Gnu Stories Podcast | Episode 1: Preparing For Online Learning, Virtual School, and Beyond

 

LISTEN: In the first episode of the "Gnu Stories: Highlights from the SSFS Community" podcast, our Head of School Rodney Glasgow interviewed Bela Meghani, Rasha El-Haggan, and Sara Oestrich about this summer's professional development for SSFS faculty and administration, and how this training—in conjunction with the ongoing Mind-Brain Education training—will allow SSFS to provide a robust program during online learning through virtual school, and when we return to in-person learning on campus. 

 

Read pieces of the interview below, or hear the full version by pressing the play button.

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The big question of the day and independent schools right now, especially in Maryland, is "virtual, in-person, or hybrid?" In considering all the factors, SSFS has made our decision to go virtual. The reaction has been positive for some, but the community wants to know how SSFS will make virtual “just as good” as when students are on campus? How is this virtual education really going to serve our students?

Bela: I think what we all thought of, I'm going to presume, is how to keep the elements of Sandy Spring that are really important to us and important for our students and families, while adjusting to the crisis at hand. [...]

Sara: ...while virtual learning at such a massive scale is new to most of us and certainly new to us as a country, virtual learning isn't new. So I love that we have really looked at programs that work, the research that is out there from these long-standing virtual programs, and we're teaching our faculty the best ways to teach our students in a virtual environment. And we're not just trying to replicate a school-day online, which we know research-wise fails.

Rasha: Absolutely...We learned a lot from the spring in that experiment, what I like to call “emergency teaching.”  ..Our teachers really, they threw everything—they did everything. They worked really hard. I'm really proud of them. But we learned a lot from the [spring] experience. And one of the first things we learned is that when you are planning for face-to-face and then have to pivot and teach [virtually], that transition time is really hard…One of the things that we learned this summer, and from our experience this spring, is that if you plan for one hundred percent virtual, then you can really pivot much [easier] to face-to-face... The thing I was really excited about [with] some of this work is that I actually don't think that us going virtual is actually moving us away from our strategic goals as a school, it's moving us along. 

One of the things that's happening is a revamping and revitalizing of the curriculum, both online and in-person through One Schoolhouse. What are some of the things One Schoolhouse is particularly helping SSFS teachers to do or enhance in preparation for this fall?

Rasha:  So one of the things One Schoolhouse was really emphasizing—how do we design courses... then build those courses... then deliver those courses in a virtual or in a hybrid environment? It was really interesting to have them take those three things and separate them. Those are three different steps that we have to do that in face-to-face we don't have to worry about. You usually will plan your course, and then you'll teach your course, and you'll deliver. The idea of building that extra step in the middle is very strategic but also allows teachers to be really intentional about their design—how do I take what I've designed and then deliver it in a meaningful way to students through this build process?

...One of the other things I really valued learning from One Schoolhouse is how, in a virtual environment...consistency and predictability [is] really important in the virtual environment or in the hybrid environment. ...From a family perspective, I might have a student in ninth grade, I might have a student in sixth grade and I have a lower school student or I might have three upper school students. If they're going from class to class and it looks different, or there's different policies, or you have to use this tool here that tool here, that actually increases friction. [Students are] like "I think in English, I was supposed to submit it here, but in math, I was supposed to do it this way." And all of that translates in the virtual environment to friction against the teacher. It affects the student-teacher relationship in a way that doesn't happen in a face-to-face environment. So I'd say those are two things on the One Schoolhouse training that I think really helped set the mindset for our teachers this summer.

One of the big debates has been synchronous vs. asynchronous as folks are designing these courses. As a School, SSFS has favored limited synchronous learning with robust asynchronous offerings. As parents are looking at what other schools are doing, what's the benefit to the SSFS model?

Sara:...The first thing for parents and families to understand is what we mean when we say synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous learning is when your student is going to be attending, say, a Google Meet or a Zoom. It's going to happen live, in real-time, and students are responding in that real-time. And asynchronous [learning] is when we are providing content, which is to be done on the student's own time. So they're not going to be face-to-face with their teacher. They're likely not going to be in communication with their classmates. They're going to be working through information at their own pace.

