Time For Resilience Planning!

Hybrid learning withstands the impact of disruptive events, and seamlessly provides continuity of quality teaching and learning for all learners.

Te Kete Ipurangi: Understanding the Need for Hybrid Learning

It’s now four years on since we endured the period of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and two years since the Ministry of Education published their advice to schools titled “What’s Driving the Shift to Hybrid Learning?” in their Hybrid Learning Support for Teachers series. During that period of time there was a heavy emphasis on Hybrid Learning as schools sought to find ways of supporting staff and students to learn in ways that provided for a continuity of learning, whether at school or at home, during periods of unforeseen disruption causing schools to close for periods of time, or students to remain unable to attend due to illness or being geographically isolated for periods of time.

During this time I was very involved in supporting a number of schools, and wrote several papers and articles providing practical guidance and support that have been accessed and used by hundreds of schools and educators – here in NZ and around the world (see list at the end of this post). My focus during this time was on two things: (a) the rationale and mechanics of operating in a hybrid learning environment, and (b) how hybrid learning can be a central plank in our efforts to build a more resilient schooling system.

There was a high demand for support in regards to the first of these things (hybrid learning) in the immediate aftermath of the COVID school closures – and the MoE provided all schools with 20 hours of free professional development as a response. I was personally involved with a number of schools in this way. Sadly, as the immediate impact of COVID and school absences subsided, most schools appear to have quickly reverted back to their former ways of working with teachers and students in classroom settings. This was not an entirely bad thing – there was and is plenty of evidence to demonstrate how important it was and is for young people to be able to enjoy the ‘security’ of being able to assemble together and experience some sense of ‘normalcy’ in their school day. That, combined with the generally low level of quality provision of online engagement during the lockdown period, made returning to school a desirable and sensible move for both staff and students.

What we did learn, however, is that, regardless of how people felt about it at the time, the use of online technologies to create a hybrid model of engagement in learning did benefit thousands of students and their families during a time where attending the physical school wasn’t possible. At a time where there has been increasing concern about the loss of time in classrooms through school closures, sickness, staff shortages etc, the opportunity to continue to engage in learning in this way provided an opportunity at least to compensate for the time that school attendance wasn’t an option. But just as the awareness of how beneficial this could be, and the skills of teachers to operate effectively in these environments was being addressed – it all seemed to come to a sudden end once the incidence of COVID diminished. As students were able to physically return to classrooms, the emphasis on building and sustaining an online support for the learning also diminished – perhaps due to perceived increased workload, perhaps due to lack of robust IT systems, perhaps due to concerns about equity of access etc – whatever the reasons, it seems to have come to a screeching halt in so many schools and for so many teachers. Simply put, we’ve failed to comprehend how hybrid learning can support us in developing a more resilient schooling system.

So this week as I was listening to the news and reading the headlines that I’ve incorporated into the image at the header of this blog post, I’m sitting wondering about just how much ‘learning loss’ we’ll be lamenting as we enter the Winter period and experience the impact of the ‘flu on staff and students that appears to be ramping up, which, together with unpredictable weather events, is leaving so many schools facing the prospects of closing classes and sending students home again. And that’s not to mention the increasing number of secondary schools unable to provide specialist teachers in certain subjects and so deny their students the opportunity to learn in the areas they want to, or the primary schools unable to provide access to specialist support in crucial areas such as literacy and numeracy, special learning needs or other areas of the curriculum. This is precisely the scenario that is outlined in the Thought Piece titled Empty Seats which I published at the beginning of 2023, which contains a range of activities to help educators work through the forward planning issues to build resilience in the way they operate.

That being the case, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the practice of providing all of the course materials, assessments, support and engagement activities in an online environment was, by now, just ‘how things are done’ in every school. In saying this I have to acknowledge that this is exactly how it is in some schools – many of which featured well during the COVID lockdown due to the fact that staff and students were so used to having all of their learning materials and activity organised online that it caused merely a ‘blip’ when staff and students were forced to work from home for a period of time. That’s how it should be in a hybrid learning environments.

