COVID-19 & Online Learning

Some time saving tips for teachers

Some time saving tips for teachers

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

By Dr Stephen Whitehead

Sorry, but we couldn’t hold out any longer.

We’ve tried face masks, sanitizer and subjecting the whole EDDi team to enforced quarantine, but alas we’ve been beaten.

No, we’ve not (yet) succumbed to Covid-19 but we have given up any resistance we had to writing about it. Not since 9/11 has any event generated as much global interest, or concern, as Covid-19.

Indeed, for most everyone on the planet alive today this is a first — a global shutdown. Unless, that is, you are old-enough to remember WW2.

In which case it makes perfect educational sense to ensure this unique event gets channelled into your lessons — online probably for now, physical when all returns to ‘normal’.

Some time saving tips

Teachers the world over are having to shift their lessons online. The burden on planning, preparation and marking is immense. Never mind that many teachers are having to make this adjustment whilst balancing care for their own children (and relatives).

Here are a few suggestions then, exclusively compiled for you by the EDDi team, that will hopefully save you some time (due acknowledgement to the Institute for Learning Centered Education).

For ease, we have listed the suggestions by subject:

English: Depending on the age of your students have them write or discuss the impact they are already seeing and experiencing in their home, community, friendship groups. Have a project whereby the students collate online information re the panademic and critically analyse it. Compare how different cultures, countries, governments convey information to their citizens. Get the students to act as journalists producing their own blogs and online news forums.

Science: What is this virus? Where might it have originated from? What is the incubation period? Is there evidence it is weather related? How is this virus different from the flu? What are the differences between an illness spread by sneezing and an illness spread by, say, mosquitoes? Why does it take over a year to develop a vaccine? Which country is proving to be most competent at minimising the effects of the virus and what scientific-related measures are they adopting?

Maths: Name a country: How many people have been infected and what is the infection rate? Show this infection rate by various graphs. What are the different mortality rates around the world — do graph and percentage comparisons. How do the infection rates compare when set against a country’s population? What is the average infection rate, globally? What are the percentages of people infected by age groups, by gender, by ethnicity? Project future infection rates based on infections rates so far and by best, worst case scenarios. Project infection rates for areas of the world yet to experience the pandemic’s full effects.

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Technology: Visualise apps that might be useful in helping people cope with this virus. Consider the most important technology to be developed in treating patients and at different levels of illness. How can existing technology and apps be best used to help society continue to function while in lockdown? How is technology fuelling the virus?

Art: Design posters to be placed around the school and/or the community. What are the central messages and which part of the population are they aimed at? Draw a picture that you could take home to your parents with a message of one thing you want them to know about this virus.

Economics: Compare how different governments are responding to this pandemic in terms of emergency economic measures. What are the likely impacts of these measures globally, regionally, nationally? What measures may likely be most effective and which least effective? Having implemented such measures, what might the short-term, medium term, long-term economic consequences be? Do online quantitative research in your community to ascertain the economic impact on families. Working in teams, produce your own emergency measures for a chosen country, based on that country’s economic data, population, etc.

Business and Management: Research how different sized companies around the world are coping with the pandemic. What measures are they introducing to reduce infection yet maintain production and services? Which businesses will be most adversely affected in the short term and long term? What styles of business leadership are appearing and which seem most likely to be effective? How are banks addressing this crisis and what measures if any are they taking to ameliorate the impact on their customers?

Music: What three songs would we play if we had a nervous group of people we wanted to relax? What music should be played in hospitals? What music would most relax my family? If you were putting together a concert for victims of this pandemic and their families, who would you invite to perform? What music would you listen to at home if you were quarantined?

Foreign Language: Whatever the language is, get the students to identify what the country is doing about the virus and draft a letter to the people of that country in their language. Produce a ‘we support you’ video for the people of that country in their language. Produce a video explaining the virus in a foreign language.

Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash

Physical Education: Should the 2020 Olympics go ahead or not? What are the consequences either way? What criteria should be used when deciding whether to cancel a sporting event or not? How do you balance fan interest, economic losses, and risk to participants when making such a decision?

Social Studies: Get your students to debate the following question: ‘Is this the end of globalisation?’. Compare how different social groups and classes are likely to be affected by the pandemic and how they may differentially respond. Where and why are there instances of racism emerging against certain groups of people around the world? What drives this racism and how should we tackle it? Compare how different world leaders are responding and measure their effectiveness in, for example, strengthening communal solidarity. Produce a chart showing the top 5 and bottom 5 world leaders and governments in terms of their response to the pandemic. How are Generation Z responding to this emergency — what global patterns are emerging? How are Boomers responding to this emergency -what global patterns are emerging? What differences are emerging between collectivist and individualist societies? Which societal approach is proving more effective and why? How and why has religious worship proved to be both a source of infection and a source of solace in communities?

History: Identify the previous pandemics of history. When did they occur? Why did they occur? What were the infection rates? What were the mortality rates? How did governments and peoples respond? What is significant about the British town of Eyam during the plague of 1667? What were the most likely causes of death during the Middle Ages? Which illnesses once killed millions but now kill no one or very few? When did vaccines first get produced? Who discovered the vaccine? How did governments respond to the Spanish Flu and which countries were most badly affected?

Geography: Map the spread of the coronavirus since it first appeared in China in November last year. Project its spread over the next month, three months. What patterns emerge from this spread of infection? Which areas of the world have so far appeared more protected that others? What caused the virus to develop in northern China then suddenly erupt in Iran and Italy?

Critical Thinking: Analyse different ‘conspiracy theories’ emerging on social media. Which seem most bizarre and which seem most convincing. Why? During a pandemic everyone is naturally fearful, how then do we produce factual information designed not to be emotive but to be useful and informative? Produce such information for your own family. Produce ‘facts’ about the pandemic and present to the group. Which of these facts are accurate and which have been made up by the group? Listen to or read the pronouncements of various world leaders and compare them for truthfulness, sincerity, usefulness, accuracy. Assess various news media for accuracy, honesty, information value.

Health and Wellbeing: We all now know about the risks that Covid-19 brings us, but what about the opportunities? Already, around the world some positive things have happened. E.g. the environment is less polluted, the medical profession is showing its unique value to humankind, communities are supporting each other, the internet is revealing its strengths, and education is adjusting to a world of online learning. Get the students to examine the opportunities in Covid-19, discuss and debate them, and to suggest what the world will look like when this is all over.

As you can see, this topic has lots of mileage long after the pandemic is over. It certainly presents a unique opportunity to develop not only knowledge, understand and skills, but also empathy. Because no matter who you are, or where you live, you are potentially at risk.

If nothing else, this fact will encourage the students to recognise that being a global citizen in the age of globalisation brings with it both opportunity and responsibility.

By Dr Stephen Whitehead

This article will also appear in the next Educational Digest International.