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The technological component of learning is constantly growing. More and more classes are taking place online – yet rather than simply being a substitute for classroom courses, they can be blended with a classroom-based approach. This often offers students a more engaging and motivating experience. This post talks about the advantages of online learning, why teachers find it useful and why students enjoy it.

Distance learning versus classroom courses

Typically, there are two sets of teachers interested in experimenting with online teaching:

• Those who are considering using distance learning courses for students who can’t attend classes.
• Those who are looking to supplement their classroom teaching with more interactive, or personalized online components.

Yet regardless of the category they fall into, they’ll often ask: “What can distance learning courses provide that classroom courses can’t?”.

And this is the right question to ask. Looking at the relative advantages of online courses helps us discern what is the best use of classroom time for learning and what is the best use of online time for learning.

Knowing this allows us to make better decisions about how and when to use online learning. Instead of simply adopting an online course, adding online components just because they look attractive, or using great technology just because it alleviates scheduling problems, we can choose them for the added value they provide.

The strengths of classroom-based learning versus online learning

The strengths of a classroom-based course are:

1. Easier community building.
2. Direct access to a live teacher for inspiration, guidance and feedback.
3. More 'live' opportunities for communicative practice with other students.
4. Provision of a structured schedule.

As for the strengths of a distance learning course, the following come to mind. They:

1. Provide easier access to course resources.
2. Offer greater convenience for the teacher and learner, and offer flexibility in scheduling.
3. Can be personalized – that is, teachers can cater to each student’s proficiency level and learning goals by delivering different online resources (including videos, readings, and listenings) to individual students so they can work on them in their own time.

However, distance learning courses have some less obvious advantages, too. Distance learning courses have shown the following trends, which have completely changed the way to see and use online learning:

Increased engagement

Number one is the rise in engagement. A well-designed distance course is aimed directly at the individual learner: there is much more practice time and immediate feedback, particularly for listening and speaking tasks. We often find that shy students and those who feel unable to participate in a classroom environment are more willing to engage with the teacher and other students in online courses.

Improved concentration

Secondly, online courses improve concentration, which, as all teachers know, is a continual problem in classrooms. Rather than being directed on what to do, students working online can select what activities to engage in, for how long, and in what sequence, which helps them stay focused.

Easier assessment

The third advantage, which is vital for a teacher, is the ease and fluidity of tracking progress. In classrooms, it’s hard to track how students progress over a whole semester, much less in each class. In online distance learning, you get constant monitoring of how well students are doing on individual tasks and progress checks, no matter what learning management system you’re using.

Why learners choose online courses

We’ve seen the potential reasons teachers may incorporate distance learning materials. But why do learners choose online courses over classroom ones?

Choice is an important aspect of engagement and motivation – and the only way that students are going to learn is if they feel engaged. Give them choices in activities, homework, schedules, tests and even grading.

For example, if teaching a class on human rights, in which students watch a short video and write a text, you could give students a choice of two videos, rather than directing them to watch a particular video. And in an exam, maybe offer a choice of different reading materials or essay topics to write on.

What’s more, giving students a choice of a distance learning course over a classroom course, a blended classroom online course, or even a choice of activities can improve motivation and increase engagement. Just make sure not to overwhelm them with too many choices!

Mindfulness and your routine

In the run-up to the holidays, it is common to feel like your routine has completely broken down, especially when you’re not giving classes or working at school. The holidays also often bring with them lots of people, family, and excitement. That sometimes means we also experience fluctuating emotions, stress and the feeling that everything should be perfect.

On top of this, shops and social media are filled with advertising – and there’s definitely more ‘stuff’ to buy. In addition, we can see messages telling us we need to feel ‘merry’ and ‘bright’ wherever we look. Even the popular greeting, ‘Merry Christmas’, can sometimes feel less of a greeting and more of an instruction.

Sometimes it feels like the people around us expect us to always feel happy and joyful over the holiday season. This is fine if we do feel merry, but we will always have ups and downs. If you don’t feel happy, for whatever reason, it can feel even harder than it might at times where there is less expectation all around us.

Overcoming the challenge

Finding a way to introduce mindfulness into the holiday season can be a wonderful way for us to understand our emotions at this time of year. It will help you think about your expectations and let you find a moment to pause to accept whatever the reality actually is.

Here are some quick and easy ways to find some ‘you’ time and keep checking in with how you’re feeling. These are also tips you can try with children in the classroom and for yourself at home to keep yourself on track.

3-minute body scan

Find a quiet moment. This may be in the few minutes after you wake up or go to bed, during break time, or even at the start of a lesson.

• Notice the contact of your feet with the floor. Notice the sounds around you in the room.
• Take three deep breaths and notice how they feel.
• Scan down the body in your mind from the top of your head all the way down to your toes. Observe what you notice about your body with an air of curiosity – look for any tension, discomfort or comfort. Also, notice if there are any expectations you have of that day or moment. See if you can simply notice them and set them aside. This curiosity helps us stay detached from what we notice so we can just observe.
• Take three more deep breaths, and carry on.

2-minute notebook

Writing something down can be a wonderfully mindful exercise. Have a stack of post-its or a little notebook on your desk or bedside table. You could encourage your students to do the same.

1. Pick a point in your day. It could be at the start of each day, the start of each lesson, or just before bed. Each day, at that time, take a moment to write down three:

• good things that have happened in your day
• things that felt challenging
• things you feel grateful and thankful for.

2. Review your notes every now and again during the holiday period. This will give you a sense of your shifts of mood and energy that might have occurred.

Noticing something you feel grateful for has been shown to physically improve your wellbeing and state of mind.

1-minute cupboard pause

When things feel over-stimulating, find a quiet space just for a minute. Even if it’s in a cupboard!

STOP: notice the contact of your feet with the floor.
BREATHE: take ten deep breaths, breathing in for a count of four and out for a count of six.
WATCH: watch each breath coming and going from the nose or chest or belly. Observe what your thoughts and feelings are doing. Allow them to sit without needing to respond.

Then head back into the area you were in.

I hope these tips help you to navigate the festive season without expectation and with curiosity for what each moment holds along the way.

Remember that the holiday days you celebrate are really just normal days. It’s simply that expectations have changed, and what’s more, everyone’s expectations will be different.

Simply taking time to notice this can make a massive difference to the pressure we put on ourselves. Releasing this pressure can even lead to more enjoyment overall – so why don’t you try it and see?

Elevator to the future: English skills

“Would it be safer to take the stairs?”

The question came to mind in Montreal last week when I visited a 1929 apartment building and came face-to-face with its equally ancient caged elevator. An elderly woman shooed me inside the polished brass and oak confection and, as we ascended, confided that there was still an elevator operator when she first moved into the building.

Ah, an elevator operator – it’s a career and skill set we’ve almost forgotten. But just as hard as it is for us to imagine doing a job that only involves opening and closing doors and pressing buttons, an elevator operator from 50 years ago would find it impossible to imagine much of today’s work. And, in turn, we may not be able to imagine the jobs our students will have in the coming years. Fortunately, imagining the education that will take our students there is less difficult.

To educate today’s students, we should heed the advice of Ali ibn Abi Talib (599-661 CE): “Do not raise your children the way your parents raised you; they were born for a different time”.

Today’s students are different in five key ways: visual learning, collaboration, critical and creative thinking, digital involvement, and control of their learning.

1. Developing visual literacy

Today’s learners grew up with the rich multimedia of computers and are used to exploring ideas independently. They’re less dependent on teachers for the information they want, and often find it in surprising ways. For example, avoiding dictionary definitions and instead doing image searches to understand new words.

What you can do

Develop students’ visual literacy. Do they know the differences between bar charts, pie charts and Gantt charts? Can they interpret the data in line graphs and Venn diagrams? Can they apply what they know to present and explain ideas in dynamic ways? Expose students to a range of visual formats, from illustrations to diagrams, and give them tasks where they have to use them.

2. Encouraging collaboration

Schools were traditionally organized around competition, aimed at separating the most able students from the least able. But teachers today can’t ignore those who seem less able; we need to be more like doctors, devoting the greater part of our time and resources to those who need it most. Our aim should be to bring everyone up to the same level.

What you can do

Collaboration involves offering more tasks where students can help each other, particularly getting more able and less able students to work together to benefit from peer teaching. More able students may resist, but remind them that one who teaches learns twice.

3. Facilitating critical and creative thinking

Critical thinking has become far more important than schools’ traditional focus on memorization. Employers expect that students will become problem solvers. Gone is the factory model of employees doing repetitive jobs; those are now more efficiently and effectively done by machines.

What you can do

Traditionally, teachers have asked questions for which they know the answer and for which there is only one answer. Try to ask more open-ended questions for which there may be multiple answers. Ask questions to which you don’t know the answer. Encourage creativity. Ask students to brainstorm, and then use analytical skills to determine the best answers.

4. Leveraging the digital environment

Today’s students are digital natives. They first learned to type on digital keyboards and, since then, have embraced phones as a key resource. English writer Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) said there were two kinds of knowledge: knowing a thing or knowing where to find it. For today’s students, finding information has never been easier.

What you can do

Many teachers dread phones in the classroom, but they are powerful computers that let students connect to online learning resources and learn what they want, when, and where they want. Steer students toward using their phones to improve their English but also teach them to be reflective about the sources of the information they choose to use.

5. Offering autonomy

Today’s students are too often referred to as clients, suggesting that the teacher-student relationship is no more than a business arrangement. It’s wrong to think so but, at the same time, we recognize that today’s students are savvy about assessing what they need to learn and how they would prefer to learn it. They have grown up with ideas about multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1993).

What you can do

Open a dialog with your students to see if they have learning preferences and whether these preferences can be accommodated in the classroom. Give more individual projects letting students choose topics based on their needs and interests.

Even among elevator operators, there were those who were better or worse at their jobs. Perhaps the greatest skill for students today is a sense that they need to take responsibility and examine the needs of any task or career that interests them, and figure out how to learn the skills that will get them there.