Getting started with remote teaching and learning might seem daunting. This resource outlines ways you can set yourself and your students up for success from the beginning, with a growth mindset, proper planning, and a deep commitment to finding ways to connect with one another.
快速外卖
尝试
Learn as much as you can about the way your students and their Teacher(s) are using technology before you begin. This will help you transition smoothly into the workshop/residency and/or identify where you should plan to offer some additional tech support.
尝试
Find creative ways for you and your students to introduce yourselves to one another online before you begin your workshop or residency (e.g., intro videos, PowerPoints, polls, etc.).
Teaching in a remote learning setting is different in many ways from in-person teaching, but the two are similar in one very important way: There is no absolute “right way.” Get started by establishing a healthy, sustainable mindset—one that will ground you throughout your remote teaching experience and one that provides a meaningful example for your students.
Keep in Mind
你和你的学生一起学习。
You will have successes 和 you will make mistakes.
You have the skills you need 和 you will need to develop new ones.
In addition to planning resources designed specifically for remote settings, there are many general planning resources included in the GIVE Guide that you might find useful:
规划会议指南: including who to invite, a suggested agenda, and sample questions.
Observing and getting to know students’ strengths and needs is an important part of getting started in any classroom setting. It might be more challenging in remote scenarios, however, due to difficulties observing student behavior or seeing students’ work while it’s in progress. Nevertheless, there are a few strategies you can use to understand where students are at, and meet them there.
You can’t necessarily physically circulate around the room or spend time next to one student’s desk in remote settings, but you can observe students in multiple ways in both live and recorded sessions.
The sky’s the limit in terms of creative ways to introduce yourself before beginning a program. Classroom Professionals and Teaching Artists across the country and around the globe have shared creative ways of doing this—just be sure whichever idea you choose or create is easily shared with the students you’re about to teach!
Say Hello Through a Video
Make a video introducing yourself, your art form, why you like to teach, the space you’ll be teaching from, fun facts about yourself, etc. You can share information about the specific residency or workshop students are about to experience, or you can keep the video general so you can use it again and again. Be sure to check out these 确保所有学生都可以访问您的视频的提示.
“Slide In” With a Personal PowerPoint
If you want something you can edit easily and tailor for each residency or workshop, consider a personal PowerPoint. Share pictures of yourself, your art, and your life. Be sure to keep the text limited and consider a voiceover to read any text aloud and provide image descriptions.
Bitmoji Classroom, Anyone? Get Creative
Welcome students to your virtual classroom—Bitmoji style! Check out the External Resources section below for a tutorial on how to create these animated virtual classrooms, but the more important lesson is this: There are infinite ways to introduce yourself and set the tone for your classroom. Find or invent a way that feels authentic to you!
If you/your partnering school or institution are using a Learning Management System (LMS), start a conversation thread and invite students to respond to a fun, get-to-know-you prompt. These kinds of prompts also get students familiar with and interacting with the platform you’ll use.
Invite your students to create an intro video using a simple platform like Flip (linked in the External Resources) or take a picture with a sign that shares their name and a written or drawn response to an introductory prompt. These options will be best if you create and send your own example first, and if you have a clear sense of your students’ tech access and literacy levels.
发表投票
Use a Google Form or another similar tool to send out a poll to students before you begin. You might ask questions like:
你在校外做什么消遣? What books are you reading? What shows are you watching? What games are you playing? 关于[在此处插入您的艺术形式],您已经知道什么或想了解什么? Is there anything you want me to know about you before we begin? Is there anything you want to know about me before we begin?
Be sure to discuss and agree upon how you will support each other and care for your classroom community together. For online learning, you may also want to include expectations around technology use (e.g., keep chat conversations on topic). Be sure to record these community agreements somewhere. For live online sessions, you might create a slide that you can show at the beginning of each class. Even if you don’t have live sessions, you might add these community agreements somewhere that all students can access them.
If students are learning from home, your classroom community might expand to include parents, caregivers, siblings, and pets in the background. In some cases, this may provide exciting opportunities for connection; in others, and perhaps especially for older students, this might make it harder for some students to take creative risks while learning. There’s no easy answer here. The way you navigate this broader community will be unique to you, your students, and your program.
We all value our art forms, and we value the learning and growth that can happen when students experience and make art for themselves. But what’s more important than the content of your lesson plan is that students feel connected to peers and adults in their lives, that they feel celebrated when things are going well and supported when things feel challenging. Here are a few ways you can create space for connection during your live sessions or through other online means.
Provide time during live sessions or space on your LMS for socializing and checking in with one another. Give students space and time to share their genuine feelings and interests with their classmates. Encourage connections among students who may have similar interests.
Just as you would in an actual classroom, you’ll want to watch for nonverbal feedback (session attendance, engagement with activities, etc.). But in remote learning settings, you may want to intentionally create more opportunities for students, Classroom Professionals, and even family members/caregivers to give feedback:
对于学生: 您可以通过多种方式邀请学生反思和分享反馈。
Consider entrance or exit ticket polls that ask a few basic questions (e.g., “One word to describe how you’re feeling today”; “One thing you learned today”; “One thing you didn’t understand today”). This could be spoken or in the chat for live online classes or via a Google poll or similar tool for asynchronous/recorded classes.
对于课堂专业人员: Send out a very brief weekly poll asking for input on what teachers would like to see more/less of, any changes in their students’ needs, etc.
The GIVE guide provides a number of resources to support the process of you reflecting on your teaching. Though these resources were designed for in-person teaching, they will also be useful in online scenarios as well. See below for templates for your own self-assessment, plus templates for end-of-program reflection with students.