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K-12 Remote Learning Questions

Farnsworth

Farnsworth

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2006
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Des Moines, IA
I am an Learning and Development professional whose main focus has always been on corporate eLearning. I was just curious how everyone who had kids receive remote schooling last spring felt about how it worked out.

My focus has always been on interactivity and engagement, as well as evaluating the learning event with 5 stages of evaluation (kirkpatricks).

Did the kids like the education they received? Was it engaging? Did they actually learn anything? Do you think they will be able to retain the information? Will they be able to effectively use the information provides in the future? (for like math, will they be able to use what was learned for upcoming lessons that build on the material)

Also how was the material presented? YouTube vids? Reading? Worksheets? etc.

TIA
 
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No Idea, my wife teaches she had to make her own online classes. But she teaches 2nd grade so probably not applicable to your program.

My oldest is in 2nd now and my youngest will be doing Kindergarten this year. My oldesty yy was not into the online thing at all. ADHD and all, preschool basically just shut down.
 
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Last spring here was a hot ass mess since it was voluntary. My parents had about 5 students show up total over 3 months.
 
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CyCrazy said:
No Idea, my wife teaches she had to make her own online classes. But she teaches 2nd grade so probably not applicable to your program.

My oldest is in 2nd now and my youngest will be doing Kindergarten this year. My oldesty yy was not into the online thing at all. ADHD and all, preschool basically just shut down.
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I'm not trying to relate it to what I do, just curious how learning was presented to kids of that age, and if it did anything at all or just a total waste of time.
 
Total waste of time for elementary kids. Mainly as it was put together quickly and without the resources backing it. 2nd day in, I'm happy to say this fall is completely different. Schools and teachers have a plan and students are going to be held accountable. At least in Cedar Falls.
 
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Farnsworth said:
I'm not trying to relate it to what I do, just curious how learning was presented to kids of that age, and if it did anything at all or just a total waste of time.
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I would say it was a waste of time for my oldest.
 
Online learning is a lot worse than in person learning.... not even really close IMO. But in times of a pandemic, you have to do what you have to do.

But teachers should have no fear of their jobs disappearing due to online classes where one teacher is teaching hundreds of kids. It's not a good option at all.
 
clonedude said:
Online learning is a lot worse than in person learning.... not even really close IMO. But in times of a pandemic, you have to do what you have to do.

But teachers should have no fear of their jobs disappearing due to online classes where one teacher is teaching hundreds of kids. It's not a good option at all.
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Had a superintendent tell me that he was speaking to couple supers in other towns and the subject was that instead of having one teacher for 20 kids, how its done in-person, if they have an online system longer than this quarter, they could go with one for two sections and have a para to help grade papers and other minor things and save a good chunk of money. So it is getting some discussion.
 
BCClone said:
Had a superintendent tell me that he was speaking to couple supers in other towns and the subject was that instead of having one teacher for 20 kids, how its done in-person, if they have an online system longer than this quarter, they could go with one for two sections and have a para to help grade papers and other minor things and save a good chunk of money. So it is getting some discussion.
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Might be possible for High School where you could have pre-recorded lectures. Absolutely would not work with elementary level.
 
Upper elementary - my daughter had videos on YouTube, assignments on Google Classroom. Very limited Google Hangouts, I think three in all. I believe they did Prodigy some for math,had reading and writing assignments in Google Docs, etc. as Rabbuk said, voluntary was not a good situation. We did it the whole time, and I am so grateful for the effort the teacher put in, but it was not great. I had made up a curriculum on my own when school had first temporarily closed, and I think it was better for us. She made a slide show for a research project she chose on Greek mythology, we learned about practical math, and so on.

My youngest was in EK. Teacher had done videos and put them online that we’re great, and I made up worksheets that went along with. There were also links to books and such on YouTube. They did the best they could, but as a working parent, we struggled to be able to interact and get him where he needed to be in order to complete lessons.
 
