COVID-19 and Distance Learning

While COVID-19 is tragically serious, I think a lot of us need to vent where possible in this ever-changing reality we now face, as can be found in the above video. While we are taking the necessary steps (which seems to change by the day if not by the hour) to curb the spread, life is as a result anything but normal. As a colleague of mine said, we are in a period of “interim weird.”

Many of us have our kids at home doing distance learning, and the instructional designer in me cannot help but look at the way training is being delivered. This is not intended to be a criticism of teachers or the boards of education. They are doing an excellent job under the circumstances, especially given that they had no prep time. But given that every training (or project for that matter), no matter how stellar, can always be improved, I thought I would examine the above rant and see what lessons can be learned.

Logistics

Although I have categorized the issues, most if not all are logistical challenges in one form or another. The principal one though is she could perhaps manage one child’s schedule, but she is outnumbered and has to manage four schedules, each one containing multiple teachers and subjects. This alone could be a full-time job. We are overwhelming both the learner and facilitator before we even start. Yes, for all intents and purposes, despite there being teachers present, this mother is a facilitator or training coordinator of some sort. In a nutshell our problem is that we need a dedicated resource to ensure training happens, but neither the teacher nor the parent is available to the extent required.

 Tools

This mother/facilitator does not have the tools she needs to succeed. She has two computers for four children, and does not have a clarinet but is supposed to help her child in music.

Train-the-Trainer

The mother has a role but no training to support her in her role. For example, never mind not having a clarinet, how is she supposed to support her child’s music if she cannot play the clarinet or read sheet music? These are not necessarily prerequisites, but if they are not, some plan needs to be put in place for a facilitator that lacks the necessary skills to assist in a given discipline. In the end, she is made to feel ignorant and even more stressed.

Communication

Again, this is really a logistical issue. Managing countless course conversations via WhatsApp is more than anyone can handle. A better tool needs to be used and ideally one that has a moderator. As well, if it is anything like the parental WhatsApp groups I have been on, there is a combination of course-related info and people venting their frustrations. Collectively, it can become overwhelming and hard to focus solely on the information you require while filtering out the rest when you receive 200+ notifications per child per day.

Expectations

Often the first thing covered in a training session are the expectations. Apparently , the teacher expects the student to be at the computer at 8:00 ready to go and the student expects to open one eye and then go back to sleep at 8:00. The mother is demanding that expectations be lowered. Regardless if she is right, there has to be a common and accepted understanding.

Empathy and Understanding

This is often overlooked in any kind of training. Learning can be exciting, but it can often be scary or overwhelming, or even boring. This mother wants to be heard and there is currently no avenue for this (hence her video rant).

Relevance

Often we teach things that are relevant, but we either fail to make them relevant or point out to the learner what their relevance is. This mother quips at separate times: “What am I supposed to do with that information?” and “…why bother with it? It’s not real.” To get buy-in, these questions need to be answered.

Again, it’s really easy to poke holes in this learning strategy, and that is not my intent. The purpose of this article is actually to start a dialogue. Given what we have to work with, what would you suggest to make learning a more impactful and less stressful experience?