The 5 Commandments of Distance Learning

Presentation by Weston Kieschnick, ICLE Associate Partner Summary written by William D. Parker, OASSP/OMLEA Executive Director

At the 2020 CCOSA Summer Leadership Conference, Weston Kieschnick, education consultant, author and associate partner with International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE), presented a powerful session on “Surviving and Thriving Remotely and Beyond.” During his presentation, he touched on five key points, or “The 5 Commandments of Distance Learning” that educators must keep in mind while providing distance learning. Below are those 5 tips and a quick summary of each.

1. Boundaries are needed for you and for kids. Don’t respond to emails after a certain hour. Teachers should not be working at 10 pm. Kids absolutely should not be.

If you are going to manage distance learning, students and parents both need to know what boundaries exist. Just like you establish rules, procedures, norms and expectations in the first week of school, you must do the same in remote learning spaces.

2. Communication is king. Make sure you have separate communication for kids and for parents. It will help you prioritize and organize.

Instead of leaving your channels of communication open 24-hours a day, create communication norms instead. If you create open forums for communicating via groups, you run the risk of waking up to long group conversations in one email thread. Separate out your modes of communication so that students and parents both know how to communicate without burdening everyone with back and forth messages.

3. Mastery matters. Seat time does not. Think about the 30 minutes per subject per day rule. Plan “must do” activities according to your struggling learners. What skills do kids need? Kids can’t achieve mastery without synchronous and asynchronous instruction.

How do we focus on mastery instead of seat time? Learning rarely happens in cultures of negativity, loneliness and/or isolation. Shoot for a minimum of five office hours a week. Create at least three virtual asynchronous (on-demand) learning moments and two virtual synchronous (live) learning moments per week. Most students prefer

4. Parents/Guardians/Caregivers are the lynchpin. The reason it feels like homeschooling is because it is schooling from home.

At home caregivers are essential if remote learning is going to work. Yes, that seems daunting during a pandemic, but the more teachers can connect and build agreements with parents, the more successful the students will be at home. A simple equation to remember for successful remote learning is “Oversight – Distractions = Success.” Acknowledge the distractions and partner with parents to help guide them in engagement.

5. Breathe. It will never be more challenging than it is right now.

Remember to give grace to yourself and your teachers. Just as your first year of teaching was your most challenging, this year will feel like that first year for everyone. You are at step one of a thousand, so take each day one step at a time. Be a little better each day, and you’ll become better over time.

As Weston reminded participants, when we return to school “as normal,” all of us will be stronger educators as a result of teaching through a pandemic. What ideas or tips would you add to Weston’s Five Commandments? Share these with your teachers as a way to discuss and brainstorm what is working or may need to be improved in the days ahead.