Reflections from Eaquals Conference, Day 2, April 17, 2021
by
Gökçe Ünlü
SESSION 2: Teaching in Socially Distanced Classroom, Chris Farrell
Following this “different” teaching period, we will hopefully be back in our classrooms soon. However, as everything else - our classroom settings will not be the same again. During Chris Farrell’s session, many questions appeared in my mind, and actually I felt quite well to focus on the future. That’s why I wanted to focus on this session to share my reflections. I also thought that it might be helpful for all of us to brainstorm together about the future in our own context as we will have a lot to change in our classes after gaining all this experience.
In the session, Chris Farrell shared some questions which they asked;
What does “Socially Distanced Class” mean?
*Distancing?
*Masks?
*Static Exercises?
*Limited Class Sizes?
*Handouts and Photocopying?
*Collaborations? Monitoring? Corrections?
We need to know what we don’t know as the new normal will be “new” to all of us.
We need to think about the questions to ask the right questions to identify the problem well first.
Classroom Management in SDC
What kind of problems would you face? What would the physical setting look like?
1.How is the role of the teacher impacted?
2.How do students interact with each other?
3.What impact does mask wearing have?
4.Are there any significant changes in the school outside the classroom?
5.What is the impact on the use of resources and material?
6.How does the teacher monitor the lesson?
7.Are there any tech solutions that are readily available?
Lesson Planning
What would your concerns be regarding lesson planning in the SDC?
1.How can I transfer between the contexts of teaching online and teaching in the SDC?
2.Are the Learning Outcomes similar in the SDC?
3.Is the lesson pace and the stage timings the same?
4.Is the role of the learners the same?
5.Are there any special considerations regarding material and resources?
For example; g-documents, recordings? In the class?
6.How do we plan for interaction patterns?
For example; The students will be sitting away from each other.
Tech Solutions
What technology do you think might be useful in an SDC, and why?
1.Why is it important to integrate technology into the SDC?
2.In which areas can technology help in the SDC?
3.What tech was used to collaborate?
4.What new tools have you discovered and would recommend?
5.What about platforms? – lack of atmosphere – pre-class tasks would be required to get them back
6.Have you seen any challenges with edtech?
Also, I would like to share the link of “Socially Distanced Classroom Report” published by Eaquals for the future;
https://www.eaquals.org/resources/the-socially-distanced-classroom-report/
Chris shared the next step as “contextualization” and “problematization” which made me think that, it might be a good opportunity to start to brainstorm together as School of Languages to discuss these for our own context.
If you would like to share your ideas about social distancing and teaching and learning you can share your ideas on the google form below. Please also indicate which course you teach on.
Here are the Google Form Questions:
Q1. What aspects of our online teaching and learning experience would be useful to incorporate into SDCs?
Q2. What aspects of our face-to-face teaching and learning experience would be useful to incorporate into SDCs?
https://forms.gle/rS4v3X3fnspKLfky5
Thank you very much for all your contributions.