I’m not going to waste precious space in this post repeating what I’ve written elsewhere – those who may be interested can do that by reading the various posts and resources I’ve linked below. The main point of this post is really to highlight for those who may have missed it the first time round, the need to understand and act on the principles of hybrid learning in order to create a more robust and resilient schooling system which can continue to provide access to learning regardless of the things that may interrupt the opportunity for schools to remain open.

It’s difficult not to feel just a tad annoyed at how we’ve squandered such a huge learning opportunity over the past four years – at every level, from what’s happening in local schools through to the complete ‘dropping of the ball’ at our Ministry of Education level. We had so much to gain, but so little of that potential realised.

But it’s never too late – the opportunity to act is always there, so hopefully this post might at least provoke further thought and action in at least a handful of schools and thus improve the learning experience of the learners in those contexts.

Where to start?

With everything else that is bombarding us in the education environment at present, attempting to take on something as ambitious as planning for resilience may seem a little daunting. But think of it as taking out an insurance policy in a way – the real value of having taken action is demonstrated when the need for it appears.

Here are prompts for action that you might consider…

• Scan and Reflect: Take a critical look at your current school’s learning environment. The thought piece titled Empty Seats provides some useful tools and ways of engaging with these issues. Assess the extent to which hybrid learning is integrated into your daily operations. Identify gaps and opportunities where online learning could supplement and enhance traditional methods.
• Professional Development: Prioritise ongoing training for teachers in hybrid learning strategies. Use the guidance in the paper on Codifying Teacher Practice to identify areas that you might focus on. Encourage staff to take advantage of professional development opportunities, and consider scheduling regular workshops or sessions that focus on best practices for hybrid learning.
• Invest in Infrastructure: Ensure your school’s IT infrastructure is robust and capable of supporting a hybrid learning model. This includes reliable internet access, appropriate hardware for students and staff, and secure platforms for online learning. The document titled COVID Research: The role of digital technologies in the education response to the COVID-19 pandemic provides useful background and guidance about what is important here.
• Develop Comprehensive Plans: Create detailed hybrid learning plans that outline how your school will maintain continuity of learning during disruptions. These plans should include procedures for transitioning between in-person and online learning, guidelines for digital engagement, and strategies for maintaining student participation and motivation. Use the frameworks in the Resilience Planning document to help you with this process.
• Engage the Community: Communicate the benefits and importance of hybrid learning to parents, students, and the wider school community. Gather feedback and involve them in the planning process to ensure their needs and concerns are addressed. The engagement of parents/whānau and the community is central to the guidance of building a resilient school system outlined in several of the articles and papers below.
• Pilot and Iterate: Start small by piloting hybrid learning initiatives in a few classes or grade levels. Monitor the outcomes, gather feedback, and iterate on the approach before scaling up to the entire school. You don’t have to try and eat the elephant – the most sustainable approaches are often achieved through a process of ‘experimentation’ – check out our Friction Free Platform for Change for guidance on this, and the 8 insights for achieving change identified through the pilot programme conducted with a cluster of Far North Schools back in 2022
• Collaboration and Sharing: Foster a culture of collaboration among educators. Encourage teachers to share resources, experiences, and success stories. Create or join networks of schools that are also committed to advancing hybrid learning to share best practices and support each other. This could create a really worthwhile focus for a Kāhui Ako, or perhaps through participation in national or international online forums and webinars etc.

Catch up on what you’ve missed…

• Lessons from Lockdown – August 20, 2020
• COVID Research: The role of digital technologies in the education response to the COVID-19 pandemic. July, 2021
• Caught By Surprise – August 20, 2021
• Resilience Planning For Schools – December 12, 2021
• More on Resilience Planning for Schools – December 16, 2o21
• Codifying Teacher Practice – March 8, 2022
• Hybrid Learning – March 14, 2022
• Pivot – May 31, 2022
• Being Resilient: Characteristics of Resilient Schools – September 6, 2022
• Achieving Resilience – September 23, 2022
• Resilience Required NOW! – December 17, 2022
• 8 Insights for Achieving Resilience – November 20, 2022
• Empty Seats – January 16, 2023
• Hybrid Learning pt.1 – January 17, 2023
• Hybrid Learning and ChatGPT – January 17, 2023