Tips for Creating a Culturally Responsive Remote Learning Environment
According to Responsive Classroom, a Responsive Classroom is one that is student-centered, and there is also a social and emotional learning approach to teaching and discipline taking place within the classroom. “It is comprised of a set of research, and evidence-based practices designed to create safe, joyful, and engaging classrooms and school communities for both students and teachers.”
There are many things that you can do starting the very first week of school to build a classroom environment that is responsive in nature and supports all students within your virtual classroom.
1.Come up with a set of meeting norms
Start your first week of online learning working with your classes to come up with a set of norms, or class rules, that every student must follow in order to have an effective, efficient, and engaging classroom meeting. These rules should be created by the students themselves, and they should be created organically. As the first week of school progresses and little problems begin to arise, students will begin to realize what rules they wouldWe will be using Pear Deck again to have our students drag a dot to the side they agree with most, for some of the This or That activities, and for others, we will be using the web programs MURAL and Jam Board.
like to make for each other. These norms might include:
Students must mute themselves when not talking.
No using the chat for personal side conversations.
Rules for when a student joins the classroom late during a meeting.
2. Consider students’ home lives when making rules for remote learning
There should be no hard and fast rules about cameras being turned on at all times during student meetings. We can not assume that every student has a camera built into their device, or that they have an external camera to utilize. Also, we have no idea what the living situation is for our students, so requiring cameras to be turned on during class meetings should be a big no-no. Just because a camera is turned off, that does not mean that a student is not engaged.
There are ways we can check for student engagement that does not require us to see the faces of all of our students. We can ask for responses in the chat section of our live chat, we can require students to take a picture of their class notes and upload them to their google classroom or see saw accounts, we can also check for understanding when looking at the assignments we have tied to our mini lessons we have taught remotely. Even when we check in on your students one on one, in small groups, or in pairs, camera usage should be optional.
3. Provide academic choice
As we all know, students learn in a variety of ways and each have their own unique learning styles. By providing academic voice and choice in how they choose to showcase their learning, you are providing students with more opportunities to learn in a responsive environment.
Academic choice centers on a three- step process: planning, working, and reflecting.
Planning: After teaching a lesson, offer students to showcase their learning in a way that suits them. This could be creating a piece of art with captions to showcase what they learned, writing a poem, or choosing to complete a graphic organizer that you have created for them.
Working: According to Responsive Classroom, the working step involves students being able to “explore, practice, experiment, and problem solve while you provide feedback through reinforcing language and prompt further engagement by posing open-ended questions.”
Reflecting: the last step of the process is reflecting. We provide daily opportunities to reflect in our classrooms. Reflecting is built into every lesson that we teach. Reflecting provides our students the opportunity to think about what they have learned, assimilate new information, and make future goals for themselves based on their learning. If you like the idea of reflecting, check out this resource in our TpT store.
4. Chunk your learning
Brain Breaks are a must during remote learning. Students are now being required to spend a majority of their day in front of a screen. This is not only harmful to their eyes, but also can have lasting effects on their body. Being hunched over a screen and desk all day does horrible things to our posture. Also, students are used to movement when learning in a classroom. They get up, get some tissue, get a drink of water, use the restroom, etc. We also are used to setting our lessons up in a way that allows for small group work and pair work. Providing our students with a fun and engaging brain break throughout our lessons keeps them engaged and also helps to build a classroom community, even when they are not physically together within a class. We love adding in a quick, non academic, guided drawing lesson within our weekly plans. The students love them and they learn so much about themselves.
Last, make sure that you are teaching your lessons in manageable, bite-sized chunks. We can not expect a student to retain 45 minutes of information from one lecture. Instead, chunk that information into bite-sized bits with a lot of ways to showcase their learning in between. We require all of our students to take notes during our mini lessons. We provide a learning target at the beginning of our lessons so students understand their purpose for their learning, and we also use a lot of strategies for discourse throughout our lessons, like think-pair-share, stop and jot, campfire chats, and compass discussions. Breakout sessions in Google Meet and Zoom will definitely be utilized a lot this year for student collaboration.
Are you wanting to learn more about remote learning? We have a whole series on the topic. Check back soon for more resources and blog posts to help make your transition into remote teaching as smooth as possible.
Until next time teacher friends!
Bottoms up!