As this period of online learning draws to a close, I think it is helpful to look back and reflect on the experience. Personally, despite the challenges, I liked working from home. Of course I missed the collaboration with colleagues and seeing my students, but there were aspects to it that I enjoyed. Having a cup of tea at hand, having two undisturbed breaks where I got to eat, wearing comfy clothes, and spending more time with my husband (and our two wee indoor bunnies).

There were certainly many challenges, one of them being the lack of preparation or skills both we and the students had in entering this online learning space. I had never used Google Meet before, but suddenly I was needing to use it, and help my students use it too.

This meant that for many of us, we spent the first couple weeks focused on mastering these tools, and helping our students understand them. As a result, the deeper thinking and research of how we can best use these tools for learning and engaging our learners came later, or came lower on our priority list.

From listening to the students, much of the feedback I heard was that online learning was overwhelming. We used google sites and classroom as our main forms of providing learning and communication, but as the weeks went on, I found that many of my students were overwhelmed by it all, and subsequently weren’t engaging much with it. That is not necessarily all bad however, because it meant that many had continued to focus on the projects that they had been working on when they were back at school. They had independent projects that they were working on, which highlighted the way in which many of our students are developing those skills of independent learning. In some ways, I felt a bit un-needed. Whenever I checked in with my students, they updated me on where they were at with their projects, but for the most part they were quite happy working on it themselves, and clearly knew where to find online resources. 

That brings me to another tension throughout this online learning. I mentioned that many students (and parents) felt overwhelmed by the online learning (and not just at my particular school), however as teachers, I think many of us felt the pressure to produce content and push the learning. In many cases, this pressure was self-imposed.  For example, I was seeing all the other amazing posts and tasks that other teachers were posting on their google classroom, and was worrying that I wasn’t doing enough. However, I was also struggling to even get responses from students, and aware that things were overwhelming for them, and I needed to keep it simple. As the weeks went on, my e-mails became shorter, and my focus became more on staying in touch with my students, rather than pressuring them with things they should be doing. This also made more sense to me in regards to our individualised learning approach. Some colleagues helpfully shared that they began to send tasks to those who were engaged and wanting it, but then not sending it to those who were overwhelmed by all the incoming tasks and e-mails. They approached it individually, and gave each student the support that they required. 

I still posted general tasks, challenges and notices on my google classroom, however I began to think more critically about what I was posting. “How valuable is what I’m posting?” “Could I say this in less words?” These were some of the questions I was asking myself. I was aware that I didn’t want to be overwhelming and overloading students because I felt the need to produce content. I needed to keep my focus on where they were at, and what their needs were. 

The other area that I became aware of as the weeks drew on, was the exhausting nature of being online, and being on video chats. While video chats were a great way to stay connected, they are full on, and can be exhausting. I realised that some of my students didn’t know how it all worked, and some shared they they avoided it because they felt so self conscious on it. I had been trying to get google meets happening twice a week for our mentor group, but upon reflecting on my experience with video chats, and the student engagement with it, I decided to wind it back to once per week. The other chat at the beginning of the week, I replaced with a classroom post, where they simply commented what they were working on, or what their goals were for the week – a simple and brief check-in. 

The challenge remained throughout online learning, ‘A student can be online, but are they really engaged?’. How can we tell as teachers? And how, as teachers who are working online, can we effectively support the offline learning? Especially near the end of the online learning period, I had more students wanting to do work ‘offline’. I imagine, that, like us, some students were starting to experience that online fatigue as well. 

An observation that surprised me, was that my students Digital Literacy skills were lower than I thought. I had assumed a level of knowledge and tech-savvyness. Yet, they were struggling with links, and google meet, and for many it seems, even e-mails. This is something that I can bring back to on-site learning. I realise we may need to spend some more time scaffolding students in their digital literacy skills, and consequently including cyber-saftey. I think many of my students know how to use the apps and games that their friends use, and that they communicate on, but they may not know as much beyond that as we think they do. It opens up an opportunity for us to help them discover how they can use their devices for learning and creating, which, in turn will help them become more self sufficient in their projects, broaden their use of tools and the opportunities they present, and prepare them for work in what is increasingly become a digital space. 

It is certainly is worth noting that I realise that every student and teacher will have had a different experience with online learning. I know that many of us will overlap in some of our experiences, but because each teacher and student is different, the experience was unique to each of us in many ways. 

Likewise, all of us will take different lessons away from this experience as well. Some may be very similar, but I hope that it has encouraged all teachers to reflect on their practice, and this experience and how they can use these ideas when they are back on-site. It is encouraging that we are already hearing how some changes are become school-wide, and the adaptive approach many educators are taking. 
I am glad that our school has chosen to initially focus on Hauora, on our students wellbeing. As I mentioned before, each student and teacher has had a different experience during this time, and it is important that we are sensitive to that.  There will be many anxieties, and perhaps for some, going back to school will be an overwhelming experience, considering what they have been through. This article about UK schools talks about researches urging the education ministries to priorities play as students return to school. That students re-connecting with each other and processing the changes in their own pace will mitigate some of the mental health problems that could arise later. They said that students who went through similar situations of isolation or loneliness for prolonged periods of time in their studies, were 5 times more likely to need mental health interventions later. They also stated that “Poor emotional health in children leads to long-term mental health problems, poorer educational attainment and has a considerable economic burden.”, reinforcing the need to consider carefully what we put our focus on as schools as children return to our spaces.