Remote learning is new for all of us. Along with anything new comes new learning. Hopefully you are finding this to be true as you are working on putting together materials, communicating with your learners, and using different digital tools to provide the best educational opportunities available.

Most likely you are experiencing things from your new learning that are working well for your learners and their families and some areas that are not. The Kent ISD Remote Learning Implementation Support Team (RLIS Team) would like help alleviate this frustration by sharing key elements to consider as you continue to navigate this new online learning experience. 

In order to clearly and concisely deliver these key elements, we are sharing an infographic on effective communication for remote learning. In this infographic you will find bursts of key information on communication in the form of email and video.

5 Ways for Effective Communication Infographic

1) Volume of Written Communication

Every Monday morning, I sit at my desk to see that I have more emails than I can mentally handle, and let out a big sigh. Sound familiar? Remember that feeling as we continue to navigate remote learning. We want to avoid that feeling of being overwhelmed for our learners and their caregivers. Our learners need our communication, but navigation should be limited and concise to avoid inundating the reader. 

For this reason, be aware of the number of emails/notifications that are not only sent by you but also your colleagues. Instead of flooding learners and their caregivers with emails and notifications, make sure your written communication is succinct, to the point, and combine emails when possible to reduce the volume. Always reread your emails for accuracy. A typo in an email can cause additional confusion of the message. 

Here are two sample emails:

• Model of a letter for Explaining Assignments Given in Remote Learning
• Model of a letter for Explaining Accessing Resources for Remote Learning

2) Video Duration

Face-to-face interaction with your learners allow you to identify when they are becoming disengaged or distracted; however, this is not possible when they are learning from a video. 

“Length of lesson matters,” according to a study conducted in 2016, “Students went off task more often as an instructional activity increased beyond 10 minutes.” According to Karrie Godwin, a professor at Kent State University, and one of the lead authors of the study, “This research points to divvying up instructional activities into smaller chunks.” (US News, The Hechinger Report, Contributor, Dec. 4, 2017)

By keeping videos under 5-6 minutes, you are more likely to keep your learners’ attention. If your lessons require more than 6 minutes, you can divide longer lessons into multiple short videos.

3) Video Structure and Organization

Unlike the classroom, online learning lacks feedback from learners. Teachers are unable to see their students faces to see if they understand the lesson. Although online learning and classrooms have their differences, they also have similarities.

Both routine and organization help learners to know what to expect whether they are in the classroom or online. The same is true for video structure. If learners see the same video structure each time they watch a video from you, they will know what to expect.

Tips for setting up a video structure:

• Be concise.
• Define a clear purpose.
• Use formatting such as bullet points and bold/highlight text to identify the most important information.
• Consider a framework for instruction.
• If the video includes assignments, follow up with written communication and expectations. 

Sample Lesson Format

4) Timing of Communication

Set up your learners for success by sending communication on scheduled day(s) of the week and time(s) of the day. By creating this consistent schedule, learners will be less likely to miss an email, since they will know when to expect it.

5) Flexibility

Allowing flexibility is the key to creating a learning environment that will be successful in our unique and challenging situation. Each learner may have a different school schedule that works for them. Some students may check their email three times a day, while others may find that checking email often is more challenging. Some students may complete assignments every day, while others may struggle to complete assignments within a week. It is important that we remember these unique differences, and allow the learner to adjust to there circumstances accordingly. One way to create some flexibility is to allow learners 24-48 hours to respond to your communication.

Understand that some learners may not be able to attend all virtual class meetups or chats. You can be flexible by making the meeting information available in other ways such as taking meeting notes or recording the meeting.

Keep Up the Great Work!

Thank you for the time, energy, and effort you are putting into remote learning for your learners. The Kent ISD RLIS Team hopes these ideas will help you hone your craft of remote teaching, as well as, help you to be as efficient and effective as possible for your learners. We are here to support you through these extraordinary times of delivering instruction. Please reach out if you would like additional information or supports.

Kent ISD Remote Learning Implementation Support Team (RLIST) 

For more remote learning resources, visit Kent ISD’s Remote Learning web page.

#RemoteLearning #WeLeadLearning #KentISDpd

This blog post was written by Mark Raffler, ELA and Social Studies Consultant and Amanda Walma, Professional Learning Coordinator for Kent ISD, and edited by Sara Sefcik, Kent ISD Intern. The infographic was written by the Kent ISD RLIS Team and designed by Amanda Walma.