So you want to put your course online

(Some wisdom from those who have gone before)

• Do not attempt to copy a prior course
• No tests
• Start with a goal a student wants to be able to do
• Encourage the expression of ideas
• Teachers are behind the scenes
• Build in failure
• Make it emotional
• Use just in time stories
• Students must have other people to talk to
• Make it fun

A big opportunity

Could we stop pretending that kids will be harmed by having to learn from home during the virus and school shutdowns? This is actually a big opportunity if we relax our rigidity about education. All a teacher has to do is suggest that a kid produce something (anything) and help them when needed.

We need to stop demanding that kids learn what some government, or university committee, or ETS, or OECD, has decided that they must learn and let them learn what they want to learn. Teachers need to stop "teaching" and start helping kids achieve what they actually want to achieve. Teachers can encourage kids who want to learn the same thing to work together in teams. Imagine if school allowed you to learn what you'd always wanted to learn. How many would decide to learn the quadratic formula, or how to balance a chemical equation, or memorize a physics formula? Who would decide that they needed to read Silas Marner? Letting kids decide what to read and what to learn how to do happens all the time outside of school. Teachers need to stop being the ultimate authority and instead learn to mentor just in time (online) and stop testing.

Instead of online learning becoming a disaster, the virus could become the savior of education. Let's make this school shut down into a good thing.

- Dr. Roger Schank