is important to engage pupils, this is only a precondition for learning, not the thing itself. There is only so much a teacher can do to engage pupils remotely. We therefore need to make sure that efforts to engage don't distract us from teaching the curriculum. We also need to check whether pupils have actually learned the content we want them to through assessment.

Engagement increases when pupils feel part of the school or college community. Whole-school digital assemblies and feedback, for example through newsletters to pupils and parents, can help them feel part of the community even when learning remotely.

More resources on remote education

There are a number of useful resources to help you with remote education, including:

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As we move into a third national lockdown, with remote education for most pupils once again the default, we are of course very aware of the heroic efforts of leaders, teachers and staff in developing remote education. Likewise, we know there are difficulties and challenges that schools, colleges and teachers face in doing so.

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ENGAGEMENT = ATTENDANCE + PRESENCE + EVIDENCE?

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The suggestion is that teachers are asked to judge a pupils "engagement" using the following definition:

- How much pupils are engaging (e.g. are they logging on every day? Are they viewing the files you upload?)
- The quality of engagement (e.g. is the work submitted to the expected standard?)

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Engagement might look different in one subject than in another

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Engagement might look different in one subject than in another

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Successful Remote Learning:  What have we learnt since Lockdown 1

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Earlier this week I was thrilled to be invited by Doug Lemov to take part in one of the online workshops run by his brilliant Uncommon Schools organisation. ( You can find out more about the workshops here. ) It was such a great experience to engage with training that completely walked the talk: a workshop about excellent remote instruction, delivered via excellent remote instruction. The webinar was superb in every respect, with thanks to the enthusiastic, knowledgeable trainers Hannah Solomon and Brittany Hargrove and the great material.

The session was set up with a class-sized cohort of attendees so that trainers could model securing full participation and engagement. I enjoyed meeting Destiny from Texas, Melissa from Chicago and Marzia from Bangladesh in our break-out sessions. The use of video examples - a Teach Like A Champion trademark - certainly brought the whole scenario alive. The whole approach made no reference to specific platforms or tech - so the ideas would apply in nearly any situation. It's a course ideally designed to benefit the participating teacher but would certainly support whole-school training if one person were to enrol and then cascade the key ideas. Alternatively, schools can contact the organisers and discuss bespoke school-level training. I'd recommend it without reservation.

So, what did I learn? I took tons of notes and, having sorted them into some categories, this is a summary of my main takeaways. ( I've also been linking ideas to our Walkthrus - as shown in this slide series I've been preparing for one the schools I support. )

1. Dissolve The Screen

The key here is to make students feel welcome and involved right form the start. Lively almost exaggerated up-beat delivery peppering all the interactions with student names is amazingly effective.

Take-away 1: Use names relentlessly to signal individual engagement amid the mass of faces onscreen or in a list on a chat. Great to see you Michael, and Jess; Jamila, welcome! Thanks for your responses Mo, Melissa, James; great job Alice. Thank you Abdul.

Take-away 2: Involve them in a task straight-away signalling that they are in a lesson, it counts, they matter, they can't sit back. It could be as simple as: Ok, everyone see the first question - in the chat (or on your whiteboards) list three main points we covered last lesson. Go. You don't just ask ' can anyone give me three points from lesson? '. The first task involves everyone.

2. Organise the Learning

The key is to make it really clear what students need to do in the lesson immediately ahead, to help them keep track, to develop their agency with remote learning and help them link each lesson to the wider scheme.

Take-away 3: Use a regular Orientation Screen - a familiar slide at the start of a live or remote lesson that tells students what they need for the lesson (workbooks, pencil, documents etc) and what the key learning intentions are. Reinforce verbally - to double-up on ways students can engage.

Take-away 4. Use some kind of tracking tool- that show you when students have done the work eg google forms, live shared documents or even a simple register checklist - so students know you notice if they've done the work.

3. Check for Understanding

It's so important to strengthen all practice around checking for understanding and cold-calling so that all students feel involved and engaged and so that there is maximum two-way feedback about key aspects of the material - telling the teacher as much as possible about which students are struggling and why. Re-teaching the key misconceptions is super important but you need to find out where they're struggling first.

