The Technology of Teaching & Learning during COVID-19

As COVID-19 social distancing measures have started coming into effect around the world, many governments have shut down schools, with thousands of students turning to online platforms. Teachers have been working double time to re-engineer lesson plans for virtual learning, whether via synchronous live lessons using video conferencing, or with an asynchronous recorded lessons format. This has led to a necessary shift in teaching approaches and mindset, and a significant rise in new technology adoption on the part of educators.

We caught up with the technology and education teams at Esol Education, a network with 10 schools across the Middle East, East Asia and Europe, to give us a global perspective on this radical shift to virtual learning.

With schools having between 0-2 weeks to prepare for 100% online learning, existing school technology infrastructure and policies enabled educators to take the first leap to e-learning.

“Fortunately for us, our teachers and students already had one-to-one access to iPads and laptops. Also, many of our digital platforms such as Google Classrooms, Seesaw and others have been in use for a number of years, and teachers, students and parents were already used to these applications,” said Dr. Joseph Nettikaden, Chief Information Officer at Esol Education. “In some cases, where our IT teams had time to prepare, we were able to think through our educators’ needs, take stock of all our existing subscriptions and forecast what else was required. The good news was that we already had paid subscriptions to Microsoft 365 and Teams was part of that. Having Google Classrooms and Hangouts also helped as it was already integrated with our G Suite tools. Teachers have since found their comfort zones now and are using a variety of tools such as the Zoom and Screencastify integration, etc.” he added.

While the technology teams were considering the various tools that could support learning, it was time for educators to think through the entire e-learning experience for students and what it would look like for different age groups all the way from Pre-KG to high school. As soon as the leadership teams knew that school closures were imminent, they got together to plan what an e-learning day would look like for students and teachers, and set expectations. They broke it down by different age levels – Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle and High School. They thought about what learning would look like for core classes vs. electives. They then examined specials like PE, Music, Art and Drama, and how teachers would conduct those classes.

Next was to think about expectations from families with multiple students, given the guidelines of the government with regards to working from home and social distancing. Assessment of student work and providing timely feedback was also crucial to the planning process. “We created our plan around three pillars: engagement of all students and parents; providing quality formative feedback daily; and replacing summative tests with authentic assessments that include defense as both a way to authenticate the student’s work as well as to activate metacognition,” shared Dr. Kapono Ciotti, Director at Esol Education’s American International School in Egypt (AISE).

The actual implementation of virtual learning plans, however, was certainly not without its challenges. While school leaders were confident in their students’ and teachers’ abilities to excel in this new learning environment, they found that days always seem to run short! “I have been surprised at the additional time it takes to prepare and finish lessons. When we are in the school building together we have access to each other and students can ask clarifying questions all day long,” shared Mr. Bill Delbrugge, Director at Esol Education’s Dunecrest American School in Dubai. “Teachers also have their colleagues to ask for assistance and to bounce ideas off. This has been difficult to recreate in a distance learning program. I have been surprised at the additional time we are always needing. Why can’t the day be 36 hours instead of 24!”

“The sudden shift to remote learning has exposed profound problems for families that are not only technological. The expectation that parents need to provide enough time and have the technology knowledge to help their children, the impact of online schooling on their child’s educational development and their ability to keep them focused,” said George Mousouros, IT Director at Esol’s American International School in Cyprus. “Creating a safe learning environment online, one that everyone can trust and use without issues is demanding. We had the obvious and expected problems such as network connectivity, bandwidth and server to client disconnects. Younger students faced issues with microphones and cameras,” he added. “However, considering the fact that the closure happened so quickly, I believe we only had minor and expected problems!”

School teams have, however, successfully risen to the challenges, and close communication between teachers, parents, students and technology teams has been the key to this success. “We took all of our parent engagement plans online, continuing our parent coffee hours with great success, holding parent coffee Zooms, for example,” said Dr. Ciotti. “We started with an initiative to get every parent engaged and our staff supported, by making one-on-one phone calls and providing parent Google Classroom workshops, for example.”

Staying positive and turning challenges into opportunity, teachers have also found this to be an exciting time, tapping into a vast digital community of colleagues around the world and learning new skills! Samuel Landette of Fairgreen International School in Dubai shares: “The two weeks of holidays before e-learning started were really exciting as the whole world was beginning the same journey and plenty of resources emerged and many Edtech companies were offering free access to their platforms for schools affected by closures, all worthy of exploration. While there were many approaches, some trends and tools seemed to be repeating over and over again: recording short videos, using EdPuzzle, using what the students were familiar with, live sessions for Q&A, etc.” Julie Murphy, also teaching at Fairgreen, was amazed at how much she was able to learn by herself: “I have definitely been surprised by my technological abilities. I have been able to teach myself to use myriad new platforms with little to no training on them.”

The positive shift towards experimenting with new learning technology is a trend that Dr. Nettikaden has observed throughout the Esol school network, “This experience has made teachers and administrators a lot more comfortable with using new technology, adapting, experimenting and upskilling themselves. This will greatly help with the level of acceptance, usage and adoption of new learning technologies and applications in the future. Teachers will now have the confidence to really step out of their comfort zones, as they have proved to themselves that they can adapt to new digital platforms. For example, instructional technology, such as the flipped classroom, previously discussed as an effective strategy for teachers, is now a part of active learning!”

Matthew Backus, a Dunecrest teacher specializing in educational technology integration is positive that the lessons both students and teachers have learned during this e-learning time period are invaluable. “Students have learned many new things about the use of technology and communication which will serve them well in their professional lives,” said Mr. Backus, who feels that the amount of technology related learning that has happened in the last weeks is more than what might normally be covered in an entire school year! Students also have learned better personal management and organization skills and spent more time on projects and group tasks. They have also learned how to better collaborate with teachers and their classmates using some of these new e-learning tools and skills. “My personal favorite is the technical problem-solving skills that everyone has had to use to make sure they can work and efficiently find help and solutions whenever confronted with a problem,” added Mr. Backus.

“My students really surprised me. From day one they were up to the challenge, responsible, and eager to do their best. I was impressed that so many of my students jumped in headfirst with no fear,” shared Ms. Amy Pugsley from AISE. “I have enjoyed watching my students become more independent and build more intrinsic motivation. Balancing extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is something that teachers struggle with as the societal expectations to ‘succeed’ often outweigh the internal motivations that build lifelong learners. I think this has been good for many students and has organically built intrinsic motivation.”