Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has propelled school districts into virtual instruction with little advanced planning or preparation. This chapter deconstructs the gaps in the virtual learning environment and provides pedagogical strategies for teachers to increase cognitive enrichment, engagement, and access. The shifts in pedagogy from in-person to virtual learning will be examined with concrete strategies to develop student-centered learning experiences in a virtual context. Emphasis will be placed on differentiation as a means to enrich and the art of questioning to engage students. Woven through enrichment and engagement, the student's cultural, familial, linguistic, and social capital are incorporated as assets, or cultural wealth, and used to facilitate equitable access. When combined, these three instructional strategies interrelate and reinforce rigorous cognitive instruction that is accessible for all students in the virtual classroom.
TopA Call To Action: Addressing The Virtual Gap
In 1897, John Dewey wrote a journal entry titled My Pedagogic Creed. In this seemingly unimportant three page document, he outlined his philosophical stance on the purpose of education. Beginning each paragraph with the phrase “I believe…,” Dewey passionately argues the connection that exists between active learning, social context, and the individual student. An education should, according to Dewey, provide opportunities for students to engage in conversations related to contemporary issues in society, develop their interests, and harness their own “power and utilization of their capabilities” (p. 362). W.E.B. Du Bois further reinforced this by proclaiming in 1935 to the National Education Association that “The school has but one way to cure the ills of society and that is by making [people] intelligent.” In times of crisis, educators, at all levels and institutions, find themselves teaching amid economic, public health, and social justice issues. Businesses, schools, and public places close as people shelter in place and brace for the uncertain times ahead. Our immediate focus, as educators, has merged to combine covering content and meeting the most basic needs of our learners together. Questions related to food, shelter, and personal safety highlight the truthfulness of Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs. Once these foundational questions and structures have been addressed, educators can turn their attention to meeting the cognitive needs of their students.
As in every crisis, large-scale catastrophes such as wars, global pandemics, and natural disasters highlight one very clear fact - even when the physical school builds close, teachers are TEACHING. Once a teacher is assured their student’s needs are met as defined by Maslow (1943), their emphasis focuses on cognitive engagement, enrichment, and access. They are answering the rallying cry set forth by Dewey and Du Bois as they examine new instructional strategies and rethink previous practices to boldly and bravely meet the learning needs of their students. The Covid-19 pandemic and the shift of the instructional delivery format from brick and mortar to virtual or hybrid are two major reasons the activation and delivery of instructional practices must be cognitively engaging, enriching, and accessible.
Infrastructure factors that impact these student populations include lack of access to the internet or technology equipment, such as laptops or tablets (Ali & Herrera, 2020). Service factors that impact these student populations include reduced or diminished access to aides, therapists, tutors, and coaches (Ali & Herrera, 2020). Wraparound services and support provided by the school district staff and partners may no longer be available in a virtual context because of their dependency on a school site location. The infrastructure and service variables are not within the direct control of the classroom teacher. This underscores the emphasis that needs to be placed on personalized pedagogical strategies that are within the scope of influence of the classroom teacher. Even though the delivery method for teaching has shifted from in-person to virtual, the basic premise and need for equitable access to learning opportunities remain the same. The authors take a page from John Dewey’s and W.E.B. Du Bois’ playbooks to examine how cognitive enrichment, engagement, and access can (and must) be created in an online learning environment during times of crisis. The purpose of this chapter for classroom teachers is threefold: (1) to examine the paradigm shifts in pedagogy necessary to promote access from in-person to virtual learning, (2) to provide educators with concrete strategies to design and execute engaging and enriching student-centered instruction in virtual classrooms, and (3) to pose questions that can extend current and future conversations around the intersection of cognitive enrichment, engagement, and access for ALL learners using technology.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Differentiation: The recognition and response to various learning needs within a classroom through the modification and adaptation of content, process, product, or environmental factors.
Concentric Circles: An approach to curriculum design that highlights the intersections between various elements within a curriculum.
Pedagogy: The means of activating a piece of curriculum; inclusive of the strategies and activities that are used to provide instruction.
Question Chain: A strategy for creating a targeted and specific set of questions that digs deeper into a topic or theme. Each question in the cluster is built on the previous question.
Art of Questioning: An instructional strategy that focuses on the many and varied ways that questions can be integrated into a learning experience.
Virtual Gap: A term used to articulate the distance between what is intended and what is actualized in a virtual learning environment. A virtual gap is influenced by factors such as organizational structure, access to resources, etc.
Cultural Wealth: A term used to represent the relationship and impact of variables such as cultural capital, familial capital, linguistic capital, and social capital on a student's learning experience.
Question Cluster: A strategy for creating a series of questions focused on a central topic or theme that provides the learner with a range of research possibilities.