In our work with the individuals we support, the tools we use also support the need for remote learning. For many people, thinking of teaching online right now leads them to think of the millions of school-age students, but remote teaching is just as crucial for agencies that support adults with disabilities right now.
Teaching life skills through distance learning can be tough sometimes. With the right tools, your learners can stay on track with their goals.
However, there are some aspects of teaching that need to be adjusted in order to make remote learning successful for everyone involved. In this blog, we’ll explore 3 ways that you can adjust your classroom and teaching to make this transition easier for your learners.
1. Measure Progress
How do you measure progress among your learners? Do you operate with a grade system, or do you award points for completing tasks? Whatever your methods, you may find that you need to adjust how you have assessed growth in the past.
With My Full Life, the online learning management system we use, our tutors can track progress without assigning grades. Instead tutors can ask an individual some questions related to the skill they are learning.
In this way, our system of measuring progress is a little like a pass/fail system. Though we don’t use that exact system, learners can either demonstrate they have learned a skill or they can continue working on it. Could this method work for your learners?
2. Utilize Accessibility Features
Historically, the term accessibility has referred to physical places. For example, one aspect of making a building accessible is including a ramp or there are no steps to enter. In digital spaces, however, accessibility means that anyone, regardless of ability, can access that website or resource.
To ensure all of your lessons are accessible, it can be necessary to provide multiple ways learners can engage with the material. That could mean recording a video and ensuring that all of the subtitles are accurate, or it could mean providing a reading lesson along with an audio recording of the material.
Each lesson you have may be different. A good place to start during lesson development might be including a routine question to ask: How can this lesson be accessible to the greatest number of learners?
3. Allow Each Other Grace
One final key aspect to teaching remotely is to allow grace for both yourself and your learners. These are challenging times for all of us. From day to day, how we feel can seem unpredictable during these stay-at-home policies.
All we can do in the meantime is be understanding of one another. A learner may have more trouble focusing than usual, or their internet connection may be down. By allowing each other to have space in these strange times, we can all get through this together.
Throughout these stay at home policies, we have all moved our lives online as much as possible. But we all know that this is not a perfect fit. Until we can start returning to a sense of normalcy, these 3 adjustments can help you and your learners through remote learning.