Creating Effective Distance Learning Materials during School Closure

With an imminent national school shutdown, we are in the midst of creating materials for students to use to learn from home- potentially for over an extended period of time. So how can we keep our pupils engaged and enthused about learning from a distance? Whilst we have the systems and structures set up for sharing these resources, it is important for us to consider how we can make this about more than just supplying, but instead about engaging students and assisted them in progressing from a distance.

This blog page page aims to share ideas about how to do this and provide links to supportive materials. To get us started, it is necessary to share a few key principles:

  • Try to avoid putting too much in there at once: add a week at a time if you can to keep it clear and not too overwhelming. Number your lessons or create week folders, archiving old materials to avoid confusion. Regularly refresh, update and manage to make it easier for students to navigate.
  • Keep the communication clear and simple: use the structures set up by the school and communicated with the students/parents to share your work. Remember, students will need to navigate these resources with varying amounts of guidance at home. As school we will be sending weekly bulletins to students/parents to guide them to the specific resources for that week.
  • Be realistic about the amount of work that a student will be able to complete at home: whilst you won’t want to set work that lasts 10 mins, there is a chance that they will not be able to complete quite as much as you would in a lesson- especially without the timer on the board or the teacher counting down 🙂 Don’t forget the principles of differentiation/challenge and cognitive science (interleaving and overload in particular)!
  • Strike a balance: whilst on line activities are really useful, don’t forget the students have their books at home and can be directed to write exercises in those and perhaps direct them to some reading materials they can make notes on. In addition, you will need to balance the type of tasks- structured, directed tasks with a few more open ended tasks.
  • Use technology to add a personal touch: visit our You Tube channel to gain ideas on how to create video clips or screen recordings with voice overs- they may even be glad to hear the sound of your voice!
  • How about setting a longer term extension project? A reading diary, a project based on historical figures or even something of their choice. They can be encouraged to be creative and use the resources around them.