School Is Not a 1 to 1 Hour Exchange

 School Is Not a 1 to 1 Hour Exchange

One of the biggest struggles focuses on how to schedule for a regular school day. Distance learning should not be a one to one exchange of time. While there is no clear consensus on how long is appropriate for each age and child, the experts all agree that distance learning should not be the same schedule as in-class learning. Children do not receive instruction the entire time they are in class, including middle and high school students who may be scheduled for a subject for 40-90 minutes a day. 

Effective teaching breaks instruction time into small digestible chunks of 5-15 minutes (younger kids shouldn’t go above 7 minutes at a time and even older students can’t stay with a lecture for more than 15). At that point, the learning should be broken up by practice, interactive discussions, reading, or a break. Working effectively makes distance learning work; trying to replicate in class routines will burn out students. Our brain process what comes across a screen differently, even if it is being broadcast in real-time. In-person, we spend time watching the visual cues of those around us, which even when distracting help us stay grounded in the lesson (I'll discuss distractions while listening to information at another time).  

This extrasensory information gathered from other students cannot happen on-line, though having someone host a group chat during the lecture can help with real-time engagement. Most of the time our brain is unaware of how much information we simultaneously take in and discard, but it has become very obvious for all students who moved from in-class teaching to remote teaching that the feel of instructional learning changed. That explains why the approach of just broadcasting in-person classes has failed so many students because learning isn’t just about hearing the information or seeing the teacher. To effectively lecture on-line, you need to present the information differently and engage more senses (including movement by having a simultaneous on-line discussion). 

Also, distance learning needs the ability to self-pace to some extent, because the in-class behavioral controls are not the same. In a classroom, the teacher can redirect students who finish early to other activities, but if you require a student who has finished the work to continue listening or working at home they become disengaged. This differs from becoming distracted in that the child's brain has no motive to reengage and begins processing entirely unrelated information. Learning needs to be structured to let students who finish early move on to another activity or subject. The amount of time with a topic has less impact than the quality of the activity and application of the idea. 

What to do with the extra time? If you count on school to keep your child occupied while you accomplish other tasks, this lack of a one to one exchange can be challenging. So, plan for it. Identify educationally engaging activities your child can perform when they finish early. They could have a timer to set for extra reading. They could have a building challenge with blocks or legos. You could have them prepare a 20-minute lesson of the most interesting things they learned that day to give to you each evening with props made from their crafting materials (prepping for 20 minutes of teaching can easily eat up an hour of extra time). You can even give extra outside or free playtime if they finish early. 

Realizing that some days distance learning will take more or less time is crucial to avoiding frustration and burn out this year. Planning some filler activities, so your child knows what they can do without having to be micromanaged will make a huge difference in their success. 

Check out my Pinterest boards for ideas for Pre-K-high school fun educational activity ideas. 

Don't Become Your Child's Teacher

 I say this a lot. More than ever in this past year. But, unless you have studied education or have accumulated years of hands-on experience with a variety of children, becoming your child’s teacher does not work out well.

Don’t get me wrong, all parents teach. And all parents should support their child’s formal education, but without learning the science behind education and curriculum it’s best to leave that to the professionals. Parents should focus on developing the child's learning skills and shaping them into responsible adults. 

Parents do have a litany of things they can do to support their child’s education without becoming the teacher. You can read with your child. You can ask about what they are learning and encourage your child to explain what they have learned ( I believe in letting a child teach you, because if they can teach it then they know it). You can do fun activities with your child that help reinforce learning. You can take your child to museums, art shows, science centers, theater, concerts, and into nature. You can model good learning behavior. All of this and more will help your child be a better student no matter what learning environment they encounter.

But, I know most parents see school failing their child and feel the need to step in. You can know teachers are doing their best and still know that things are not what they should be. I don’t know any teacher right now that doesn’t feel pulled in so many directions that they know certain children and certain skills have not been able to be supported. 

So, parents face the dilemma of how best to help their child. Stepping in to teach the material seems like the most direct and easiest way to help. But, that’s just keeping their head above water. Focusing on teaching your child skills to enable them to learn on their own will enable them to go back and pick up missed skills and empower them to move ahead (regardless of how good or bad the teaching is in school). It’s hard to watch them fall behind temporarily, but you have limited time and patience. Spending it on the skills that give the biggest return over time makes more sense. Your child can catch up if properly empowered. 

