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As colleges across the country pivot online on very short notice, there are a host of complications - from laptops and Internet access to mental health and financial needs.

Digital learning experts have some surprising advice: do less.

"Please Do A Bad Job Of Putting Your Courses Online" is the title of one popular blog post by Rebecca Barrett-Fox, an assistant professor of sociology at Arkansas State University. Her point: "your class is not the highest priority of their or your life right now." She suggests not requiring students to show up online at a particular time and making all exams open-book and open-Internet.

Luke Waltzer, the director of the Center on Teaching and Learning at the Graduate Center, CUNY, laid out his guidelines for transitioning to a "minimum viable course" in a single Tweet:

Minimum Viable (transitioned) Course, if your department lets you:

*send students clear, bulleted email with things to do & resources

*include times when they can call you or otherwise connect

*suggest benchmarks, but don't require

*collect work via email, save into folders
- Luke Waltzer (@lwaltzer) March 13, 2020

Some colleges like Duke, Smith, MIT, Georgetown and Grinnell are starting to offer students the option of taking their Spring courses pass/fail given the circumstances.

In a time of virtual reality classrooms and AI-enabled automated tutoring programs, why are the experts in digital teaching calling for professors to simplify?

"Everyone's freaked out," says Sean Michael Morris. He's in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado, Denver and the director of Digital Pedagogy Lab, an organization focused on digital learning, technology and social justice.

Sean Michael Morris says that in this unprecedented time, "Recognizing that we're also human, we also have to figure this out together is incredibly important. The idea of being able to just port what you're doing in a classroom into an online environment has its own problems. But trying to do that in the midst of a pandemic is another problem altogether."

Morris and other colleagues have a tongue-in-cheek name for what they're doing right now: "Panic-gogy" (for panic + pedagogy).

On one level, Panicgogy means understanding students' practicalities. Some only have smartphones. Some have family responsibilities. Some have been sent home and need to find a new place to live, new job, and new health insurance. Professors may feel that the simplest option would be transitioning to class over video chat, but for all these practical reasons "It's not really realistic to think that students can just show up and start taking class at the same time every day in an online environment," says Morris.

Morris also suggests that professors not rely solely on the university's official software, known as a learning management system, but that they make themselves reachable by as many means as possible while preserving privacy: Facebook, Twitter, email, WhatsApp group. And make sure that students have the opportunity to be connected to each other as well.

He also suggests that professors make themselves as familiar as possible with all the types of help universities and communities are offering: from counseling, to emergency loans and other financial assistance.

Robin DeRosa is director of the Open Learning and Teaching Collaborative at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. She says, "I think the first thing is we are not building online courses or converting your face to face courses to online learning. Really, what we're doing is we are trying to extend a sense of care to our students and trying to build a community that's going to be able to work together to get through the learning challenges that we have."

DeRosa points out that creating an excellent online course can take a year of development and collaboration among people with different skills.

"So if people think that in three to five days they're going to rejigger their course and build some super amazing online platform, that's probably unlikely to happen," she says.

DeRosa suggests that we ask students for their own suggestions on the best ways to keep in touch.

"The idea here is really to help our students feel included in the process of rethinking education for a challenging time."

DeRosa also suggests that professors bring COVID-19 onto the curriculum.

"Whatever field you teach, I think it's worth asking how is that field affected by the public health crisis and what contributions could the field be making right now to help people in their communities."

Even though the focus can sometimes be on technology, tools, and logistics, Morris, from the University of Colorado, Denver, says that what is really required from professors at this time is compassion.

"The real skill that Panicgogy requires is sort of a critical compassion, if you will, the ability to look at the situation as it really is. Figure out what's going on, how you can operate within that, and how you can be compassionate in that as well."

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'Panic-gogy': Teaching Online Classes During The Coronavirus Pandemic

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subscribe to Coronavirus Daily podcast As colleges across the country pivot online on very short notice, there are a host of complications - from laptops and Internet access to mental health and financial needs. Digital learning experts have some surprising advice: do less.

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Focus on these two quotes:

"Whatever field you teach, I think it's worth asking how is that field affected by the public health crisis and what contributions could the field be making right now to help people in their communities."

"The real skill that Panicgogy requires is sort of a critical compassion, if you will, the ability to look at the situation as it really is. Figure out what's going on, how you can operate within that, and how you can be compassionate in that as well."

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Record a comment - 2/3 minutes is enough... (use the voice tool below - click on the + sign to create a new tab, click on the three dots, select VOICE and record a commentary - Put your name as the title!).

First, comment on the article itself. Does it ring true? Do you agree with these leading professors?

Secondly, describe what you are doing in your own schools regarding online classes. Talk us through the process that your school has set up. Is it working?

