So in my paid gig, where a portion of my work is to design and deliver labour education, we’ve been talking a lot about how to transition to online learning, as it seems unlikely we’ll be able to hold our traditional labour schools any time soon. It’s been a steep learning curve

One of the things we’ve been wrestling with is the mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning - a big discussion as labour education is highly interactive and people often learn by doing/practicing

I can’t just film myself talking about how to respond to domestic violence or give an effective speech or run for office. Well, I can but it wouldn’t yield the best learning outcomes

So I am VERY concerned about the plan for remote learners in our school system this fall. Synchronous learning is NOT giving kids access to a video stream of a teacher’s classroom. It requires interaction, connection. It’s dynamic. Watching a video, live or recorded is static

It’s a lot to ask of teachers to manage both safety and learning for kids in class and also maintain connection and facilitate learning for kids online. You can’t do it simultaneously. They are separate jobs with diff skill sets

It’s also a lot to as of parents. Poorly delivered online learning, which is what we saw in the spring with essentially curated web links and occasional class check ins but little to no actual/meaningful interaction with teachers and peers, depends on parents acting as EAs

Not everyone is in a position to provide that kind of unpaid labour, they’re not trained to do it well, and it creates/exacerbated inequities. There’s no support for parents to take on this role either, we are exhausted, stressed and frustrated. Perfect recipe for abuse

I really hope the @ocdsb is thinking outside of the box in planning for online learners. If I were designing this system for elementary I would set up separate “classes” for online students with dedicated teachers, not try to mix the in-class kids with those learning online

Dedicated online teachers would be able to provide the kids with the kind of support and attention that was sorely lacking in the spring and that led families (like mine) to drop out altogether. This could be delivered across the board if there aren’t enough numbers w/in schools

The board needs to give learning outcomes for online students as much attention as safety measures for in-class students, invest in tools like Canvas to do it properly and give the teaching staff the right professional development to make it work

And I say all of this as a parent who’s likely to send my kids to in person school. But if we set up better online systems we will also be able to pivot back to online learning for all in the event of a second wave

That’s it for now.