How to Engage Distance Learners in the Practice of Science

Teacher Leader Project Presentation Notes

Slide 1: Title slide – How to Engage Distance Learners in the Practice of Science

Slide 2: Presentation Objective and Standards Addressed

OBJECTIVE

Facilitate critical reflection to identify best teaching practices for engaging students in

the practice of science in fully online or hybrid formats.

STANDARDS

ISTE Standard 4a: I dedicate planning time to collaborate with colleagues to create

authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.

NBPTS Proposition 4: Teachers are members of professional learning communities

TLS Domain 1: Fosters a collaborative culture to support educator development and

student learning

Slide 3: Education Hook: I’m sure many of us are eager to get this year over with and move on,

however, I do think it is important for us to take the time to reflect on this year. We’ve

all been forced to adjust our practices, and in the process, we’ve had opportunities to

learn about new technological resources and methods of engaging our students.

Although we will [hopefully] be back to normal soon, much of what we learned this year

could be applied in the future. So…we may as well try to benefit from all that we went

through this year as we adjusted to COVID times.

Slide 4: Progress monitoring questions – have audience consider the following questions before

sharing ideas with someone near them:

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How to Engage Distance Learners in the Practice of Science

1. What are some challenges you’ve faced while working with distance learners this

year?

2. What would you have done differently at the start of this school year had you

known what you know now about distance learning?

3. How have you been able to successfully engage students in the practice of

science in virtual classrooms?

Slide 5: Problem #1: Keeping the virtual classroom student c

entered

A common theme when speaking with other teachers and reflecting on my own

experiences is how it has been difficult at times this year to maintain a student-centered

classroom.

We cannot just rely on lectures—we can’t do all the talking if we expect our students to

be actively engaged in the lesson. How can we get our students more involved?

Slide 6: Solution: Breakout Rooms

This is a Zoom feature, I am honestly not sure if Kaltura has breakout room options. So,

if you have a larger class size of online students, it may be best to meet on Zoom so you

can utilize this feature.

One common worry teachers have about using breakout rooms is ensuring students are

on task while in a different room. It’s important to circulate through all the rooms (just

as we would walk from group to group in person) and find a way to hold students

accountable (such as assigning exit tickets or other forms of formative assessment that

students need to complete while in groups).

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How to Engage Distance Learners in the Practice of Science

Slide 7: Progress monitoring question – have audience discuss ideas for how to keep students

engaged during whole class discussions/activities online.

After talking to other teachers on campus, I’ve gathered some of your ideas for how to

keep the whole group engaged. Incorporating short videos with embedded discussions

or questions (PlayPosit is great for this!), larger group jigsaw activities (let the students

do the teaching!), hosting Socratic seminars on relevant topics (for example COVID 19

response/protocols), and facilitating open-ended discussions while embracing those

divergent questions all seem to be good methods of keeping large groups engaged and

encouraging active participation.

Slide 8: Problem #2: Student Participation

What if students still refuse to participate? Too often, students keep their microphones

and cameras off. I don’t know about you all, but it can be really difficult to get excited

and do our job when teaching to a bunch of blank screens. What can we do?

Slide 9: Solution: Open-ended lessons based on “student-wonderings”

We need to get students excited about our classes! I know…sometimes easier said than

done. But one way to do that is to focus lessons on what students seem to be interested

in. This can be difficult at times depending on what unit we are on and what standards

we are trying to meet, but if we can find a way to embrace divergent questions and

connect “student wonderings” to the content, students may be more willing to

participate.

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How to Engage Distance Learners in the Practice of Science

Also…allow students to use the chat box. Some students may be more willing to ask

questions and share ideas when given the option to type into the chat box. This should

encourage more participation.

Slide 10: Problem #3: Accountability/Effective Assessment

We’ve had to rethink how to assess our students this year, as we cannot trust that all of

our students will maintain academic honesty while taking exams from home. This means

that exams that focus solely on fact-based knowledge and require rote memorization

(or a simple Google search… or help from someone else in the household…) may not be

the best method of fairly and accurately assessing student understanding.

Slide 11: Solution: higher-order thinking assessments

What we should aim to do is design assessments to focus on skills higher up on the

Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid. Instead of just testing for knowledge of facts acquired

through rote memorization, we need to focus on higher-order thinking skills that

encourage students to be creative in their attempt to connect content to prior

knowledge and personal experiences/interests. While this is an especially good

approach to take for online learning formats, open-ended assessments that focus on

higher-order thinking skills should also be a focus during in person classes.

Another method could be verbal assessments. This may be difficult with large class

sizes, but could be useful for certain students that may need additional support.

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How to Engage Distance Learners in the Practice of Science

Slide 12: Problem #4: tech issues/absent students

◦ What can we do when students have technical difficulties and can’t join class?

◦ What do we do about students out for extended periods of time?

These are two issue that I’m sure all of us have dealt with this year. But these issues are

not unique to this year…there are always students that use the excuse of technical

issues to explain why they were not in an online class. And there will always be students

that are absent for extended periods of time. So how can we address this?

Slide 13: Solution: record virtual class meetings

Record class meetings and publish the videos so all students have access. This allows

students to easily catch up on what they missed, as well as re-watch portions of the

lesson as needed. What’s great about recording lecture videos and other lessons is that

you can reuse them! While it may take a lot of work up front, it should ultimately reduce

our workload while also giving students the resources they need to avoid falling behind.

In regard to tech issues, after speaking with other teachers, documenting when students

are having tech issues seems to be a good idea so we can keep track of the students

with reoccurring issues. If the same student is continuously having the same issue, we

can refer them to the tech hub and/or contact a family member to ensure that they are

aware of the issue and see if they can help resolve.

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How to Engage Distance Learners in the Practice of Science

Slide 14: Culminating Question #1: Reflect on one of your most successful online lessons this

year…Why was it successful? What strategies did you use? How could you tell your

students were engaged?

Discuss ideas…

Slide 15: Culminating Question #2: What could we be doing in person with our students to

better prepare them for online learning in the future? (How can we promote autonomy

and the development of time-management and communication skills?)

Discuss ideas…

Slide 16: Link to post-presentation survey:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSctej3Kj2kQdWWI48qqCwgmSshkA5MfB83

ELLC8i4qoS2cZyQ/viewform

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