Take-away 5: There are lots of types of Cold Calling. The variety of methods adds to the dynamics of a lesson and gives lots of different ways of students feeling connected

Verbal, using names on the screen

In the chat - inviting named students to add to the chat stream

Pre-Call: e.g "We're going to watch this clip and then, Michael, I'd like you to summarise"

Batched: e.g. "So, we've read that passage. What's the key message? Let's hear from Jess, then Mo, then Daisy"

Take-away 6: MCQ for answer; chat to explain. Get all students to give their multiple choice answer (best done with good detractors that flag misconceptions) and then invite them all or named students to explain their answer in chat. This gives a good balance of whole-class correctness feedback and more subtle information about depth of understanding.

Take-away 7: Wait Questions: Get students to prepare answers in the chat (or on google forms) but not to send or submit until asked. This allows all students to think for themselves without seeing others' answers until after they are all sent.

4. Synchronous Lessons

The TLAC team suggest that key focus in live, synchronous lessons is the personal engagement - using the time to check for understanding and build confidence, sustaining the relationships that secure commitment to the learning.

Take-away 8: Positive Narration is key. It's so important to keep reinforcing positive learning behaviours. Michael, Jess, thanks for those full answers in the chat; Daisy, thanks for being ready to answer. Even a request for 'thumbs up' on screen or in the chat in response to 'Can you all see the Slide 7 in your notes' - creates a sense of people being with you, engaged.

Take-Away 9: Establish a process for Everybody Writes so that you can set short responsive tasks where all students write an answer that they can then share. This could be via shared slides or simply in student's own documents that they then paste into the chat stream or form. This creates a sense of students feeling involved and that their work is noticed.

5. Asynchronous Lessons

The TLAC message is to treat the asynchronous or offline learning as the key driver or depth and rigour -where tasks are more extended and demanding than they can be live; allowing students time to complete tasks in depth and, of course, catch up if they cannot participate with synchronous lessons for any reason.

Take-away 10: Highlight pause points - in any video presentation which you know students will watch later. If you guide students when to pause and replay they learn to use the videos in a more interactive manner linked to the related tasks. This builds their agency; they learn to take control.

Take-away 11: Remind students of the key tasks using simple lists in the slides, in the videos or shared documents so that students know what to do and and self-evaluate their progress through the material.

6. Semi-synchronous Lessons

This is popular hybrid approach I know a lot of teachers use so it was good to see this explored here explicitly. The idea is to begin with a live intro; then set students to work independently whilst being available for support in the background and then to return to a live recap after a set period of time - say 30 minutes.

Take-away 12. This blended approach may represent the optimal use of time , combining the features of sync and a-sync lessons. It helps to build relationships and engagement (live contributions) and student agency (offline task completion) and buys time for teachers to address individual issues during the independent asynchronous phase of a lesson. It can also help to fold in the students with less access to live lessons for reasons beyond their control.

Immense thanks to Doug, Hannah and Brittany - congratulations on putting together such an excellent programme.

Related Posts:

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Principles for Remote Instruction: Notes from a #TLAC Masterclass.

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Earlier this week I was thrilled to be invited by Doug Lemov to take part in one of the online workshops run by his brilliant Uncommon Schools organisation. (You can find out more about the workshops here. ) It was such a great experience to engage with training that completely walked the talk: a workshop...

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1. Agree what "engagement" looks like for our subject and pupils
2. Agree how we will measure it
3. Design a process to gather concerns

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As a consequence of writing a book and various blog posts about Rosenshine's Principles of instruction and using them a lot in my training, I often get asked whether the principles apply in various other specific contexts - or how to interpret them. Generally my response is two-fold:

To stress that Rosenshine's principles are not - and were never intended to be - a universal description of all aspects of teaching; they apply to those parts of teaching where teachers are leading the learning, in an instructional mode. Most teachers have to do this at some point, to some degree, even if it doesn't dominate.

To suggest that the core ideas in Rosenshine's principles are very widely applicable, whatever the context, whenever instructional teaching is involved. In fact, to use the four strands I normally use to summarise the principles, it's hard to imagine teaching without doing these things:

Reviewing material - checking prior learning has been activated where it relates to new learning and supporting students to remember what they've been taught over time.

Questioning and checking for understanding - finding out whether all students are making sense of the ideas being explored and adapting the teaching accordingly.

Sequencing concepts; modelling; scaffolding - building up learning from small steps, showing how to do things, providing structured support

Stages of practice: guiding practice securing a high success rate, building fluency and confidence, before supporting students to practise independently - making sure they can do things for themselves without help.