Improving the amount of reading time and the level of reading in school can make up for the lost class time.  Reading has proven to be one of the single most influential skills in all academic success. Read with your child of all ages to improve their reading volume. For older children, you can read quietly together, but maybe the same series or topic to compare notes. Build up the time your child reads slowly to get the maximum benefit without making them hate reading. If you offer an incentive (for example, equal time reading and playing on the computer or watching television) make sure they are reading new material and that the material is an appropriate level for them. 

But, other skills help, too. Focus on guiding your child rather than teaching the substance of the lesson. Instead of stepping in to correct your child by automatically showing them how to do something, start with having them show you what they know about the problem or project. This way, you’re not responsible for duplicating the teaching, but can limit your help to just the small step where they are stuck. The encourage them to keep going on their own. While this can be a struggle a the start, over time they will learn to self-correct, which is an invaluable skill. Students can need help without being helpless. 

School and learning feel overwhelming to teachers, parents, and students right now. So, prioritize learning skills over learning material. 

Mini-Breaks Keep the Day on Track

 Everyone using a screen to work should take a break from looking at the screen every fifteen minutes and stand and move at least once an hour. Most of us have heard this advice for years, but how do you practically integrate it into distance learning. We all know having a child get up can easily lead to them going way off task. It can often lead to adults going off task, so many of us ignore this advice. But, science has shown that mini-breaks during learning and practice can help cement our memory of the material.

Realizing that breaks play a crucial part in the learning process instead of seeing them as an interruption can help make sure that children don’t burn out during the school day. A few simple strategies can help integrate more movement into using digital learning devices and avoiding staring too long at the screen. Some of these tips are student-specific, but others can be used by adults to ensure we stay healthy. They also allow us to model habits for children. 

The first one involves some counterintuitive organization for the workspace. Usually, we think we should have everything we use as close to at hand as possible, but this enables us to remain seated too long. I like to have on hand paper, pencil, and electronic interaction devices (I have a mouse and a writing pad), so children don’t have to interrupt instructional flow to gather their ideas or take notes. However, when switching from instruction to practice standing to gather materials gives kids a chance to look away from the screen. You can put specialty paper, math manipulatives, crayons, markers, and colored pencils in a visible location, but just far enough away that a student needs to stand and take a step or two to retrieve them. 

If you post your weekly schedule or daily to-do list, have your child mark each item as they complete it. I often post my to-do list on the other side of the room, so I can get up to cross off each hour what I’ve accomplished. It helps keep me motivated and moving. If you have a reusable list or need to be able to read what you wrote after it has been completed, don’t cross off the item, use a small dot or cover with a post-it or something else removable. I’ve even seen someone use a highlighter on laminated schedules. Everyone gets satisfaction from filling the list color as they finish work.

You can also put the materials for different subjects on a separate table or shelf from the work area, so I child must physically get up and swap out notebooks, books, or manipulatives. I know one family that did a two-minute check-in meeting in the hall every hour to make sure everyone stayed on task and treated it like changing rooms for class. What you do during a break doesn’t matter, as long as you give the brain a chance to focus on something other than absorbing new material. Ultimately, find what works for you and your child, so that the brain can get a break to process and store information.

Check out this Edutopia video showing a productive break for students: https://www.edutopia.org/video/science-behind-brain-breaks

Managing Deadlines for Distance Learning

 One big difference between distance learning and in-class learning is turning in completed assignments. In class, you drop what you have on the teacher’s desk. Distance learning means finishing in time to submit remotely with the expectation that submissions might be delayed or technology might fail. 

We deal with this in real life all the time, so children will benefit from learning these lessons when the stakes are relatively low. Many students feel that if the deadline is 5 pm, then submitting an assignment at 4:58 pm should be the goal. But, I have seen countless students frustrated that they lose a few points because their clocks were slightly behind, they lost connection for a few minutes, they had last-minute questions about content and formatting, or any number of minor glitches. 

Even the most diligent student will have the occasional deadline fail; it happens to all of us and I consider it a learning opportunity. But, I side with the teachers after the first failure to meet a deadline, because the students had hours or days before the deadline to complete the work and ask questions (I know there are special circumstances sometimes, but I’m talking about routine work submissions and long-term projects). Part of student learning needs to include managing the workload or addressing overloads early. The other part focuses on training their brains to see the complete project or learning goal instead of just the deadline. 