Finally, comment on the two quotes above. What contributions can we be making, as teachers and educators, to help the community?
What do you make of this 'critical compassion'?

Just create a tab like the one below by pressing the + sign at the bottom of the page!

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Listen to me!

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Listen...
On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme (weekdays 6am-9am), some of the BBC's best known voices are offering their favourite poems of #comfortandhope and talking about the importance of the words in their lives.
Here is an example from today:

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On #R4Today some of the BBC's best known voices will offer their favourite poems of #comfortandhope. Here Allan Little shares the power of the words of Shakespeare that helped him, and his wife, after she was badly injured a road traffic incident. 

https://t.co/KIxKTtqg29

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On #R4Today some of the BBC's best known voices will offer their favourite poems of #comfortandhope. Here Allan Little shares the power of the words of Shakespeare that helped him, and his wife, after she was badly injured a road traffic incident. 

https://t.co/KIxKTtqg29 https://t.co/VQNZjPWfi5

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On #R4Today some of the BBC's best known voices will offer their favourite poems of #comfortandhope. Here Allan Little shares the power of the words of Shakespeare that helped him, and his wife, after she was badly injured a road traffic incident. https://t.co/KIxKTtqg29 pic.twitter.com/VQNZjPWfi5
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) March 31, 2020

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On #R4Today some of the BBC's best known voices will offer their favourite poems of #comfortandhope. Here Allan Little shares the power of the words of Shakespeare that helped him, and his wife, after she was badly injured a road traffic incident. 

https://t.co/KIxKTtqg29 https://t.co/VQNZjPWfi5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
On #R4Today some of the BBC's best known voices will offer their favourite poems of #comfortandhope. Here Allan Little shares the power of the words of Shakespeare that helped him, and his wife, after she was badly injured a road traffic incident. 

https://t.co/KIxKTtqg29 https://t.co/VQNZjPWfi5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
On #R4Today some of the BBC's best known voices will offer their favourite poems of #comfortandhope. Here Allan Little shares the power of the words of Shakespeare that helped him, and his wife, after she was badly injured a road traffic incident. 

https://t.co/KIxKTtqg29

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Choose your poem.
Record a recital (focus on prosody, pace, rhythm, stress etc.) - everything to appui à la prise de parole.
Finally, talk about the importance of those words in your life.

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Not by Erin Hansen

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If by Rudyard Kipling

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Read this...

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When schools return it will not be 'Business as usual'

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Answer the following questions, either using an audio recording or written in the comments section:

1) Is 'business as usual' possible on returning to school?
2) What might the 'new normal' look like?
3) According to the writer, what should be our principal concern?
4) What does he think we need not / should not worry about?
5) Do you believe the time spent remote learning will have a long-term impact on your teaching/school?

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Damien

1)It depends of what is heard by “returning to school”. The first days, weeks or even first months for some issues will have nothing to do with “business as usual”.  But eventually, after a certain amount of time and efforts from each of us, things will get back to the usual.

2) I think the ‘new normal’ could be defined by much work to carry out. If we consider the teaching, teachers and students will have to find a way to make up for what they have not been able to study or learn during the lockdown. But in a more general way, and as it is said in the article, I think many students will have to adapt back to the rhythms of school life and to get back into their working and learning habits.

3) The principal concern according to the writer is the increasing disparity. He insists on the fact that these disparities are already appearing during the lockdown. Furthermore, he also asserts that considerable work will be needed to identify and make up for the learning gaps of each one.

4) The author clearly says that the Ofsted or the performance tables should “take a backseat”. What may be meant by this is that inspections or more generally the idea of results and performance from schools and students are not a priority at the moment.

5) I think this time spent remote learning will have a long-term impact on my teaching if it needs to. If we have to face something similar in the future, the methods and techniques that I set up with my students will prove useful once again. In the same way, everything that has been established at the school level (like the exchange between the school and the families, the communication between teachers and headmasters) will be put in place, and maybe in a quicker and more effective way.

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An interesting article which echoes a lot of the issues we talked about in our first session!

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In this time of crisis, exams are off: GCSEs, A-levels, Sats. All except one ... the 11-plus, a test that was phased out in most parts of the country decades ago, but that means everything to families in areas still operating a system of grammars and de facto secondary moderns.

A quick scan of grammar school websites around the country shows that, so far, it is business as usual. The entire world may have stopped in its tracks but, in early September, after possibly months out of school, thousands of 10-year-olds look set to sit this series of tests to determine their secondary-school future.

Ilesh Kotecha, the founder and director of Eleven Plus Exams, a tutoring and resources centre that provides information and advice nationally, says it is very unlikely the 11-plus will be cancelled. Instead, he says, headteachers are being tentatively told to prepare to reopen their schools between four and eight weeks from now.