And even as I define these, I'm thinking to myself, if I didn't have the experience and the knowledge that I have, I might think, "well, but if we're face-to-face, is that not the same as being in a classroom?" And it is absolutely 100 percent not the same....In the years of virtual teaching, the research shows that people do not learn as well in a synchronous session online. Those sessions should really be saved for an emotional connection. You need to see your teacher. You need to interact with your other students, reinforcing information that they've learned through asynchronous activities... in order for synchronous [learning] to do its job, to really benefit our students, we need them to be interacting with that material in that asynchronous fashion that allows them to go through a lesson at their own pace. 

We've been working very hard this summer on teaching our faculty the best way to present that asynchronous information so that it is more in line with how we do it in the classroom. We want to give them context. We want to give them new information. We want to give them opportunities to interact, synthesize, practice, process it. And once they've done that, now they're prepared to meet synchronously and work and talk with their teacher and their other students.

Bela: And that particular developmental lens on [asynchronous vs. synchronous learning] for lower schoolers has been this challenge. We always talk about the whole-child, but I like to talk about full-body. Lower School students learn with their full bodies. They're not used to, and really not built to learn in [an online] environment. In general, their experience with this kind of environment is passive— I'm watching TV, I'm watching a video... And in this situation, we are more than ever enlisting parents as partners in learning. They always needed to be our partners in learning as far as communication went. But now we are really working [as] a three-way team—teacher, child, and family. And so lower school teachers have also been really thinking about how does that work, especially synchronously? How do we schedule that to make that work for families? What is the asynchronous expectation and how will they help their children structure their day? ...Children thrive on routine and structure. So all of these additional kind of developmental considerations have been part of what lower school teachers are also putting in the design of their courses.

Bela, walk us through what that might look like. How do you get that full-body experience and also be online?

Bela: ...We've been starting to talk to parents about this idea of checking. When we're in the classroom, we don't sit for an hour at a time. And even if we did, it would not be a focused one-to-one relationship—one child and me learning for one hour. They are learning and groups or learning in social groups. They're distracted sometimes, And that's OK—that's kind of how they process. So first of all, helping parents understand that the expectation has to be chunked. There should be productive struggle, but then there should also be breaks, and the breaks have to be built-in. 

So let's call out the elephant in the room of this part of our conversation, which is if I'm a parent and I'm listening to this, I'm thinking, "I'm supposed to do that and I've got to do my own work online. And that's whether [they] have a kindergartener or a senior. "How am I going to keep this kid motivated, moving, on task, and also do my tasks?" What advice or direction do you have for parents about how best to partner and also do what they need to do in the midst of this?

Bela: I think that's another reason why replicating a school day is not only not good for children, but it's also not good for families. That is just not going to work for a multitude of reasons. So what can we do? We can make sure that we provide a skeletal schedule that will really help you anticipate when they are the times of highest need. Now, that will depend if you have a kindergartener, that might be the entire time. And there is, to be honest, no way for [SSFS] to help change that fact. That's a fact of development. But, I can say that as we provide this support for families...I think we're going to end up with a stronger family-school partnership because they've had this chance to become student-teachers in a way that is instructive. So, in trying to take the long view, the more support we provide now the better we can continue with what we intend to do in person.

Rasha: I think that the [middle school & upper school] parents—maybe not at the same level, perhaps, as they would with a Lower School student...need to still be connected. We find that parents that are involved in their students' lives from an academic perspective, those students do better in school. We're talking about just checking in... Knowing what the schedule [is] that a student has. "Oh, you have A & B synchronous today. How was your A class? How is your B class? You had a paper due on Friday." Those are things that we need our parents to be able to do, whether it's virtual or not.

In the virtual environment, it really helps us that—because we're not physically there with the students—if a parent sees something, or starts seeing signs of a student not engaging, or need[ing] some support in something or other, that they reach out to us right away. The earlier we find out about it, the better. So I would say that partnership is going to need to be even stronger than it was when it was face-to-face.

Sara: And I will add that when we looked at moving to the platforms that we're using this coming fall, we're going to use Google Classroom as our virtual classroom PK3 through 12th grade.. we really wanted to give parents as much of a view into what their student is doing as possible, and really [be] open about giving [parents] the information that [they] need to keep tabs on [their] student.