So - as far as I can see - the question isn't 'Do they apply?' - it's just a question of how to apply them. How do these principles apply to SEND students? How do they apply in creative subjects, the arts? How do they apply to remote learning? How do they apply in the early years and foundation stage?

It would be a productive process for a team to explore how consistently and effectively these principles are applied in relation to these contexts, identifying the form they might take when woven into the routine fabric of their teaching. For remote learning it might go something like this:

Remote Learning

Reviewing material: Daily and weekly/monthly review

It's helpful to start live lessons or new remote assignments by activating prior knowledge linked to the topic in hand. This also supports engagement - giving something to do that builds confidence: some simple practice questions that makes students recall and use what they've done before. Lots of quizzing apps can support this or the use of forms for quick response questions can do the same job.

It's helpful to run regular knowledge checks spanning the last one or two weeks linked to the key material students should have learned. If students have clear guidance about what they should have studied through the tasks set - e.g. knowledge organisers and booklets - then they can prepare for these checks independently offline using retrieval practice methods modelled during lessons.

Questioning and checking for understanding

Cold Calling: bedrock of good classroom practice, making sure all students feel involved; making them all think. In live remote lessons, it's more important than ever. It's vital to use the opportunity to ask specific students to respond, using the chat function if not via the audio, not just relying on a few volunteers. Again, forms or shared documents or whiteboard apps can support this process, allowing all students' responses to be seen.

Checking for understanding: essential for remote learning to work well, making sure students can tell you what they've understood about the concepts and about the assignments. The blanket 'i s everyone ok? ' is a waste of time. Ask a sample of individuals: Michael, Aysha - what do you think I'm expecting you to do today?

Sequencing concepts; modelling; scaffolding

Explaining new content via live lessons or pre-recorded videos, make the steps small enough for students to follow and practise. Videos can help in that they allow for pause and replay - it can be worth being very explicit about this in the delivery, highlighting when students should pause or review.
If you give students too much at once without a lot of structure, they will be overwhelmed - needs to be avoided at all costs.

Modelling completed tasks will help a lot. For live lessons or videos, the use of complete and partially complete examples will be useful, just like it is in normal lessons. For off line tasks, still show lots of worked examples and exemplars. Where possible, show students what it will look like when a task is finished

Scaffolding: the same role as in normal lessons; need to decide who needs what kind of support. Prepare some more structured guidance for those who might need it.

Stages of practice: Guided practice and Independent practice

As students will be offline outside a live teaching situation for much of the time, planning their practice is important. Guiding practice can only really happen with live or shared documents. This video shows how google slides or equivalent can be used to guide practice in writing tasks .

Building confidence by giving students lots of practice with familiar material will help - so they feel they can do the work. It won't be good for them to see remote learning as a constant struggle. Vary the nature of the practice with the same ideas - rather than constantly adding more and more, in any given week.

Independent practice will be dependent on students' capacity for it - of course younger students may rely heavily on parental supervision for this. A list of short tasks to be completed will help: questions to answers; pieces of writing; texts to read; videos to watch; quizzes to prep for. The more structured the better. Make tasks short enough so that you can give feedback on them easily or students can self-assess, rather than collecting in lots of very long assignments that need a lot of teacher marking

SEND

There are so many SEND scenarios that it can be a mistake to generalise too much. The nature of the features of instructional teaching will vary according to the particular needs students have and whether they are in mainstream or specialist provision. Rather than providing a generic description, to illustrate the thinking, I have a scenario in mind where I feel all these principles took form.

This was a situation in an FE college where a SEND student in a skills and employability class was being taught how to use money and make transactions over the counter. I saw him buy his own lunch for the very first time - and this represented something of a major triumph. On completing the task his tutors and classmates were hugging and hi-fiving him. It was emotional. He was triumphant. I did it! I did it! This was a big deal. But how did Jason get there?

Reviewing material: Daily and weekly/monthly review

Over time, Jason had had to build up his knowledge of using money; making the bonds in pounds and pence to £1 and £10. He had had to learn the right form of language to ask politely for what he wanted. All of this would have needed practice; he'd have forgotten how to do it lots of times so reviewing prior learning regularly would have been important, so he remembered it more easily and built up some fluency.

Questioning and checking for understanding

During his lessons - long before getting to the performance stage in the actual canteen - Jason would have been taught how to add money in coins to make the correct amount and how to check his change. His teacher would have checked he understood what to do. This might have been by demonstrating it as well as explaining it verbally. Jason had learned to express himself verbally with more confidence during the course; answering questions would have been part of that.

