Navigating Remote and Online Tools in Elementary School: Effective Instruction and Tool Function Matter

Introduction

Consider the following comments at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic and after a year of remote/hybrid instruction.

Teachers were tasked with an overwhelming burden of creating meaningful content and delivering it with new tools or existing tools requiring new purposes or expertise of use. No longer was technology simply a supplement in the classroom, it became the classroom and the mode of delivering learning supports overnight.

Teaching is a profession with constantly changing targets, societal expectations, and evolving teaching strategies. Insert COVID-19, and the already complex profession of teaching morphed into a nearly impossible profession. According to the U.S. Census (2020), nearly 93% of families reported their school-aged children experienced a form of distance learning (remote, online, or a form of at-home instruction). Teachers shifted teaching in classrooms to ‘pandemic pivoting’ and teaching remotely (Hodges et al., 2020; Prescott, 2021). This shift required teachers to adapt to the new way of learning as they were propelled into teaching in a pandemic digital age (e.g., Hodges et al., 2021). This shift also required families to adjust to digital instruction. For example, a 2020 multi-country European study found over 6,000 families reported their child participated in digital instruction over half of the school day (Vuorikari et al., 2020). Remote and hybrid classrooms are the new normal as countries, teachers, and families navigate the landscape post COVID. Working from a framework that considers technology an integral part of teachers’ work, we present evidence-based practices for teaching and learning online for young and elementary aged children (Pre-Kindergarten to 6th Grade) and provide resources to be used in practice.

Objectives of this chapter include providing background on the use of the TPACK framework that includes considerations of technology along with content and pedagogy to support high quality instruction. Discussion of platforms, systems and tools that schools, teachers, and families can utilize to strengthen both instruction and family engagement are also considered. Discussion of apps that promote independent learning are also described followed by a discussion of combining TPACK constructs and plans for instruction. We end with future directions for research in the area of technological tools and elementary instruction.

Background

Digital instruction varies in form and effectiveness, however, limited data are available to support efficacy of specific platforms and strategies. When Covid-19 shut down schools, teachers were expected to support students’ learning continuity through the use of distance technology tools that they may have never used or may not have even been familiar to them. Whalen (2021) explored K-12 teachers’ experiences with emergency remote teaching finding that most felt underprepared to use the tools for instruction noting that the tools that were used seemed to promote traditional uses of communication and delivery in a distance format.