There are some schools who are going to attempt to be in person as early as September 1. Part of what went into our decision was feeling like even in-person now was going to be different in a way that may impede the learning. How can some of these protective measures, which we absolutely need to take (the mask-wearing, the social distancing) impact the in-person learning environment? How does the added measures really impact the learning environment and the psychology for the students and teachers around this?

Rasha: In my AP English language class, I always have my students sitting in pods. They are sitting in groups of five because they're constantly collaborating, they're constantly working together, and that will have to shift...Kids won't be able to come together and just see somebody and say, "Oh, my God!" And then just give you a hug. And I mean, that's human nature. That's how we normally are. And we're having [to] as a school...figure out how we actually tell kids not to act on their nature...

One of our major strengths is our social-emotional learning. I mean, you can get math in any school. I'm the Academic Dean, I think academics is the most important thing. But really, I also realize parents don't just choose our school because of our Math program or our English program the way we teach science. They choose our school because we know how to build connections with students. When I started three years ago and I went through orientation and we did those interviews— Sara, if you can remember, with those kids—the one thing that just kept going over and over and over again was how our students are connected to the teachers, and how they love their teachers, and how the teachers are so caring about students. And so I think if we hadn't had that base, and hadn't had that foundation, that negative effect would have been, I think maybe, a lot worse. But because we're a small community, and we know our students, and our foundation is that connection, I don't think [virtual school ]is going to impact it in such a negative way as maybe other schools or other communities or other organizations.

Bela: One of the things about home-based learning, which is what's about to happen, is not only do children learn in full-body, but they're placed-based learners. And so you're home, even though you're doing school. So how are we providing that connection [to teachers] that is not tenuous or fragile, but is a really strong one because we know that that's how young students learn best? All of us learn best with connection, but really young students need that physical connection. 

So now if we look forward to when we will eventually come back to this beautiful place, how will we help them make that transition? If they're placed-based learners, and they haven't been in this place for almost by that time of year, that will be our new focus going forward. What will we do for them? There are some things that are developmental. So we're all wearing masks, it's more difficult for us to show them how to make the sounds of the English language because they can't see our lips move...What [can] we do to help [lower school students] think more than be impulsively physical with each other? Which is a really difficult thing for young children to do. And so what does that require? All of that requires some really honest and intentionally-designed lessons around safety. And children really understand these specific things. When we do fire drills—we explain what is a drill and why do we do it and why is this not an emergency, but we're pretending it is.

I think once we decide when that in-person learning will begin, lower school teachers will pivot to redesigning what they do best, but with a particular emphasis on how to help transition kids back into this-place learning.

This is sounding like I'm now sitting in the perspective of a teacher, right? Where people may make the assumption that teaching online must be easier than teaching in-person. And your class is meeting less times a week, or for less amount of time, in this [virtual school] version because you've got the asynchronous piece, so this must be a piece of cake. Is that so?

Sara: I think that one of the common misconceptions [comes from]... getting that less synchronous time. But truly, a good virtual program—a strong program—is more structured and planned out than what we do in the classroom…

We know that there are time limits for student-attention online. [Mind-Brain Education] tells us this, research for being virtual tells us this. So we need to make use of all of those minutes the best we can. And I think that when we move to a virtual place, you really have to pare it down to "what are the concepts students must know?" "What are the skills they must gain in order to be successful as they continue on with their learning?" And, trying to hone in on that and do it the best you can in these smaller chunks that we have them for, means that that planning has to be so much stronger, and you really need to put far more time into sourcing that material because you're not just able to stand in front of them in a classroom and talk or move around, or pivot and show them something. All of that has to be packaged and put together, and that takes time. But it makes it strong, too.

Rasha: ...One of the things that [is] very different in the virtual than it is in the face-to-face—that does take a little bit more time—is feedback. And we know that when you look at research, feedback is one of the best ways to increase student achievement. In our face-to-face environment, if a student submits an essay on Monday, they're checking in with me, they're seeing me throughout the week. I can take a little bit of extra time to really read through the essay and put comments on that, and then maybe give it to them next Monday. But in the virtual environment, we [can’t] take weeks to respond to students. If a student is in a discussion group and responds, and I take a week to respond to them, they're not connecting with me on a daily basis as they would in a traditional classroom. Feedback now is timely and specific, it's hours and days. And that takes time to be able to do that to all students in a meaningful way. 

