Not all students will learn online at the same pace

Given that there is no clear timeline as to when B.C.schools might re-open and that online learning is better than nothing, there are a couple of important questions to be addressed: The question of parent readiness and, more importantly, the question of student readiness for the sudden switch to online learning at home.

Fortunately, there are jurisdictions with experience in the wider implications for both parents and kids of online learning.

One example we can learn from is a 2006 Michigan policy that requires students to have an online learning experience as a graduation requirement. The eventual result was by 2015, 463,570 students were enrolled in 871 different course titles and by then everybody was learning a lot in a hurry about online education.

Michigan then published The Parent Guide to Online Learning as one of a number of resources.

Advice for parents included the obvious, like setting up a separate study space with the technology required, and away from distractions.

Further advice to parents included being prepared for technical issues that may come up, reviewing the course with the student and defining everybody’s, including the students, expectations for this new venture.

The final piece of advice to parents was to establish, with the student, a routine for working on his/her virtual course daily.

And here, misunderstandings could sink the whole at-home ship.

We know some students will be less ready and others completely ready for a sudden switch to being at home and learning online.

There will be students who have limited experience using a computer, assuming there is even a computer at home.

Again, less ready students may not be, even under normal circumstances, self-directed learners.

These kids have come to depend on real time feedback from teachers regarding basic directions and follow-up support.

Parents should remember, with patience, that some of the world’s great leaders, Winston Churchill as an example, struggled through formal school classes and for whom online learning would have been a disaster.

Parents are advised to consider that a student may have little or no interest in the content area of the online course.

Online learning will be even less a level playing field than a normal classroom because students who have excellent computer skills, read above grade level, and have demonstrated success with complex writing assignments will be at an advantage.

Here’s the thing for parents to consider: This isn’t new stuff for teachers. Teachers know all this through training and experience, and parents, even when it comes to their own children, cannot be expected to know what teachers, who work with classrooms of kids, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. 185 days each year, know.

Online learning at home changes, as they say, everything. The most common mistake parents could make is not leading by example, establishing family reading time as an example and demonstrating that reading is part of our lives.

Mona Delahooke, a pediatric psychologist, urges parents to take a more personalized approach in handling kids: Figuring out a child’s individual quirks and tailoring discipline for work avoided and rewards for work done well to best fit the needs of the individual child.

Finally, working as the online learning guide with children at home will lead to conflict. Because children are reactive, and, given the jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box that kids and parents are both facing, it’s wise to take the time to “think before you react,” and to consider the immediate and long term consequences of overreacting to resistance to online learning.

There is no online learning more important than a parent’s relationship with their child.