Science shows that deadlines distort how we perceive time and workload. The more different tasks and the closer the deadline, the more difficult our brains perceive the work to be. When your child complains that math homework is harder on nights that they also have practice or meeting, science supports this view because their brains make it harder to complete multiple activities. This doesn’t mean you should avoid multiple goals and activities, but by changing how these assignments show in a schedule, you can relieve pressure from the final deadline. 

Keeping a running calendar with all assignments (even weekly and daily ones) can help students juggle and not miss deadlines. This calendar can be digital or written, but the key is to enter every deadline twice. I put the main deadline with a two hours reminder before the work is due and then I add work time for the assignment to my schedule. By scheduling the work time, as well as the deadline reminder you train yourself to see the work as more than just a deadline. Students have to train their brains to not just see the end goal, but the effort as part of the school learning process.   

If you have a particularly anxious student or your child easily gets overwhelmed, keep a separate weekly and quarterly calendar. Add tests and assignments to the quarterly and put their study time in the weekly schedule without noting the final deadline. Start adding study review time for big tests and exams the week before (for semester final exams consider it three weeks before), so the student doesn’t see just the one big test or assignment overshadowing the entire week, because it has been accounted for in small chunks. 

Training the brain to see the deadline spread out into smaller chunks needed to meet the final deadline will help children learn to manage their time and it helps school avoid becoming just a series of deadlines and tests. Everyone enjoys learning more when the focus stays on the journey and not just on the end goal. 

Developing Your Learning Schedule

 All schools have approached distance learning differently, but most have some flexible time worked in. Students should be encouraged to look at what works best for them in setting up what parts of their schedule they can control. 

I recommend developing the schedule looking at the entire week as a whole, instead of trying to fit everything involved in school into just a daily schedule. Encourage your child to thoughtfully construct their weekly schedule with you (even high school students will benefit from working through this with another person). Think about how they can integrate subjects to make work more meaningful and try to make a larger block focused on project based learning to keep them engaged.

I still remember the nightmare of having AP Calculus the last period of the day. I couldn’t help but fall asleep in class because my body just needs a break at that time of day (still does). Luckily, I had an excellent tutor to make up for that terrible timing. But life got easier in college when I could choose to take my math classes in the morning or early evening. Figuring out when your brain works best is not as simple as being a lark versus a night owl. 

When developing the schedule you should start with how much of a lark the child is. Even larks have a brain start time that may not match exactly when they wake. I need to do my heavy mental work in the mornings between 8 am and noon. If I get up earlier than 7:30 am, I can use the time to work out or do some chores, but I have learned that even as a morning person not to try complex mental stuff before 7:30 am. I regularly start tutoring at 7 am, but I have learned to prep that material the day before, so I’m not trying to work out a difficult problem while my brain is still warming up. It may take some adjusting to the schedule the first weeks, but figure out when your child’s brain is at their best and put in their hardest work then. The emphasis here is the hardest work, not just the hardest subject. If you can include a thirty-minute free study period in their three to four-hour prime working time, it will help them pick what the hardest project is that week. 

Also, they should keep in mind that science supports doing the new learning first and repetitive review later in the day. This is where weekly schedules triumph over daily. Students who can change the days when they do certain subjects can accommodate moving new material to the earlier times of study. So, if new concepts in English (like vocab words and weekly writing concepts) are taught on Mondays, then do your English early on Monday. Move it to later in the day on Wednesdays and Thursdays when you are applying the ideas and words because review learning and creativity are strongest in off-peak times. I've put some sample schedules at the bottom of this post to get the conversation started. I start older students later because the research shows their brains function better with a later start. Modify the schedule to suit your subjects or time frames. 

Ideally, you can look at the work for the week and make a weekly schedule that fits for what will happen in the child’s class that week. But, not everyone has that flexibility or the time to devote to a new weekly schedule. If you need a set schedule, try to be flexible in the first few weeks as you get a feel for the flow of the teachers and school. Then optimize the schedule as best you can for your child’s brain and learning challenges. The biggest key is to encourage your child to try and pick the best times for work within whatever flexibility they have and teach them to work with their brains instead of trying to change their brains to work with someone else’s ideal schedule. 

Sample Middle and High School Schedule              Sample 2nd-6th Grade Schedule