The Virtual Teachers of Our Childhood

The virtual teachers of my childhood include individuals such as:

• Bill Nye
• Fred Rogers
• Mr. Dress Up (aka Ernie Coombs)
• Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton
• Hal Johnson & Joanne McLeod

As I work with teachers within MVSD, and throughout my global PLN, I hear specific remote teaching concerns echoed, regardless of grade or subject-area:

• how can I connect with my students and ensure they feel valued?
• how can I keep my students engaged in our content?
• what kind of things should I be including in the design of my remote class?
• how do I find balance between on-screen and off-screen activities?

Sense of Community

One thing that all of these shows had was the fact that they spoke directly to the audience; the children. It never occurred to me that thousands of other children were watching these shows, it seemed as though the show was just for me. Mr. Roger’s was especially skilled at acknowledging the normal and developmental responses and emotions of his audience. He didn’t shy away from sensitive concepts and guided his audience through the importance of validating their own emotions. These shows also built in plenty of opportunities for all children to “see themselves” through the inclusion of guests and content representing various races, genders, abilities, and backgrounds.

As we teach in a remote environment, I think it is important that we establish a sense of community with our learners. The strategies modelled for us by these teachers can be transferred and modernized to our new environments. We can be purposeful about addressing learners by name as they enter a synchronous call or engage in a chat, continue to have open conversations about topics that may be affecting them, and providing opportunities for multiple learner interactions (with you, with each other, with others). Remote teaching, by nature, can build in more online opportunities so lets find those guest speakers, examples, and content that represent the diversity of our world and ensure that all students can “see themselves” in our content.

Lesson Design: Engagement & Empowerment

While education-driven these shows were still designed from an entertainment standpoint; edu-tainment if you would. Their design kept us tuning in week-after-week without us appreciating the educational elements that was being shared with us. So what aspects can we pull from here and use in our virtual lessons?

• Routine
  • We all thrive on routine: kids and adults. Each show had a predictable routine that you quickly learned:
    • change our shoes, change our sweater, feed the fish, welcome a guest…
    • funny science sketch, introduce a concept, student experiment, expert guest
    • etc
  • We knew what to expect, were prepared to transition between segments, and eagerly anticipated what we determined to be our favourite segment
  • We have to remember that school is often the only source of routine for our learners. Now that they are away from our buildings the semblance of routine becomes even more important
• Music
  • I’m not just talking about the epic and immediately recognizable theme songs (although if you can assign your own theme song to your synchronous sessions than do it!)
  • Every show included music as a teaching tool. In some cases it was original songs and in some cases it was parodies of “trendy” songs but the synching of content into song lyrics can be an effective strategy to review and understand content

• Learning With the Audience
  • It was very rare to see an episode that only featured the main host. Each of these shows included a variety of children participants, friendly characters, and expert guests
  • These guests allowed the host to step aside and learn something new alongside the audience; the perfect model of a growth mindset
  • Virtual teaching provides additional opportunities to connect with guests without the logistical concerns of face-to-face visits
  • Having learners showcase their knowledge to the class builds right into project-based learning activities that are so perfect in a remote environment and strengthens a learner’s sense of community
• Opportunities for Active Participation – Call to Action
  • Each of these shows included at least one, if not more, segments that actively encouraged the audience to be participating alongside the host; it wasn’t just a full 30-mins of ingesting content.
  • It was maybe the completion of a craft, the reading of a book, a science experiment, or a connection to your local environment
  • These activities were often left open-ended as well leaving the learner with the option of trying different ingredients or modifying the activity to their context

Balancing Mediums

Our current remote teaching model tends to heavily emphasize screen-time with online content being used in all aspects of programming (synchronous video calls, activities within an LMS, online simulations, etc). While these activities can offer plenty of unique and beneficial opportunities for learners, we have to plan for what is developmentally appropriate for our audience.

While these shows obviously used a screen to share their content, all of the activities they modelled for children were to be done within their own environment. These included physical activity, science experiments, imaginative play and exploration, art, etc. While screens can be used to share content we should try to build in a robust slate of off-screen activities as well that allow for our learners to manipulate objects, make connections to nature, be active, and converse with those in their household.

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Who would you include as your personal list of virtual teachers from your childhood and what elements from their teaching practice could you transfer to your current context?