Most of us spend a lot of our time teaching and learning online. It’s a really rich environment, or it can be anyway. My approach is to keep things as simple as possible. I do this by having a strong bias for making human connections with students over relying on tech tools. While I realize it may be possible to do both - making connections with tech tools - I’ve found that my minimalist approach works for most students and colleagues.?
Here are examples from two online environments I spend a lot of time with, Moreland University and an informal, self-directed professional learning community we call Sandcastle.
Moreland University
When COVID reached my Swiss boarding school for 12- to 18-year-olds, I wondered if my role leading professional development and research was in jeopardy. The Head of School was planning for various enrollment scenarios, none of which reflected an increase, and however important ongoing learning for teachers is, because I was not directly involved with the principal mission of the school - teaching children - I decided I needed a Plan B.?
A former colleague posted that his organization was looking for instructors with a PhD, so I applied at Moreland University to teach teachers things like curriculum and instruction, working with multilingual students, and international education. I started part time on July 1, 2020 and reduced my hours at the boarding school (which actually survived COVID with aplomb). The university has an office in Washington D.C. that I’ve never been to. Programming is one hundred percent online. I regularly work with adult students from every continent except Antarctica.?
And I love it. I love it for the human connections I’m making, for the conversations about teaching and learning, and for the ability to peek into classrooms around the world.
I don’t love it for flashy tech, apps, and AI-assisted lesson planning and commenting, though I know some of my colleagues enjoy that and are quite good at it. I personally only use AI for background reading, when I need to brush up or learn something that students have brought to my attention. I encourage my students not to use AI for more than that, either. I’d rather read work written in a human voice, non-native English grammar and all, then the cleaned up and predictable AI-assisted versions.
I make a human connection when I’m online with students, of course, but that is only an hour a week and with a class, not one-on-one. Personal human connections grow through ongoing online discussions in the margins of google docs, using the comment feature. Sound cold? It really isn’t. By the end of a class, whether it be four or 16 weeks, we’ve grown to know each other well.
Here’s my formula:
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Make sure the overwhelming percent of responses are positive. While it is tempting as a teacher to put what you know on display, it is better not to. Build rapport, and a lot of it, I tell myself. This is especially important in written comments, online, because misunderstandings cannot be immediately smoothed over like they can be in person.
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Wonder out loud, along with the student. I let myself follow the direction a student has taken, trying to be slow to judge. Perhaps I’m sensing that the student is heading in an unproductive direction, yet, it’s seldom that easy. Aspects of their thinking and planning might well be leading somewhere interesting. At the minimum, I can find within their experience interesting aspects of teaching and learning to wonder about “outloud” in my comments.
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Don’t hesitate to share anecdotes. I often share stories from my own teaching career, or my own time as a graduate student. I allow myself to “go off on a tangent,” to be personal, to be a little folksy. At first I worried students would find me old and eccentric. I think they actually find that the make me approachable.
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Encourage a back and forth exchange. Usually a couple of weeks into a course, students begin commenting on my comments. Then rapport really takes off. We go into what-ifs, we explore teaching and learning deeper. Plus, the simplicity of google docs helps us out a lot here - comments to comments appear in my email inbox … I can participate in several conversations simply and quickly.
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Make lots of recommendations. I share my own favorite podcasts, articles that I’ve read lately, people to follow, apps, conferences to attend …. I don’t do this all at once nor for everyone. Rather, when the context is right, I share, personally. At times conversations moved to emails and perhaps an extra meeting on Zoom.
I’m happy to say that I am in touch with many of my students, even back to four or five years ago, when I started with Moreland University. This is another advantage, perhaps, to beginning our relationship online: it’s so natural to continue staying connected.
Sandcastle
Since 2014 I have supported teachers at my boarding school with their passion projects, lasting at least one academic year but sometimes two years or longer. We call the program Resident Scholars. Basically, between 10 and 15 percent of the school’s teachers are approved each year to experiment with a project they themselves created. We advertise their work on the school’s website, support them during the year, remove whatever obstacles we can, and give them a space to share their work with others. For many, this type of self-directed professional learning works well. The fact that next fall the program is scheduled for its thirteenth year is proof of that.?
Two years ago I decided to start a similar program online, open to any teacher anywhere in the world. Many of the participants in Fall 2024 were colleagues I had already worked with, I suppose they were the ones who trusted that what I was proposing would be worth their time. Since then we’ve had people join our community that I’ve only met because of the program itself. Once part of our group, they start to become friends and colleagues.
We call the program Sandcastle. The metaphor is one of a relaxed set of people on summer holiday, out on a beach. Some of those people (teachers) are building a sandcastle (a personal passion project). If they build a tower (part of the project) that they don’t like, they can easily pull it down, and if they decide to add something new, they can fill a pail of sand (create a new piece of the project) and start building. The rest of us walk along the beach and admire the sandcastles, ask questions about them, and complement the designs.
Sandcastle is entirely online, with the rare exception when members meet in person, perhaps at a conference or someone’s school. Since we have members from the US west coast to Australia, however, we really only count on getting together online.
We have settled into a pattern of meeting in the middle of the month, scheduling three different meetings to accommodate time zones around the world. The format is simple: those participants who want to share about their personal passion projects do just that. The rest of us give feedback and encouragement.
The tech requirement is minimal with a focus on making human connections. If participants can get on a Google Meet they are all set. Presenters sometimes choose to share some slides for context, but that is not required. In the spirit of supporting the iterations of building a sandcastle, I generally do not record sessions. What a participant presents today is just one iteration, after all. If someone wants an update they can learn about the project in its next iteration.
Participants share with me that getting together online, informally, with an emphasis on positive feedback and encouragement, is often enough motivation to keep them working on their projects. In fact, there is a particularly interesting pattern among participants who are not able to join us online, whether due to the time of the meetings or their busy lives. They share with me that just knowing that there are other teachers working on passion projects keeps them working on, or at least thinking about, their own projects. Knowing that there is a community out there can be enough, knowing that others want to improve their practices, too. This is also what I’ve found with the face-to-face program at my boarding school. I’ve often felt that I am not providing enough support. More often than not, however, they tell me they are doing fine, they are making progress, and that it’s enough motivation to simply know that what they are doing is valued by others at the school, and that others at the school are working on their projects as well.
That camaraderie, that realization of knowing that you are a valued part of a group, is incredibly important. It’s possible face to face and, simply by being genuine and interested and present, it is possible - and effective - online. Best of all, and lucky for us, we can create that high functioning online environment with what today are the most basic of tech tools - a Google meet shared via email.?
About the Author
Dr. Paul Magnuson divides his time between professional development at Leysin American School, teaching adult learners at Moreland University, and consulting on innovative teaching and learning through initiatives like Sandcastle. He is a frequent blogger with The International Educator and an author of fiction, memoirs, and educational resources.
You can reach Paul through Magnuson EdStudio or at paul@magnusonedstudio.org.