Sequencing concepts; modelling; scaffolding

The whole process took Jason some time. If you write it all out, buying your lunch and counting out the right money has several stages. This was something aged 16 that Jason could only just manage - so you can imagine how much help he'd needed to reach this point; it was broken down into small steps with lots of modelling and scaffolding. The scaffolds were about the maths operations, handling coins and engaging in the interpersonal bit; making eye contact and talking to the person at the till. His tutor has been with him every other time before this. Scaffolding takes many forms - including moral support.

Stages of practice: Guided practice and Independent practice

Finally, this process models the practice stages perfectly. Jason had learned to buy his lunch with help. He'd done it before -making mistakes or needing someone with him until this moment. He had also done a lot of practice handling money - over and over. He wasn't yet fluent but the tutor decided he was ready for the scaffolds to begin to come down and Jason was asked to practise the whole thing independently. He may not have done it perfectly the first time; the tutor was on hand. But he persevered and on this occasion the tutor kept a distance and he had aced it. That moment of flying solo into the canteen took some courage from him and his tutor.

Obviously that is just one situation - but to me the key elements of effective instruction all apply. It's all about making the adjustments, guiding the practice long enough to build confidence to engage in some independent practice, using the knowledge that has built up in small steps, remembered from week to week with review and checking for understanding.

For Arts subjects and EYFS - which I might look at in detail in another post - the same exact thought process applies. It's obvious that all four boxes can be filled; each section of the principles has a place in those contexts. The nature of 'reviewing material' or 'scaffolding or 'guided practice' will change but they will be there in amongst the other areas of the teaching and learning process. That's a key stumbling block for a lot of people - they imagine (or are perhaps led to believe) that Rosenshine's principles provide a cover-all description for any situation which simply isn't the case. However, it's very instructive to look at where they arise and to discuss how they can be delivered effectively.

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Applying Rosenshine's Principles to specific contexts.

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As a consequence of writing a book and various blog posts about Rosenshine's Principles of instruction and using them a lot in my training, I often get asked whether the principles apply in various other specific contexts - or how to interpret them. Generally my response is two-fold: To stress that Rosenshine's principles are not...

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I was curious about the problem of engaging with students' writing during remote learning. How do you know how students are getting on in real time? How do you give feedback in a manageable way? The response I got from this tweet was magnificent - open up the thread to see all the replies.

Let's share some solutions..
What's a good time-efficient tech-easy way to see students' writing (short answers or more extended) and give some dynamic feedback in remote learning world?
- Tom Sherrington (@teacherhead) January 8, 2021

I have tried to compile some of the hundreds of responses into some kind of order. You can access the organised list here with all the comments as they appeared on twitter with links to the platforms and some the tweets with related videos and blog posts. This contains the detailed responses and links.
Remote learning ideas list.

The table here summarises the platforms and apps mentioned so far - easy to find their homepages and youtube explainers via a simple search.

There appear to be some main categories of solutions. I've described mainly in a generic fashion here - hopefully you can match to the platforms listed.

Live writing in individual shared documents or digital notebooks

Each student has a document they write in online that the teacher can also see and comment on. They respond to tasks in the document. Document can be blank or setup with images, links and structured guidance. Eg googledocs, onenote - standalone or built into googleclassroom/ Teams.

Live writing in group documents with individual pages or areas.

Similar to the above but each student is essentially writing into the same document for the whole class ie a section in a document with their name on it - everyone can see other students' writing or they can work collaboratively. Teacher can see each student's contributions in their sections.

Using slides as a writing space

As above but using googleslides for writing - each slide pre-prepared with textboxes and students write on their own page. Easy to see each students' writing and scan between them during the lesson. Easy to link to tasks, resources, create templates.

Using forms for short answers

Using forms in google or Teams to set multiple questions. Students respond to questions individually and teacher exports into spreadsheet to see answers from each student. Helpful tips eg make Qu1 the student name for easy identification. Answers can be long or short - good for seeing lots of answers side by side to the same questions.

Using shared spreadsheets

As before but going straight into the spreadsheet - student write short answers into their allocated column. (harder to mask students answers from each other)

Digital whiteboards

Lots of apps/platforms offer this popular feature. Students write on their digital board and then share their responses as requested. Teacher sees them on screen all at once - answers can be long or short; feedback given verbally or written, to individuals or class depending on the platform eg whiteboard.fi Students and teachers can also write over pdfs of documents.

