Learning Online Learning 👩🏫 Transcend Newsletter XXIII
How teachers and students can learn to learn online, as 1.4B students can't go to class today.
Few things felt important enough to cover in this week’s newsletter other than the global pandemic we are experiencing and its consequences over the global economy. We decided to focus on online learning after hearing from countless students and teachers about the challenges they are going through in the massive move towards online learning.
To address this, we launched learningonlinelearning.org to connect novel and experienced online teachers through resources and mentorship. Check it out and please share with any teachers you may know!
Know any teachers or students struggling with online learning? If so, share this newsletter and learningonlinelearning with them!
What’s going on here?
As all our readers will be aware, the unprecedented spread and scale of COVID-19 is having a profound effect on virtually all aspects of our lives. Education is one of the areas that’s been hit hardest by the virus.
The New York Times estimated there were roughly 300M students out of class three weeks ago (what feels like at least three corona-years ago), but UNESCO estimates today that 1.4B students, or 80% of the student population are now out of school.
The virus doesn’t care about race, class or gender, but unfortunately, our economic structures do, putting some students at greater risk during these uncertain times: women, low-income students (300 million children in 117 countries receive meals at school, and - over 22M of those students in the US depend on a free or reduced-price lunch as the main source of their daily nutrition) or students without a stable internet connection at home among others.
Many teachers have taken initiatives to share their experiences, connect with other instructors and highlight free resources available to them. Even some governments, like Italy, have provided a hub for all the free resources they are making available for teachers.
We thought we’d try an amplify the reach of these projects by curating resources from teachers and offer to connect them to one another!
Learning Online Learning
We started by asking teachers and students accustomed to online learning what their experiences were in transitioning to online learning. You can access some of those testimonials here, and these were some of the main insights:
Recording real-time session and self-paced work open up a lot of opportunities, such as referencing recorded moments during the class/homework, being able to focus on the class discussions and content rather than taking notes, etc.
There’s an opportunity to introduce new media into the classroom and integrate it with the classes or homework (e.g. games!).
There’s a lower barrier to distractions from students, both in real-time and async online learning, so it’s important to implement systems to evaluate where students are at and new ways to motivate them to engage.
There are fewer contextual cues for teachers/professors in an online learning environment than in a classroom, meaning instructors have to be very clear about the goals and outcomes of class activities, as well as communicating with students.
As everyone is figuring out this new medium, teachers can be open about the technological and instruction challenges with students, who are digital natives and may have great ideas to increase engagement!
Image From Chalkbeat
Below are some of the resources we’ve curated based on these insights and interviews:
🏫TOOLS FOR TEACHING 🏫
👂INSTRUCTION BEST PRACTICES👂
👭TEACHER COMMUNITIES & FORUMS 👭
For more resources and mentorship from experienced professors, visit learningonlinelearning!
Next week we’ll focus on the macro-level transformation we are seeing in this transition towards online learning, and how it may shape the world of learning.
What do you think? We’d love to get your thoughts: please leave a comment or reply to this email!
📈Wefunder is looking for the best ideas to fight against the coronavirus crisis through their Fight the Virus Challenge, an online accelerator that invests $50,000 to $1 million in startups tackling the coronavirus crisis, across a wide range of sectors and interventions! Applications close April 3rd.
🌎Boostribe continues to bring together LATAM’s best founders and leaders, now online! Learn more about their fellowship and apply to join this great program.
💰Some exciting funding updates: Teachable was acquired by Hotmart, and Gradeslam raised a new funding round and rebranded to Paper.
✏️The power of less - how building on one big idea, rather than spreading oneself too thin, can lead to amazing things.
🎥Tipscool, a mentoring startup out of Barcelona, offers its new workshop to “Design your Career” at a discount (in Spanish!).
All the updated job opportunities can be found on our Job Board!
Data Analyst - Generation.org
Product Engineer - Junto
Front and Back end Engineer- Memberstack
Venture Associate - EdConnective
Fill out this form if you are looking to hire or get hired, and check out our job board for updated openings.
Thanks for reading another week! For any feedback, requests or ideas, reply to this email.
Please take a minute to share if you found this newsletter interesting!
Alberto(alberto@transcend-network.com) & Michael (michael@transcend-network.com)