BCClone said:
Had a superintendent tell me that he was speaking to couple supers in other towns and the subject was that instead of having one teacher for 20 kids, how its done in-person, if they have an online system longer than this quarter, they could go with one for two sections and have a para to help grade papers and other minor things and save a good chunk of money. So it is getting some discussion.
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If they did, it would not save the school a dime on teachers salaries. Teachers are under contract for the calendar year, so if we go on-line or in-person the pay is the same. Eliminating position now would mean you pay me not to teach, and then you have to find my replacement for 21/22 school year. Which seems easy, but the days of plenty of teachers out there looking for jobs has come to an end, 10 years ago an elementary opening would have 50 to 100 apply for the job, now its 5 or 6. High school math and science positions its one or two. People are not going into education in college, and the age of teachers is getting higher each year, in 5 years in Iowa we will have a teacher shortage in some areas like Math, Science, and of course Special ed. If you can teach shop, Spanish, art, music, band or home ec. you can go and get hired almost anywhere.

We had a PE position open 4 years ago, had 4 people apply for the position, I was told two were older teachers that we would never even think about hiring, because they were horrible. The other two, one already had a job offer, and the kid we hired.
 
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SEIOWA CLONE said:
If they did, it would not save the school a dime on teachers salaries. Teachers are under contract for the calendar year, so if we go on-line or in-person the pay is the same. Eliminating position now would mean you pay me not to teach, and then you have to find my replacement for 21/22 school year. Which seems easy, but the days of plenty of teachers out there looking for jobs has come to an end, 10 years ago an elementary opening would have 50 to 100 apply for the job, now its 5 or 6. High school math and science positions its one or two. People are not going into education in college, and the age of teachers is getting higher each year, in 5 years in Iowa we will have a teacher shortage in some areas like Math, Science, and of course Special ed. If you can teach shop, Spanish, art, music, band or home ec. you can go and get hired almost anywhere.

We had a PE position open 4 years ago, had 4 people apply for the position, I was told two were older teachers that we would never even think about hiring, because they were horrible. The other two, one already had a job offer, and the kid we hired.
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There were 6 teachers saying they weren’t coming back if in person so that would have been an easy out there. Or if they did get sick and refused to come back, it would open things up. Science teachers have been tough. The last elementary jobs we’ve had open have pulled about 15-20 applicants at least. My wife is usually on the interview team and gets told how many they get. That is just one district and not saying it’s all state wise.
 
BCClone said:
Had a superintendent tell me that he was speaking to couple supers in other towns and the subject was that instead of having one teacher for 20 kids, how its done in-person, if they have an online system longer than this quarter, they could go with one for two sections and have a para to help grade papers and other minor things and save a good chunk of money. So it is getting some discussion.
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This was always going to happen, pandemic or not. it's far too expensive in the current form. Some hybrid model will be the future.
 
Starting tomorrow. All in person and less restrictive mask requirements than Menards. I was happy.

A zoom meeting is no way to teach kids. Lol the poor teacher last year said the kids just talked to each other and she had zero control
 
BCClone said:
There were 6 teachers saying they weren’t coming back if in person so that would have been an easy out there. Or if they did get sick and refused to come back, it would open things up. Science teachers have been tough. The last elementary jobs we’ve had open have pulled about 15-20 applicants at least. My wife is usually on the interview team and gets told how many they get. That is just one district and not saying it’s all state wise.
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Volunteering to not come back because of the virus is totally different from what you said in the first post. If those 6 teachers refused to come back, then they would have effectively quit and would not get paid.
Those 15 to 20 applicants would have been 100 or more 10 years ago, we are entering a time where there are going to be a huge teachers shortage in the near future. Lots of older teachers like me finishing up their career and few to replace us.
 
SEIOWA CLONE said:
Volunteering to not come back because of the virus is totally different from what you said in the first post. If those 6 teachers refused to come back, then they would have effectively quit and would not get paid.
Those 15 to 20 applicants would have been 100 or more 10 years ago, we are entering a time where there are going to be a huge teachers shortage in the near future. Lots of older teachers like me finishing up their career and few to replace us.
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None of my friends when I graduated high school considered teaching even. I did for 30 seconds because both my parents are but that might be the biggest reason I didnt. This notion that there are plenty of people lining up to teach because it is "cushy" just isnt true. Also in crapids they amended their contracts so that people could take a year covid absence
 
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If online learning becomes a trend for middle and high school students, it will definitely have an impact on local school system teaching jobs. In the short-term schools have provided their own online instruction.

However, there are long standing online education entities. Some connected to universities like Texas and Indiana. A school district could very well approach those entities to educate the 10-20% of their students who choose to learn remotely.
 
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