Learning at home is not just about remote learning materials and an internet connection.
Once again, South Australia experienced a short lockdown to halt a COVID outbreak.
Fingers crossed, there won’t be another lockdown in the near future. But, as we have grown to accept through these uncertain times, being well-prepared to enter lockdown gives us a better opportunity to assist students to embrace their learning at home.
Professor John Munro from the Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University, in his article for The Conversation, suggests that educators need to understand that their students may lack the autobiographical episodic memory needed to guide successful learning in the remote context. Their autobiographic memory, which contains the association that school is a place of learning, may not apply to the home.
“Our autobiographical episodic memory is the brain’s record of our experiences. It includes what we’ve done, the contexts in which we did it and how we did it. It also contains the feelings we link with events and how motivated we were.
Students who have attended school have an autobiographical episodic memory of what happens in a classroom. Their experiences include interacting with peers, responding to directions from their teachers about how to direct their learning activity, following routines and schedules such as doing particular activities at specific times, and behaving in particular ways.
The experiences also include a range of signals, supports and interactions such as the body language, eye contact, and speaking tones used by teachers and peers — as well as the overall classroom atmosphere.”
Professor Munro suggests remote teaching could help students build the episodic memory they need for remote learning. Teachers can do this by helping students recognise the learning supports in the classroom and form matching ones in the home. It is also useful to put in place the conditions for successful learning experiences at home.
Read the full article at: https://theconversation.com/to-learn-at-home-kids-need-more-than-just-teaching-materials-their-brain-must-also-adapt-to-the-context-149823
