Matt Renwick 
Matt Renwick wrote this column in March 2020, as schools were closing and teachers were moving instruction online within days. The section below, added in 2026, reviews what research since then says about online teaching strategies and what the school closures showed.
Yesterday and today, my daughter has been meeting with her book club on Google Hangouts. She along with six other 5th graders plus her teacher have been jumping on the video chat application to talk about Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes.
After today’s chat, I asked her what she thought about discussing the book online instead of in person. “It was nice. Not as much learning but it was nice.” She seemed most excited about being able to talk to her friends; she carried her laptop around the house as a virtual tour before they got started with their club.
Her comment, “not as much learning,” might sum up the current effectiveness of online instruction. Now that we are distanced from each other and trying to connect within the confines of our respective homes, school districts (including mine) are working to make the best out of the situation. We cannot replicate in-person communication via the Internet. Body language, tone of voice, and a common learning environment are all lacking as contributions to the full experience.
Access as a Priority
One of the biggest challenges seems to be ensuring access to a strong Internet connection plus a reliable computer.
Our family lives in a rural area. In the city, access is available as our service provider is offering two free months of Internet. In the country, it’s a different story. I’m currently working with one of our librarians to set up mobile hotspots and deploy them to homes outside the city limits. Even then, there’s no guarantee they will have a strong connection with their teacher and peers via Google Classroom or Seesaw (our chosen learning management systems). Thankfully this is only a few families for right now.
Beyond technical access, there is also the challenge of student access to adequate instructional support. For example, an article for Ed Surge noted that are most vulnerable students may fall behind their peers without the help of a teacher present in a physical classroom. Citing research that validates his concerns, the author Justin Reich goes as far as to suggest that we should dispense with formal education altogether for the remainder of the school year.
“Most schools should pick up days in June or Sept rather than try to go online.”
Is this proposal flawed? For example, if a few students are not able to access an appropriate education, then should all students not have the opportunity? I have also read news articles that suggest social distancing could last beyond a couple of months. If true, shouldn’t we at least try to understand what works with online-only education while continuing to get everyone “up to speed”, so to speak?
“If You’re Going to Go Online…”
Reich acknowledges that for many educators, teaching online is expected. If this is the situation, he offers this advice:
“Think about how you will allocate time to make daily or regular human connections with your most vulnerable students.”
This recommendation, of personal connection, is also supported by studies. In his meta-analysis Visible Learning, John Hattie distilled research on technology-enhanced instruction and found the following six conditions to be optimal for student learning.
• When there is a diversity of teaching strategies
• When there is teacher training in the use of computers as a teaching and learning tool
• When there are multiple opportunities for learning (e.g. deliberative practice, increasing time on task)
• When the student, not the teacher, is in “control” of learning
• When peer learning is optimized
• When feedback is optimized
Thankfully, these elements for effective instruction with technology are not overwhelming for teachers to facilitate. We can set up online opportunities for all students to engage in meaningful learning while devoting more of our attention on the students who need it the most.
For example, consider my daughter’s book discussion. Her teacher started by posing a question and then used a protocol in which every student had to respond once in the video chat before anyone could speak again (peer learning). The students could also pose questions to each other related to their reading (students are in control of the learning). While my daughter was successful without any frontloading, the teacher could have met with a struggling reader ahead of time to prepare them for the chat.
After their online discussion, my daughter had this to say about it.
“Talking about it was good because I listened to what everyone else thought about what we were reading. It made me think about the book differently because we each had our own opinions about the book.”
Additionally, seeing each other through video has been a highlight of my daughter’s days. She can visit with her friends and maintain those relationships from home.
And let’s not forget about the learning that teachers are experiencing in moving their instruction online. We are accelerating the process for embedding digital tools into our practice. My guess is, when we do eventually get back into physical classrooms, some of the more promising technology-enhanced strategies are going to stay while possibly pushing out antiquated approaches.
A Good First Strategy + Tool
If the recommendation for online instruction is to foster and sustain our relationships with students, and I agree with that, then how might we best go about this?
My suggestion: Keep it simple. Stick to tools we are most comfortable with for now and shift the connections we have already developed with kids to online spaces.
If the technology has a lot of bells and whistles, it might be best to ignore them for now. Review Hattie’s six conditions for optimal instruction with technology as a filter. All six can be embedded within online instruction with only the basic features.
And speaking of tools, the first technology to embed in your online instruction is a learning management system (LMS). Next is a list of my favorite LMSs at each level.
