Aside from offering access to reference and resource materials, the Teacher-Librarian can also be a curator of available teacher created materials.  The COVID-19 crisis of 2020 is an unprecedented time for the delivery of education and this has created the desire to offer a continuity of learning for students from a distance.   As British Columbia (as well as other jurisdictions) close in-school instruction, possibly for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year, the Ministry of BC Education and local schools and districts are looking for ways to provide learning opportunities at home.  With many classroom teachers having little or no experience with the online learning environment and with little direction as how to make it work for individual teachers, there is an opportunity for those Teacher-Librarians  who may have experience with online courses or know of teacher/student friendly websites , to share that information with colleagues.

Online Learning May Not Be the Best, But It May Be The Best We’ve Got

Correspondence, Distant, E-Learning or Online Learning Environments are all names for self-directed or independent learning that has been around since the 19th Century.  Starting in Britain and the United States with the desire to bring education to segments of the population that could not “…afford the money or the time to attend formal schools.” (Harting/Erthal, 2005, pg. 36).  Although independent, self-directed learning is never ideal for students in the K-12 system because of challenges around adolescent perseverance and motivation, there are some teacher/student friendly options available.   There is a general consensus that “…the nature and quality of children’s relationships with their teachers play a critical and central role in motivating and engaging students to learn” (Wentzel, 2009, pg 301), however in times of a crisis such as the COVID-19 crisis of 2020, it may be the best that we have to offer.

Blended learning environments are where students have access to real life teachers and is the preferred model to deliver digital or online learning for the simple reason that the K-12 clientele are not the same as an adult, post-secondary online learner.  It is noted by scholars such as Wayne Journell that secondary students in particular “…may have difficulty succeeding in an online environment where the teacher is not physically present.” (Journell, 2012, pg. 49) and this is due (as Kathryn Wentzel would argue) to the fact that it is the inter-personal relationship that occurs between teacher and students that allows for the social and emotional maturity needed to help motivate students to succeed. (Wentzel, 2010).  Keeping this in mind as we approach the problem of trying to provide a continuity of learning for British Columbia students during the COVID-19 crisis, ideally efforts should be made to lessen the demand for individual teacher created digital course offerings or assignments so that time and energy can instead be devoted to making those important student/teacher connections and supports digitally.  In essence, Teacher-Librarians and teachers with experience in online delivery can assist classroom teachers in finding online options that are easy to use for both the student and the teacher so that attention can be directed towards maintaining those social connections that support , motivate and foster learning.

The Classroom Teacher Knows Best

There are many teachers who have had experience in self-directed learning.  Teachers who may have experience with special or alternative education where planning and programming for a variety of ages, grades and courses have forced them to create resources that can be accessed quickly and easily (often digitally) and are designed with a simplistic, straight-forward approach to learning, should be accessed first.  Nothing can replace the dynamics of a regular classroom, but basic content and skills can be taught in a lesson-by-lesson, self-paced, independent manner.  Front line classroom teachers who plan and design courses with this idea as to what students are capable of are often the ones who know best.  In a situation such as the COVID-19 crisis and the desire for continuity of learning, it those classroom teacher created resources that should be promoted.

www.trickey.ca  An Example Of Online Content Delivery And Work

www.trickey.ca is an example of a teacher created website that offers simple, lesson by lesson approach to learning.  The courses found at this website will offer worksheets and assignments that work hand-in-hand with readily available textbook resources or in some cases offer stand-alone “readings” that do not require textbooks at all.

The website’s author and creator comes from an alternate education background where he had to become an early adopter of internet based delivery systems of learning.   Assigned to teach a variety of subjects to a variety of grades, to a clientele that experienced difficulty in the regular classroom settings, Mr. Trickey had to create teacher/student friendly, digitally managed options to high school courses.  Currently, Mr. Trickey is teaching in a Middle Years program and has begun the process of revamping some of his old courses to better align with the new curricular changes in British Columbia, but the website is rife with straight forward approach to learning with easily downloadable and accessed lesson-by-lesson assignments.

Content Is Still Key

In British Columbia, assessment practices have changed and how student progress is being reported has changed, but what has not changed is the need to learn content.  In an era that is stressing critical thinking, what cannot be lost is that someone cannot think critically about something that they know nothing about.  The courses provided at www.trickey.ca are content driven, but they work towards developing those core competencies through knowledge acquisition.  Arguably, in an era with unprecedented access to information, it becomes the background knowledge provided in the BC education system that will counter the vast amounts of misinformation that is available online.   Critically thinking will only occur when a person comes across some “alternative facts” online and says to themselves; “That doesn’t sound like what I learned in school.”  Doug Lemov echoes this idea that content and background knowledge is essential when he states that;

Recent research shows that reading comprehension, deep thinking, and even creativity all rely heavily on prior knowledge. Although you can find a thousand articles claiming that knowledge is essentially irrelevant nowadays—that mere facts are not worth teaching in the age of Google, when anyone can look up anything at any time—in fact, cognitive scientists now mostly believe that this apparently tidy logic is wrong.

Lemov, “How Knowledge Powers Reading”

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb17/vol74/num05/How-Knowledge-Powers-Reading.aspx

www.trickey.ca provides background knowledge, organized in a manner that works for both student and teachers.  It provides content and student work in a lesson-by-lesson approach that is not meant to replace the dynamics or benefits of a regular classroom setting, but does provide a format for content learning that allows teachers  facing the continuity of learning challenges in the face of COVID-19,  It allows teachers to focus less on what and how to deliver content and instead allows them to focus their time and efforts to reach out and provide that contact with students that will ultimately result in success.

Works Cited;

Harting, K., & Erthal, M. J.(2005). History of distance learning. Information Technology, Learning and Performance, 23(1), 35-44.

Journell, W. (2012). Walk, don’t run—to online learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 93(7), 46-50.

Kirschner, Paul A., John Sweller, and Richard E. Clark. “Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching.” Educational psychologist 41.2 (2006): 75-86.

Lemov, “How Knowledge Powers Reading”  http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb17/vol74/num05/How-Knowledge-Powers-Reading.aspx

Wentzel, K. R. (2009). Students’ relationships with teachers as motivational contexts. In K. Wentzel and A. Wigfield (Eds.), Handbook of motivation at school (pp. 301-322). Mahwah, NJ: LEA.