The Elephant in the Zoom… Early Years and COVID19 — Innovate not Replicrap
I am excited to have joined the team at EnRusk as a Senior Research Assistant. My background is in education, mainly elementary, and I have had leadership roles focused on technology. I have had the privilege of teaching in the public, private, and international sectors both in Australia, Hong Kong, and here in the USA. I have also completed my Masters in Ed. and am commencing my Ph.D. with a focus on digital technologies and digital literacies. This post and my next few will draw from my learnings in those areas.
So, it seems to me that one of the biggest elephants in the room is about remote learning and its value in the early years of schooling, precisely, how on earth do we engage young learners in an online space?
Anecdotally, it appears that remote learning for many older learners has been working reasonably well, although not without its faults mind you, but that’s a whole other article. However, one of the most common complaints I hear from teachers, parents, and kids alike is that it is a bit of a farce for children in Preschool to Year 2 online learning participating in its current state. It’s hard on teachers, it’s hard on parents, and most importantly, it’s hard on kids. Zoom calls lose interest quickly, and there are parental stresses around “submitting” work, uncertainty around purpose and expectations of tasks, and overall disengagement from children. Does this resonate with you?
We can all agree that the early years of schooling are critical to our younger students’ development. Yet, it appears that the current model of remote learning is letting the opportunity to engage students in a meaningful way slip by. I am not presenting a critique of teachers and schools. The way many schools and teachers have pivoted in these uncertain times is nothing short of commendable. This is also not a “ten ways to engage young learners” article; it is the beginning of an investigation and an opportunity for the readers to help me explore this question and use the power of collaboration to reimagine this educational milieu. My intention here is to start a conversation around ways to capitalize on our collective experiences during this time and build on them to hopefully transform our curriculum, its delivery, and our thinking for the better.
How might we embrace the remote opportunities learning and digital technologies make available to us in the early years to change?
At EnRusk, we are all about change and innovation. The answer to this problem begins with a desire to rethink what we believe an early-year curriculum looks like.
The Parent Trap or Have We Trapped The Parents
An easy trap to fall into is presenting to parents a view of what we believe parents think “early childhood learning” should look like e.g. tracing letters and numbers, worksheets, and “repliacrap” craft, busywork. I’m sure there are many teachers who don’t want to burden or overwhelm parents, which is a legitimate concern; juggling work, home and often, multiple children at different year levels is difficult, almost impossible. This is an opportunity to shift our views on what early childhood learning should look like and move away from a nostalgic curriculum. Now is the time to ask parents what they want rather than assuming.
Parents are a vital part of the process, and for the first time, they have a much greater understanding of what their children are doing at school and the types of learners they are. I think it would be negligible if we did not invite parents to the table to work together to reimagine this space. Assuming, or ignoring the parent voice deprives us of the opportunity to gather some precious insights into what parents and children want and need from their schooling.
COVID19 presents us with the opportunity to let students explore and inquire about their world in a meaningful context. It opens up possibilities for students to pursue individual passions and share unique talents. It allows us unprecedented access to their home lives and allows us to bring these two worlds together. We can provide children with new ways to connect to a world beyond the classroom. We can create the space for them to be critiques of the early-year tech and explore what works and what doesn’t work. We have been gifted the moment to no longer “talk the talk” and now have the choice and the space to offer quality engagement with online worlds. We can experiment with games-based learning, with apps that promote communication and collaboration rather than “skill and drill.” We can encourage children to play, tinker and innovate in online spaces and integrate into the school curriculum the high-level literacy skills required to be literate online. We can give value and merit to this way of learning.
Through this type of experimentation, we can begin to not only “just get through COVID” but also co-construct an early-year curriculum that will be appropriate for a world post-COVID and beyond. We encourage you and are here to guide you through ways embracing this golden opportunity presented to us all. Rather than replicate what we have done at school, let’s mix it up, try new things and see how we can exploit the use of technologies to transform the experience for the better for students, teachers, and parents alike.
What an exciting time we live in. I would love to hear your thoughts.