Digital sketch pads

Similar to whiteboards but students have their own space on a bulletin board that is easy for teacher to see all at once - or scrolling through. See writing progress in real time and add comments for whole group or individuals as they work.

Voice/audio notes

Using voice recording add-ons to record verbal feedback - much quicker to record than to write same amount. Students can playback live or later if done asynchronously.

Photographs of work

The basic idea of taking pictures of handwritten work or other non electronic work and then uploading to share with teacher. Various dedicated apps and use of phones as scanners. Teachers can annotate and return or use for verbal feedback.

Using platform chat function

Making use of chat function in googlemeets, Teams, zoom - to see students' answers to questions. Good for spontaneous dynamic responses in addition to verbal responses in live sessions. Good tip to use a whiteboard-style count-down so students submit answers simultaneously - so they can't just copy answers given.

Standard email

Simply sending work back and forth via email - straightforward for longer pieces such as essays or chunks of work completed offline - not for live lessons.

Question response add-ons

Platforms that allow questions to be set in dynamic way during live lessons or planned in advance. eg multiple choice or written answers -good for diagnostic questions. Various apps track each student's response - as well as creating poll graphs, word cloud responses etc.

Verbal feedback in live session

The obvious thing of selecting only certain students or small groups to be on camera at any point to discuss work directly - work perhaps shared via emailed photographs or live document sharing.

Video Guide: Using Googleforms of equivalent for dynamic or planned question and answer sessions. Video Guide: Using Google slides or equivalent as a dynamic writing space for easy supervision and feedback

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Remote Learning Solutions: Crowd-sourced ideas for checking students' writing

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I was curious about the problem of engaging with students' writing during remote learning. How do you know how students are getting on in real time? How do you give feedback in a manageable way? The response I got from this tweet was magnificent - open up the thread to see all the replies.

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Like most teachers, I had a lot of questions about setting work for my students when the first school closures happened.

Should I create booklets for them to work through? Set open-ended projects or research tasks about different topics? Give them a choice of different activities?

It was all miles away from how I usually teach in the classroom. I ditched such ways of working many years ago after finding them hugely inefficient and generally ineffective.

But without the class having me in the classroom, is there really any choice? Would I need to return to project-based learning?

My mind turned to the idea that has done most to guide my teaching in recent years: Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. Applying these 10 principles to my teaching has worked wonders for streamlining my practice and they have saved me countless hours in worrying about filling lessons with activities. They have encouraged me to work on my instruction.

Remote learning after coronavirus school closures

But they were written with physical instruction in mind: a teacher stood in the classroom in front of their class.

Could they apply to remote learning?

When I took a fresh look at Rosenshine, I saw that there was enormous potential in using them as guiding principles for setting work remotely in a way that would have the greatest chance of helping pupils to learn at home.

1. Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning

Watch a teacher start a lesson and you will inevitably hear the magic words: "Do you remember that last lesson we...?"

Beginning a lesson with a quick recap is second nature to us. We recognise the need to link what pupils are about to learn to what they already know.

We also realise that having the time to recall things from memory makes them more memorable in the future.

Starting a remote lesson with a review of previous learning should be simple enough. Ask students to look back through their notes, show them an image linked to the previous lesson and ask them to write down what they can remember about it, or ask them to write a summary from memory.

2. Present material in small steps with student practice after each step, and require and monitor independent practice

We use these two principles - in part to prevent overloading a student's working memory. They can't hold on to that much new information and still do something with it.

In the classroom, we get around this by carefully chunking a lesson and delivering a small amount at each time. There is a temptation with remote learning to give students a lot of information on a topic, or ask them to find a lot of information themselves on a topic, and then to do something with it (create a poster, write a report, answer an essay question).

This principle reminds me that I need to keep the same sort of structure for my lessons that I set remotely. They need a small amount of input and then a chance to do something with it before moving on.

I also need to make sure that there is only a small amount of new information being introduced because I need an opportunity to monitor how they are getting on. There is no point in students racing ahead if they are getting things badly wrong.

I need them to upload work back on to our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) so I can look over it and plan what to do next. I don't necessarily need to mark it, but I do need to use what I see to inform future planning.

3. Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students. Check for student understanding and obtain a high success rate

I will put these three principles together as they set out to do much the same thing and they have a similar problem for us.