The decision to go ahead looks increasingly ill-judged as the lockdown extends, particularly given the well-established statistics on the low numbers of disadvantaged children accessing grammar schools in a normal year, and emerging evidence of the rapid widening of the educational gap as a result of coronavirus.

Recent surveys from Teacher Tapp, Public First and the Sutton Trust confirm that while children at independent schools are receiving significantly more online lessons, only 33% of those from low-income homes spend more than four hours a day learningat home. And some headteachers have said that in their school, up to 40% of pupils do not have a home computer. Many have no internet or phone either.

Tracy Thomas, headteacher of Marden primary school in Kent, the largest remaining grammar-school area in the country, says: "I fear that the gap this year [in terms of 11-plus admissions] will be greater than ever."

Kathryn Evans, an assistant head and year 6 teacher in Maidstone, Kent, points to an early feature of the lockdown in grammar-school areas."State primary schools are not allowed to prepare children for the test. Even so, around this time, we would be alerting parents to the fact that the test was coming up and would be there to answer any of their questions." Instead, she and her colleagues are "trying to get in touch with vulnerable families, and keep some sort of education going".
Grammar schools offer 'pitifully few' places to poorer children
Zoe Catania is a co-founder of Aim, a small charity that helps prepare children from low-income homes for the Kent test. She says the crisis will have a "massive impact". "Even the brightest children need familiarisation with parts of the test, particularly verbal and non-verbal reasoning."

Meanwhile, Kotecha says children who attend state schools will be disadvantaged unless their parents can provide teaching and practice during the lockdown. He says independent prep schools are "teaching a full timetable, expecting the child to begin online at 8.30 or 9am at the latest and work until 3.30pm to justify the fees. State school children don't get this online service, because often their schools struggle for a budget just for the basics.

"During this lockdown if a child is not getting practice at home, then they will not be as mentally agile when it comes to the actual exam as those who are kept on their toes and close to their peak performance.'

But even families getting tutoring for free face additional problems. "Printers," says Catania. "It's striking the number of people who haven't got printers or who can't afford a printer cartridge. That's not just families on pupil premium. It goes far beyond that."

In a normal year, Aim offers three hours' free tutoring a week, additional activities, and runs a mock exam at a local test site in the spring. This year they are sending the mock test via computer. All entrants will sit the test, at the same time, in as near to exam conditions as they can. If parents are not able to print what might be up to 40 sheets of paper, Aim will deliver them by hand.

Maria Hughes (not her real name), a single parent on universal credit, is preparing her year 5 daughter, with the help of Aim, for the Kent test. She counts herself lucky because she has "a dining room table, a school laptop which I share with my two children, and an elderly relative locally who has a printer.

"I have to hold my phone by my relative's window so the bluetooth from my phone connects to the printer," she says. Her relative then hands her the printed pages through the window. It sounds complicated, but Hughesconsiders herself lucky: "If I didn't have that, the whole thing would be a nightmare."

But the obstacles go well beyond tech, says Catania. "Lots of children haven't got space to sit quietly. Parents are out working, or they can't help. Then there's the impact for some children of missing out on tricky bits of the curriculum, like algebra."

It is hard to see how the government, or grammar schools themselves, can ignore the glaring unfairness of this year's exam. In recent years, the government has made cash for grammar school expansion contingent on increasing the numbers of disadvantaged pupils, though this has, in effect, been minimal.

What are the options?Unlike every other public exam, the 11-plus cannot easily be replaced by assessment. Talking to teachers in selective areas, none wants to have to pick out the "clever children" in their year 6 class, with the resulting bad feeling between themselves and local families. And, as one parent, Maria Hughes, says, "Assessment would be very difficult when you compare children from private prep versus primary schools."

Abandoning the test is not feasible either. Selective areas are structured around the creation of a rigid divide at 11.

Early indications are that selective schools and areas are searching for a face-saving solution, perhaps tweaking their admissions to allow in more children from lower-income families.

Anita Cranmer, Buckinghamshire council's cabinet member for education, says: "We recognise the impact the [coronavirus] disruption will have on children due to sit the secondary transfer test." The council is liaising with the Buckinghamshire Grammar Schools Group (TBGS), which owns and manages the test for Buckinghamshire, and with the test supplier, GL Assessment, "to find a solution ... and we are also in ongoing discussions with the Department for Education".

The only other option is postponement, possibly until January. But Hughes is sceptical: "If the schools go back before September, keep it the same. If they don't go back until September, then defer until the new year. But my daughter just wants it over and done with."
Topics

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'The gap will be bigger than ever': grammar school exams still going ahead

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In this time of crisis, exams are off: GCSEs, A-levels, Sats. All except one ... the 11-plus, a test that was phased out in most parts of the country decades ago, but that means everything to families in areas still operating a system of grammars and de facto secondary moderns.