• Primary: Seesaw
• Intermediate: Google Classroom
• Secondary/IHE: Canvas
Leading with promising practices founded on the strong relationships you have with students will help us frame the use of technology so it serves our needs. I realize it’s not going to be perfect. Not all students will have appropriate access. That’s not okay, and we need to continue pushing forward so kids do have the necessary resources and support. Physical resources such as print books and journals should be a part of these efforts provided we can distribute them safely.
Just as important: let’s be kind to ourselves as we venture into new territory with teaching and learning.
This piece was originally published on Read by Example
Further Reading
- edCircuit – CoSN Podcast: S1E6, Remote Collaborating and Planning—Timely Tips from AASA, Digital Promise and CoSN
- Associated Press – School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning
- edCircuit – Going Virtual Overnight: 4 Questions for Administrators to Ask
Online teaching strategies: what the research says and what the school closures showed
Matt Renwick wrote above that online instruction should keep human connection first, use simple tools and rely on a few conditions for effective learning. Six years later, teachers still use online teaching strategies in virtual schools, in blended courses, for students who are home sick and on days when weather closes a building. This section looks at what the research says about effective online teaching and what the pandemic taught about its limits.
Teaching quality matters more than the format
The Education Endowment Foundation in the United Kingdom reviewed 60 systematic reviews and meta-analyses on remote learning in April 2020. The New South Wales Department of Education summarizes that work in an evidence-based explainer on remote learning. Its main conclusion is that the quality of teaching is more important than how the remote teaching occurs. When teachers used high-quality practices, the explainer reports, there was no difference in achievement between live (synchronous) lessons and work students complete at their own pace (asynchronous). Remote achievement was higher when teachers used explicit teaching, which means clear explanations that build on what students already know, and when they gave effective feedback. Teaching students independent learning skills, such as managing time and persisting with a task, was also considered important.
The explainer is also clear about what it cannot say. There is very little research on primary schools, because most studies covered higher education or high schools, and younger students need more adult support. Most of the studies were not conducted during mass school disruption, and they examined planned remote programs that students had often chosen. The findings therefore apply with caution to the kind of emergency teaching that Renwick describes.
What the pandemic showed about outcomes
A national analysis by researchers at Harvard and Stanford, the Education Recovery Scorecard, covered nearly 8,000 districts in 21 states and about 26 million elementary and middle school students. As Harvard Magazine reported in July 2023, the average student was about half a year behind in math and about a third of a year behind in reading by spring 2022, and about 40 percent of the achievement gains made from 1990 to 2019 had been lost between 2019 and 2022. Those figures reflect the whole disruption, including closures, illness, deaths in families and the loss of social activity. They cannot be treated as a measure of online teaching alone, and the Harvard Magazine article does not break out remote and in-person results.
The article that Renwick cites from Justin Reich raised a concern that the most vulnerable students would fall behind without a teacher present. The national results are consistent with that concern in a general sense, although they measure the combined effect of many factors, and the NSW explainer lists technology access, especially for disadvantaged students, as a central condition for any remote program.
Practical online teaching strategies for a teacher or school leader
Together, the research summaries and the column suggest several decisions that apply in a fully online course, a blended one or a short closure:
- Keep the tools few. Renwick recommends using what teachers and students already know, and a single learning management system is easier to support than several. The column names Seesaw, Google Classroom and Canvas for different age groups, and a school should check that its own choices still suit its students.
- Teach explicitly and check understanding. Short, clear explanations that connect to earlier lessons, followed by questions students answer, match what the research found helps.
- Plan for feedback. Decide how and when each student receives comments, and who reviews student work during the week.
- Use structured talk. The book club in the column used a protocol in which every student responded once before anyone spoke again. A protocol gives quieter students space and keeps a video call from being dominated by a few.
- Teach students to manage independent work. Checklists, set times and short goals help students who are working without a teacher in the room.
- Schedule regular contact with the students most at risk. Renwick quotes Reich on making daily or regular human connection with vulnerable students, and a school can assign a named adult to each.
- Provide an offline route. A family without reliable internet needs printed materials, a hotspot or another way to take part.
Leaders should also consider the age of the students, since the research base for younger children is thin and a long screen session suits them less than short live meetings with a teacher and more hands-on work at home. edCircuit has covered the equity side of the question in Digital Equity and Snow Days: Rethinking Online Learning and the student view in Students Speak: Online Learning vs. Crisis Schooling.
Related reading
More on Hybrid and Remote Learning