We ask a large number of questions to ensure that everyone is following our explanations and to make sure that students aren't starting a task still holding on to misconceptions. If we don't get a high success rate before they start practising, then any misconceptions they hold will end up embedded in their work.

The difficulty we have now is we can't, easily, check the responses of all students before they complete a task. What I can do, though, is use Google Forms to create self-marking quizzes that can be set up to provide feedback on incorrect answers. They can complete these quizzes before beginning a longer task to check they are ready.

I can also use the results of these quizzes to plan my future lessons and the next steps, exactly as I would in the classroom.

4. Provide models and scaffolds for difficult tasks

In the classroom, I am forever modelling. I'll use my visualiser to write an example paragraph or quickly demonstrate a geographical skill on the board. I'll also provide scaffolds for students as and when they need them. I'll pick up a mini whiteboard and give them a few key words, a sentence starter or diagram. All of this can be done in a responsive way and without much advance planning.

Remotely, I need to make sure these are available on any resources I give them. I produce model paragraphs in advance and include scaffolding on the same slide or worksheet containing the task instructions to be used if required.

5. Engage students in weekly and monthly reviews

This has always been one of my favourite of the Rosenshine Principles and the one I have often thought gets overlooked.

In our rush to get through the curriculum, we don't always take the time to pause and look back with a student at what they have learned so far. Doing so allows us to help them make connections between different parts of the topic and to identify personal goals for improvement and give advice on how to achieve it. What better time than now?

We aren't going to cover the curriculum in the normal way. We may as well ensure that what students are learning is learned really well rather than risking a lot of things being learned badly. So I'm planning in regular review lessons when they look back at what they have done so far; if possible with me giving them some personal input in one way or another.

In conclusion...

When we put it all together we get:

1. Start with some recap.

2. Introduce things slowly with practice after each part.

3. Check on how students are getting on and pick up on any misconceptions.

4. Give them models and scaffolds.

5. Review how they are doing.

And this is the reason I like these principles; they just make my job easier. This is going to mean retooling the lessons I have rather than starting again from the beginning. Those lessons were created for a reason, they work. And they can be made to work remotely.

As teachers, we are busier than ever. Supporting the children of key workers, supporting our colleagues, supporting our communities, and all while dealing with whatever else is happening in society around us.

What I have found in looking again at Rosenshine's principles is a way of creating lessons that will help students to learn and minimise the pressure on me. In these difficult times, this may be as close as we will get to a win-win.

Mark Enser is head of geography and research lead at Heathfield Community College. His latest book, Teach Like Nobody's Watching, is out now. He tweets @EnserMark

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Remote learning: How to apply Rosenshine's principles

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Remote learning can be improved with tried-and-tested classroom approaches, writes Mark Enser

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Online Discussion forums

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Quick feedback apps:
- plickers
- slido
- jamboard

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Ask pupils to evidence writing in books by posting on Google Classroom Assignment

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Use AfL Tools that work in a physical classroom as well as a virtual one

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Leverage the end of the lesson by using a stream, within the Learning Platform, 3rd Party or using a shared Google doc.

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"engagement" = attendance + amount of work handed in + quality of interaction (work handed in/questions asked etc)

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Anderson and Garrison proposed that good remote learning needs to be understood as a social
phenomenon and not an exercise in supported self-study. They promoted the concept of "teaching presence"

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What might a monitoring system look like? How do you gather evidence?

Spreadsheet

Dept conversations

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Engagement = ATTENDANCE + WORK + QUALITY

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Engagement = ATTENDANCE + WORK + QUALITY

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According to the Key (link in Links Note), engagement is more than attendance - we can remotely track the last time a pupil used Google Classroom or whether work has been submitted. More difficult to track the quality of the work. Is the work submitted to a similar standard that the pupil would make if they were in School?

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The Key suggests that we encourage colleagues to determine what's "reasonable" engagement for individual pupils for their subjects. This is because teachers know their pupils (ability but also their "normal" levels of engagement) and will be able to determine whether a child is engaging sufficiently.

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"As set out in the guidance for full opening, schools should monitor pupil engagement with remote education provision. Schools can log participation and motivation levels and feedback to parents, either individually or formally through regular reports. They can also contact pupils or parents by telephone to explore ways to secure re-engagement. Schools can create whole-class or whole-school feedback loops. For example, a weekly newsletter which pulls together examples of excellent work and awards points and rewards for excellent engagement or outcomes. This could be emailed to all parents and pupils, or posted to those without digital access." - remote education good practice (gov)