On Line Learning & Learning from Home is not a one size fits all!

My class have been following the caterpillars journey on line but is is not the same as seeing it in person.

Since March 12th my life as nursery teacher has been turned upside down. That is the last day I taught my class, I was at a conference the next day and we had 2 days off the following week for St Patrick's Day but on that Thursday at home time, I never imagined that that would be the last time I would teach my class or that I was saying goodbye for that whole school year. 

Thankfully we had already been using the wonderful Seesaw app with the parents, so we moved seamlessly to home learning. I have been able to maintain contact with the children and their parents over the past months and it has been wonderful to receive photos and videos of the children and to be able to send them feedback and read stories to them. 

However, if anyone is under the illusion that we can easily teach half the class in school & half on line they have have another thing coming, the key to the success of on line learning is that a bond must have already been made between the pupils and the teacher & the parents, in the case of nursery children. 

There is no way I can possible have the same relationship with new children and parents that I have had with those who I have spent actually time with. I think those who teach the youngest children in our system will need time to build up relationships with the children in their classes first before any real on line learning presence can be made use of. 

I know which children have lots of siblings to help keep them busy and entertained, who is an only child, who lives with grandparents or moves between homes mid week. I know their interests and their favourite stories. 

Throughout lockdown I have given my class 3 books to chose from each week, they vote for the order they will be read in. I have throughly enjoyed reading these books but they are almost all books i have already read in person to my class at story time. So I know how they usually react to certain parts of the story or I can say 'Oh you remember what happened when we opened this bit?' But I am missing the instant reaction form the children and I know them, it will not be the same to read stories to children who do not know me or vice versa. For those of us working with young children we will need time to get to know the children in person first and to build up a relationship with them and their parents before we move to on line learning. 

By March I had a pretty good idea of who could do what skills wise and knew how to send appropriate activities home that would be fun whilst building on already developed skills. It is an entirely different concept to try to set home learning activities for parents to do with their children when you don't know the skills the children already have. 

Going forward I intend to use the Seesaw app even more fully with future classes so that we have access to the blog and home learning journals. This will address some of my concerns but there is nothing like face to face learning & relationship building. We have to get this aspect right with the pupils so that the on line learning can be successful. 

On a more positive note, will we ever have evening meetings again where parents have to struggle to get childcare?