Parents, children and teachers are currently facing huge challenges in connection with completing schoolwork at home. How sound and sustainable is the knowledge that children acquire under the current circumstances?
At present, unfortunately nobody is able to foresee for how long teaching and learning will have to take place under these changed circumstances that are new for everybody involved. This is most certainly a very extraordinary situation. Having said that, we must not forget that teachers and students have been using innovative teaching and learning methods for some time now, often by involving tools that connect face-to-face teaching with digital learning methods. This means that we were already able to gather experience in this field that comes in very handy now. However, it is also clear that up to now, the focus was mainly on fixed timeframes for digital teaching formats. Now, framework conditions have changed, indeed. Distance teaching and distance learning happens on a daily basis. It is difficult to make ad-hoc valid statements regarding the sustainability and viability of teaching and learning under the given circumstances. What we know for sure is that it is impossible to reproduce classroom conditions one-to-one at home. This would be neither sensible nor expedient. It is also not expedient to try and translate in-school face-to-face teaching formats to digital teaching structures rendered at home. Digital teaching is a completely new and different methodological level that follows a different inner logic that we need to comprehend.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of schooling at the kitchen table?
Disadvantages – if you would like to call them that – might lie in the fact that children are more easily distracted at home than at school. However, we have meanwhile read many reports on how school children, depending on age and class level, and students have started to structure their days and learning processes in a special way under the current exceptional circumstances with the support of teachers and parents. We also know that in this case, it is very sensible to structure schoolwork in shorter learning units. You study in your familiar surroundings and learning phases can be interrupted by relaxing activities and “rewards” such as a small walk outside or a chat with friends. Afterwards, you go back to concentrating on the exercises and schoolwork. Alternating between learning units and “reward” units is very important and increases sustainability of the acquired knowledge. In a school context, this technique is called “Rhythmisieren” (rhythmizing) in German; however, this expression mainly focuses on the different (groups of) subjects. We must not forget that we are currently dealing with an exceptional situation for which we were not prepared. This means that we have to be patient with others and ourselves. Neither we as teachers nor the schoolchildren or students will become experts for online teaching overnight. Rather, we are currently in the midst of an exceptional situation in which we are confronted with a pandemic and this means both physical and psychological strain for all of us. This is why there should always be room for talking in a family environment between learning units at home. In the current phase, this is a valuable back up for the soul.
How well is the school system prepared for this situation?
In Bavaria, we have been witnessing a continuous positive development in the field of digital teaching and learning formats for many years, which is additionally supported by accompanying professional development measures and support programs. Furthermore, teachers of all age groups are very interested in learning about these new formats and are highly motivated to develop innovative teaching scenarios by integrating both analog and digital teaching and learning methods to be able to incorporate all different subject matters. There is a Bavarian training network consisting of the training academy in Dillingen and an ever-increasing number of professional development offers at Bavarian universities, both at individual chair level and involving the expertise of the university centers for teacher education. Like this, teachers from all over Bavaria get to know the most current digital teaching and learning methods. In addition, there are also regular internal professional development offers in the schools. In general, the support at school level is coordinated via a digital teaching platform called “mebis” that is run by the Landesmedienzentrum Bayern. This platform has experienced a stress test in the past few days due to the extremely high access rates, but has meanwhile largely stabilized. It’s an excellent supporting tool that provides valuable services for schools, teachers and schoolchildren. At the same time, the current situation allows gathering very valuable experiences with these instruments. Because, what we also know is that our educational landscape will change as a result of the current circumstances.
What are the opportunities and limitations for the use of digital formats in the current situation?
Of course, the current situation offers many opportunities for using digital media, drawing on existing experience and testing many digital tools. We have access to an abundance of digital tools and platforms, many providers in this field currently offer their materials free of charge, at least for a limited period. All this, however, does not release us from our responsibility to choose wisely and also take into account data protection issues. This is also very important despite the current exceptional situation. It is the only way in which we can prevent having uploaded huge amounts of data to the internet that we cannot “catch” again in a few weeks when the overall situation has hopefully relaxed a little. Many teachers have been working with digital tools for a long time and could already gather valuable experience with them. This is also true for schoolchildren, and we are now able to fall back on this experience. However, it is also important that we do not assume that conditions are the same for all schools and teaching staff. Certainly, there are differences regarding technical requirements, not all students have the same equipment at home that they are used to from a school context. Maybe there are also differences in bandwidth. All these factors should be taken into account when planning teaching and learning units to avoid creating unequal framework conditions that would have a detrimental effect on learning motivation and the atmosphere at home. This situation demands a sense for what is appropriate as well as a lot of patience and communication from all parties involved: teachers, schoolchildren and parents alike.
Does the current situation open up possibilities for advancing digitalization in a school context?
The current situation confronts us with extreme challenges in a number of ways. The most important thing is that we all stay healthy and support each other in the best possible way whenever and wherever we can. We are witnessing already now that cooperation on a school and university level is experiencing an enormous development. Hardly a day goes by without a telephone or video conference and we are constantly exchanging questions, experiences and findings on planning and implementing digital teaching and learning formats. There is much organizational work as well, in order to be able to cope well with the current situation and to be prepared for the time after this exceptional situation, that is hopefully already near. Thus, we can see that digitalization in the field of teaching and learning will develop much faster than it would have without this drastic pandemic and its influence on our lives. At the same time, we are also forced to act quicker, more intuitively and more pragmatic. We have to be aware of that. In the end, however, this can also entail advantages.
In other countries, homeschooling is not unusual irrespective of whether there is an emergency situation. Does this form of teaching hold the potential of taking up more space within our educational system under normal circumstances in the future?
I am convinced that our educational landscape will change as a result of the current situation. I am also absolutely certain that all of us who are dealing with teaching and learning in the different subjects will carefully evaluate this situation in order to draw conclusions for further possible developments. Maybe, we will have to discuss existing “systems” critically by taking the experiences we are currently gathering into account and then assess the situation from a new perspective. In some discussions on the topic of education, you still have the impression that people see formal and informal areas of learning as totally separate, even contrary, opposing contexts. The current situation shows very clearly that a change in thinking can be very beneficial and that a combination of all these fields can lead to an increased success. I am very excited to see where future discussions on this topic will take us.
What advice can you give parents and children for making homeschooling work?
Since our schools are closed, the framework conditions for teaching and learning have changed. We did not have time to prepare in advance and have to ensure along the way that all parties involved have sufficient time and room for adapting to the new educational setting. Of course, learning at home is not entirely new. Still, lessons are now held digitally, students receive their exercises and texts by e-mail, in chat rooms, video conferences etc. I believe that it is important that we accept and explore these new framework conditions together. As I said earlier, patience is an important factor here. If we take our time during this exceptional situation to really accept this changed framework, we can certainly benefit greatly. In this new teaching and learning situation as well, what we need most is stability, mindfulness and trust in each other.
