New Forest Living Sep - Oct 2020

How has
covid
changed
education?
What positives can
we take from this
pandemic?
Teaching during these
difficult times has created a
blended learning approach,
meaning a school has had
to develop a multi-faceted
approach to education.
Andy Perryer, Digital
Learning Adviser for
Cognita, reflects on how
teachers and pupils have
embraced online learning
during the pandemic in this
piece for the Independent
Schools Council.
Last week, a teacher at Breaside Prep,
one of the Cognita schools just outside
London, showed me how her class had
taken to using collaborative documents.
It sounds ordinary but is anything but. It
started with a blank screen. Then a sprout
of an idea appeared, followed by one
branch and another; images were added,
giving life and colour to the initial thinking,
and a stream of comment boxes popped
over the screen. All within the space of a
minute: an explosion of creativity.
Online teaching under Covid-19
restrictions has been a hothouse for
EdTech in the independent sector.
Sometimes painful necessity has seen
schools’ digital wizardry advance two+
years in mere weeks, as online tools once
viewed as ‘nice to have’ additions become
everyday necessities. So the future has
arrived early, with lasting implications for
what it means to be a teacher.
But the story of the last few months is not
a chronicle of the wonders of technology
– rather the value of good teachers who
are flexible, adaptable and committed.
Evidence has shown that just giving
children digital devices and software
leads nowhere. The technology is an
engine of education, but it’s the quality
of the teacher’s guidance, motivation,
feedback and interaction that are the allimportant
wheels.
Our schools in the UK were able to learn
key lockdown lessons early on due to
experiences shared by our sister schools
in Asia, where the pandemic hit first.
Chief among these was that well-being
and a sense of security had to be the
initial foundation. Pupils had to see their
teachers and classmates, albeit virtually,
and have time to re-establish feelings of
being part of a community - before the
impetus for learning was unlocked.
There’s no doubt it’s been a trial by fire.
Before Covid-19, teachers tended to
fall into two camps: those who were
comfortable with IT anyway, and those
who couldn’t wait to turn off their
laptop and get back into the classroom.
Either way, the transition to online has
prompted an incredible groundswell of
teacher collaboration as peers share the
challenges they’re feeling in this brave
new world - along with ideas, support
and handy hacks for overcoming them.
Out went normal routines and mindsets
as the realisation soon set in that an
element of freewheeling agility is what’s
needed. For example, as soon as we
learned how to set up outward-facing
webinars on Microsoft Teams in April, we
had live online events up and running for
parents from the following week on how
to support children through lockdown.
Before, this would have likely involved
months of planning.
We’ve been fortunate at Cognita in that the
UK pandemic restrictions came towards
the end of our national initiative to refresh
how EdTech was being used, introducing
mobile technology and wireless screen
sharing as standard in the classroom. We
were already encouraging teachers to be
more mobile around classrooms, making
their teaching practice more flexible and
intuitive. They could take a snap of a
student’s piece of work for instantaneous
sharing and peer feedback, and teach
from where they were needed rather than
be tethered to the corner of the room
where the tech used to sit. We showed
them how digital tools could transform
learning, not just substitute what is done
without them. That’s what lockdown
brought into sharp focus.
As per the opening example of children
using collaborative documents,
we’ve seen how difficult times have
opened eyes to how learning can be
enhanced: the limits to collaboration
and participation while working on
paper in a classroom; the benefits of
personalisation and student agency,
when students get to choose how and
when they study and who they learn
with. Feedback has been transformed.
Teachers have more options, from the
simple text box, to a short piece of
audio or a fully interactive video that
encourages more depth and variety in
responses; if a group of students are
experiencing the same issue, they can
provide group face-to-face feedback;
and most importantly the feedback is on
record, something that can be returned
to rather than advice in a classroom that
can’t always be remembered.
The 2020 pandemic won’t be remembered
as a blip for education but a step change,
the opening up of the box to genuinely
blended learning - the best of both online
and face-to-face. And that will mean
more flexibility and freedom for teaching
professionals, no longer rooted in the
classroom but able to move between the
physical and virtual
worlds, marshalling
stores of resources
and collaboration in
ways that provide
a more engaging,
innovative education
experience for our
children.
The Independent Schools Council (ISC)
brings together seven associations and
four affiliate associations to represent over
1,300 independent schools. These schools
are amongst the best in the world, and
educate more than half-a-million children.
6 | www.newforestlivingmag.co.uk