And then remember when I talked about in the very beginning about that extra build step that's in virtual planning—you have your design, you have your build, and you have your delivery. That build step is an extra step that we have to be very intentional [about]. What tools am I going to do? How am I going to engage students? How am I going to build and provide voice, choice, and differentiation, and different pathways? Does everybody have to read an article to be able to learn about Mayan civilization? I might say... You have a choice to read or watch a video. Well, designing that or building that takes time. Virtual learning, if not triple, it's at least double the amount of time for planning than before.

Bela: For young students, as much of our learning is process as it is product. And so our feedback is both structured to product, but really it's focused and structured on process.... And a lot of that is done in the moment... For example, as we're walking to lunch [or] we're walking to PE… we can have those one-on-one times [that] are very important. So now we don't have those anymore.

How are we filling those gaps and making sure that students get individual feedback on process made more difficult by the fact that we don't get to see the process? In some cases, families are seeing process. So it comes back again to helping families know that paying attention to that piece is just as important as a product that they will make for me to eventually see. And so we really are thinking about the process of learning as well.

I'm glad you brought that phrase, the "process of learning," because I'm going back to Sara's term MBE [Mind Brain Education] and I'm wondering, Sara, can you define MBE for us and talk about what our teachers have already learned? We've got a lot of training on MBE— and how that's informing this virtual platform?

Sara: MBE is mind-brain education. And we have been doing training on this for the last two years. It is heavily researched, based, and it looks at the way in which the brain works when we're learning. Everything that we've learned in MBE is applicable to virtual learning. I think that it's even more important because you have to be so intentional in online learning.

Bela: We know that we know that there is no learning without a connection and emotional connection...So how do we do that? If we know that all learning happens through connection, then what will we do to design around that? If we know that feedback is very important in order for you to not only code what you've learned, but to be able to adjust your thinking or your schema in a way that helps you encode better—how will we know what you're learning if we don't have some form of assessment around your process of learning?... If I'm trying to get you here or you're trying to get here, where are you on that path? These are all things that we have taken as the operationalising of MBE research because that's the trick. We know the science of learning—the science of teaching... we're really working on [that].

Sara: And I think as a follow-up, one thing that I would really want for parents to understand, and we've learned this through MBE, is that your student learns best when the tools that they're using are not something that they have to think about using anymore. So at the start of virtual learning, you may find that your students are spending some time learning how to use Google classroom. They're going to be learning how to use some of this educational technology because they need to learn that first before it can become an automatic process for them. That frees up that brain space to really concentrate on the new information that's coming in. Students will have to get comfortable with learning online, so you may see that being a part and a piece of the learning in these first few weeks of school. And that is entirely necessary to prepare them to best learn throughout the rest of the first semester and beyond.

Rasha: I would actually add that I actually think that MBE, and some of the training we've done this summer, and some of the things we've learned from the spring are very much aligned. So in MBE, we learned that one of the best ways to design our courses or to design our teaching is, rather than it be content-based it is outcome-based. So what I mean by that is that when I look at my course and my whole year, I need to plan backwards from the outcome...If I want my students to be able to do X, Y, Z, how do I then design what units of learning and what order does that unit of learning need to be in? How do I build that unit of learning so that I'm able to then accomplish those outcomes? And then how do I build assessments to be able to do that? So that's something that I think is incredibly aligned between MBE and what we've learned and been trained on the summer.

One of the other things, I think MBE also emphasizes, I would say, is hands-on learning...I know, for example, a lot of our parents have asked about our science—how are we going to do our science online? And so one of the things that our science department was working on was finding a tool that will allow students to be able to still get engaged in lab investigations online...we found a tool called Lobster. And we found that their tool is different than others because it really mimics a real lab experience. So, for example, if students don't put on their goggles, they can't access the titration tool. So it really tries to mimic the way that it would happen in the classroom. 

The pillar of a Sandy Spring Friends education—it's experiential, it's progressive, it's hands-on, it's inquiry-based, it's based around connection with the teacher in real-time. How will we see those things we love and the reasons we chose SSFS—how are they going to appear online?

