5 Ways to Enhance the Social in our Social Distancing
Light Lift Strategies to Ensure Human Connection in Distance Learning
Here we are. This is our current reality.
And reality has gotten very, very real.
Millions of Teachers and Learners have been thrust into a situation none of us asked for or dreamt possible. Whatever name we give to this new context (distance learning or remote learning or online classes or…), it’s a big change.
Teachers are learning how to teach. Learners are learning how to learn. And we’re all doing this in real time, together.
As different as this approach to Teaching & Learning is from face-to-face classes, one of the factors that remains the same is the importance of Relationships. It isn’t necessarily easy, but is impactful.
Here we are. This is our current reality. And reality has gotten very, very real.
For those who want to try, and have the bandwidth to do so, here are 5 light lift strategies to help:
1. Reappropriate distractions: goofy backgrounds + filters
For my first online class, I figured some students would want to clown around with virtual backgrounds on Zoom. Rather than react to it as a disruption, I proactively led with teaching students how to do it as the first thing we did in class.
Instead of fighting a predictable battle, what if we look to sources of predictable joy and tap into them?
100% of students immediately changed their backgrounds. It was fun. We laughed. One started screening Jurassic Park which led his peers to ask how to use video instead of images. Instant connections!
I then asked them what the norms should be. They decided the rules (avoid being too distracting, no videos during learning). They are all abiding.
Instead of fighting a predictable battle, what if we look to sources of predictable joy and tap into them?
2. Schedule Spirit Days
One morning this week, my friend Jen Williams invited me to a join a call but stipulated that we should all wear neon. It was so fun! We spent the first moments connecting on a personal level about the origin stories of our neon treasures.
My friend Adam and his co-workers are doing TV themes such as Mad Men. Clearly, Teachers can’t very well have Students showing up with martini glasses filled with water but you get the idea! It brings us together to relate on a common theme.
Popular shows are great fodder, but you can also connect with kids by subverting the rules with a Hat Day. And don’t forget favorites like Beach Day, 90s Day, Mix Match Day, and of course Emoji Day.
Also, don’t be afraid to borrow ideas from tools like the popular House Party app to incorporate games and quests into the themes! (Good starting places if you need help include the free tools from Breakout EDU, Shelly Sanchez Terrell’s book on Launching EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. To go deeper, check out Matthew Farber’s book on Game-Based Learning).
If you need more ideas, you’re a quick search away from tons of lists like this, this, and this. **Caveat: be thoughtful and inclusive! Don’t choose themes that are difficult to access for students because of cost and avoid themes that may marginalize people.**
3. Virtual Flash Mobs in the Sandbox
When humans are together in school, there’s lots of important connecting that happens around and even because of learning but that isn’t necessarily the point of the learning. Consider dedicating a few minutes on some days for learners to come together in a virtual sandbox and make virtual sandcastles.
The thing about the flashmob approach is that it can be quick, easy, fun, and most importantly, full of purpose and meaning:
- Using a photo-to-sketch tool like Be Funky, students could in just a few minutes create custom class coloring books to print out at home for younger siblings.
- You could emulate Joe Dillon and his students in co-creating a class playlist.
- Continuing with the music theme, Students could create a collection of trimmed clips on youtube that people can wash their hands to (as a substitute for singing the ABCs).
- Students could be given 5 minutes to each make a meme on the theme of The Student Experience during Covid-19 that every Teacher needs to know about. Possibilities are endless!
4. Virtual Quilting
The only epidemic I remember impacting my own learning experience as a student is the AIDS crisis. The way humanity came together really impacted me. A standout example of this was the AIDS Quilt that both traveled and brought together the world.
In the AIDS Memorial Quilt, we can see a model for how to unite people by having them collaboratively stitch together toward a shared product. For example, Sean Gaillard convened a virtual gathering to stitch together short videos on Flipgrid encouraging staff at his school to #CelebrateMonday.
Similarly, students could use popular educational technologies such Buncee, Wakelet, or SeeSaw to practice digital crowdsourcing in order to collectively stitch together something they will find meaningful. Update: Just spoke with a district leader about having younger classes engage in a virtual quilting project to create a “gift” for their small, rural district’s graduating class of 2020 high school seniors. We both admitted to crying on the phone with the image in our minds!
5. Share Quarantine Hacks
Most of us are new not just to Teaching and Learning in these conditions, but to actually living like this day to day. Inviting Students to share their own Quarantine Hacks is good for community building and gives everyone a chance to shine.
Consider setting aside a few minutes for a couple people to share their hacks. They could offer up hacks about physical fitness, healthy eating, staying disciplined with a schedule, not fighting with family members, supporting the community, learning new skills, fighting boredom, or best new apps to download. We’re confined to our homes but have infinite possibilities of what to do while here.
And while one benefit of the hacks could be students helping other students, a greater win will be connections between students over shared interests and affinities.
UPDATE #1: I’d be happy to turn this into a webinar for your school/district. Just get in touch!
UPDATE #2: As folks reach out, I’ll add YOUR ideas:
The whole point of this post is that relationships are important. I think it’s also important to recognize that gravity is something we can’t control, and many Educators are working within a reality where the gravity makes it difficult to accommodate any of these ideas. You may only be able to shake your head and think, “Must be nice.” If that’s you, please know I see you, I feel for you, I support you, and I do not judge you.
Between bureaucratic mandates and leadership focus on logistical concerns, it’s all-too-easy for Relationships to drop off the radar. Focusing on relationships might feel for some like a luxury they don’t have amidst the chaos of implementing the institutional plan. And, fact is, having a sense of clear direction (or even purpose) in the work right now can be a valuable source of stability. But with that comes a risk factor: the predictable trap of compliance pedagogy looms large. Show up. Follow directions. Don’t disrupt the learning.
Hopefully some of these ideas will help lighten the lift and make centering what matters most a little more doable!
What tips do YOU have for increasing connection, community and personalizing the learning experience during social distancing?
Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, please click to 👏👏👏 and recommend it to others! If you have thoughts to share about this, I hope to learn from your own response post!
In addition to following Noah Geisel here on Medium, you can find him at SenorG on Twitter. Some other posts you might like:
