At the beginning of my Masters in Teaching Leadership – many moons ago – I was focused on idea of self-perfectionism and its impact on students. Now I am once again faced with students who are expecting too much from themselves; they cannot accept work or attitudes that are not in line with the type of students they were before the pandemic began. When we look at how to best equip our students educationally, we are also facing how to help them accept themselves in an environment that is not only unknown to them, but to us as well. It has been said, that “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being positive about what could go right.” While this is very true, how can it be instilled into students attempting to adjust to the normalcy of online learning while grieving what is lost from not congregating with their friends and educators on campus.
ISTE Standard 7b encourages educational leaders to “partner with educators, leaders, students, and families to foster a culture of respectful online interactions and a healthy balance in their use of technology.” I believe the balance in using technology opens the door to focus on students who have no option than to use technology for their learning.
In an article entitled “Best Practices for Implementing Remote Learning during a Pandemic”, Hani Morgan (2020) explains when discussing the response to emotion toil, “checking on feelings of worry or anxiety can have a profound effect on success” (Morgan). Not only are educators asked to create lessons rich in content, but also implored to connect with their students emotionally. In another study, “Do Teachers Matter? Students’ Perceptions of Classroom Interactions and Student Engagement” by Havik (2020), she found that “students who perceived high-quality classroom interactions were more engaged in school, and teachers’ emotional support showed the strongest association with engagement at both levels” (Havik). Both studies indicate that students’ successes are due to their educators’ interaction with them and with the barrier of online learning, this is very difficult. We must be purposeful in how we create supports for students now more than ever.
Focusing on students who are in accelerated classes, I found an unexpected resource in the Harvard Business Review. The author states, that “The Covid-19 crisis and its fallout…have presented many of us with challenges that we’ve not encountered before. The high-stakes and unfamiliar nature of these situations have left many people feeling fearful of missteps” (Boyes, 2020). Fearful of missteps, this is exactly what I am encountering with my students. Where the student may have found success and “normalcy” in challenging and rigorous curricula before February 2020, that comfort level has been erased with all the uncertainty that Covid-19 has presented.
References:
Boyes, Alice. How to Overcome Your Fear of Making Mistakes. 29 June 2020, hbr.org/2020/06/how-to-overcome-your-fear-of-making-mistakes.
Havik, Trude, and Elsa Westergård. “Do Teachers Matter? Students’ Perceptions of Classroom Interactions and Student Engagement.” Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, vol. 64, no. 4, 2019, pp. 488–507., doi:10.1080/00313831.2019.1577754.
Morgan, Hani. “Best Practices for Implementing Remote Learning during a Pandemic.” The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, vol. 93, no. 3, 2020, pp. 135–141., doi:10.1080/00098655.2020.1751480.
