Health guidelines in alignment with the COVID19 pandemic have resulted in transient attendance from both educators and students. Last week I was in a classroom in which 17 students were not present in class. In another school I serve, nearly 40% of the student body was absent. Educators are covering quarantined colleagues’ classrooms during their preps, classes are being combined, and administrators are subbing. And in the midst of these challenges, we often react by clinging to the familiar, to the past. Our brains crave that which we know when we face novel circumstances. As such, the instructional practices I witness in physical classrooms mirror pre-COVID strategies. Despite learning a great deal of new strategies from distance learning, many shy away from technology that was used during this traumatic time in education. More than was even the case prior to 2020, I have recently seen a great deal of whole class, teacher led instruction. As many students have entered the school year less academically prepared than was the case prior to distance learning, educators have a tendency to emphasize teacher directed learning and lessen student led activities. But perhaps these different circumstances for in-person learning warrant a different approach than we defaulted to in the past when in the physical classroom.

How might we evolve our instruction to meet transient attendance realities?

Leverage Distance Learnings

Several educators leveled up during distance learning to become quite proficient in utilizing a learning management system, creating videos/screencasts to scaffold student learning, and finding methods for embedding collaboration into asynchronous work opportunities. These strengths can be leveraged to help meet student needs during quarantine.

Blend Your Environment – Pacing guides serve to keep educators on track for ensuring standards are covered during the year when student attendance is consistent. However, this becomes a challenge when student absences become the norm, particularly when these absences last for a few days at a time. A pacing guide should serve student learning, it should not detract from it. Our focus should be on teaching learners, not on teaching content. Are we bound by a calendar or are we flexing to meet the needs of our students? Whole class instruction becomes problematic when students have missed multiple lessons due to absences. A blended model may be more appropriate. With technology, students can view resources and mini-lessons (screencasts created by the teacher or even classmates!) at their own pace individually while a teacher works with a small group of learners for targeted instruction. Students can continue to collaborate even if they work at their own pace, via asynchronous tools such as flipgrid and shared files. As we blend teacher led instruction with student paced activities, we empower students to own the work and we better focus our in person interactions with smaller groups of learners.

Rather than shying away from the technology utilized during distance learning, utilize it to your advantage to make your in-person instruction more impactful.