Bela: That is of particular concern to us because the amount of time we're asking students to engage with educational technology is very different than what our school day looks like. And so, how are we making sure that we get that piece—that really important pillar, both of Sandy Spring and early childhood and elementary education in general? …I want to speak to science for a moment since Rasha explained about Upper School— we have been transitioning to a curriculum based around the Next Generation Science Standards for a couple of years in the Lower School, and this is allowing us to accelerate it. We paid particular focus on [the] science curriculum this summer. And why is that important to this question is those standards are based on phenomenon-based learning. So things that are observable in the natural [world], if we're talking about science, and in the human-made world, if we're talking about engineering… so to design lessons around phenomena has really helped teachers understand how [students] will use their home environment to interact in ways that allow them to investigate in real ways as opposed to “I'm trying to lead you to a conclusion” type of way.

Another thing we're doing is providing materials. So, [in] particular to math, students are concrete learners...and they require manipulatable objects in order to learn math concepts. We're [also] thinking of lots of ways for [students] to use things that they have in their home environment. This whole idea of reuse and recycle really becomes part of the learning environment, but that is now translated to home as opposed to being really isolated to school. We're trying to think of all of those ways that we make sure that our lower schoolers are not only off-screen, but are engaged in learning that is authentic and allows them to really apply their native curiosity in ways that enrich their experience. 

Thinking about all that we've talked about in this conversation centered around virtual learning—and the emotion around the decision to go to virtual learning was sort of like, “Oh man, we're going to miss so much of the in-person”— and yet what I'm hearing and walking away for myself from this conversation is...it's almost like an, “Oh wow, it's going to be different, but it's going to be just as good. And it's going to enhance and improve some of the ways that we do things even when we are back in-person.” And so I’d love to close this conversation with—what are the awesome opportunities that going virtual will afford us? How are we going to be better because of the intentional investment in this virtual learning period and the professional development that we're giving our teachers?

Sara: From the ed-tech perspective… [COVID-19] advanced things so quickly—and one thing that was an intent of my own in preparing the school for this was that I didn't want to bring in any piece of technology that I didn't think would also enhance a face-to-face classroom. Our faculty's time is precious, and I didn't want for them to spend time learning anything that would only be useful in a virtual environment. Many of the tools that we're using are things that we will see our faculty continue to use when we're back in person. And, for me, it has been the silver lining of this entire situation is that...in normal circumstances, this takes time...But, this situation has really made people desire to push themselves and move forward in this way. And every tool that we're introducing is something that will enhance their classrooms for years to come. I really think that it's been hard, but, it will benefit us in the future.

Rasha: I'm going to piggyback off of what Sara has spoken about. I'm excited for some of the things that have happened because of COVID—that we're able to really move our school forward strategically. The training that teachers are engaged in and backwards-planning is something that works. We need it for virtual, but absolutely is needed for face-to-face and will really help us when we're designing our assessments backwards from our outcomes. Being able to provide voice, choice, differentiation pathways—those are things that work virtually, but absolutely should be working in a face-to-face environment.
...I would say, even from a learning support perspective, reflecting on the spring experiences—and we have great support for our students—but it allowed us to look at our systems and say, where are there gaps? And so one of the things that we learned right away—and it's going to happen during opening meetings with teachers— is we are going to really be intentional on training teachers on our...tier one, tier two, tier three supports [and] how to read an accommodation plan. Some of the languages of accommodation plan… that might've been mysterious to teachers, we're going to be intentional in that process with teachers and work with them a lot more. And that will benefit us when we come back face-to-face, hopefully very soon.

Was there anything that you wanted to add into this conversation that we just didn't find a space for? I want to make sure that we have thoroughly picked your brains on this.

Bela: I’m hoping that for all the adults in this community, whether they're parents or teachers, we're gonna come out stronger... And I think that's going to be very important because young learners are not necessarily going to come back stronger in the one way that socialized-schooling needs. So they're going to need us to be stronger, to help them kind of recover the idea of what it means to be a learner amongst other learners. I think... it's a win-win for us. If we get families and teachers behind that.

Sara: I would also just— moving forward—really implore families to reach out…Reach out when something isn't working, when you're seeing something with your student, when you don't understand why something is being done. ...It's okay, you can email me and request your password again. I will give that to you a hundred times over and reset it… I accept wine and chocolate and payment —no, I’m joking—but just that, as Bela said, this partnership is really important to us and we can't give families what they need unless we know what's happening for them at home.