Let’s face it: if you have taught in physical presence for even a few years, then switching to online teaching is hard.

But it gets a lot easier when you work from design principles. When COVID-19 hit and we decided to run a fully virtual Expedition, we agreed on a few:

1. Kids learn best when they are seen and known by adults and by their peers. This is even more important in a virtual environment.

2. We are embodied creatures, so physical touchstones are important.

3. Kids should not sit in front of a screen for 6-8 hours a day.

To activate each of these principles, co-facilitator Patrick Sillup developed a hypothesis that we validated and shared with Chelle Wabrek, Derek Krein, and Kate Turnbull from “The Curisoity Files”: Lesson #4: “Front Load” the experience for the students.

Front loading called on us to:

1. Learn about each kid’s strengths prior to the Expedition and create immediate opportunities on Day 1 for their peers to know them before we started “the work.”

2. Send packages to their homes with a variety of objects, some for fun but others because we decided to …

3. … ask them to take care of their minds, bodies, and souls offline.

Naturally this required a lot of planning. And since we were effectively guessing at what would work, after the Expedition we surveyed the students about the things we “front loaded.”

For 5 teachers who have taught in physical presence for anywhere between 10 and 30 years, was that level of planning and execution hard? Of course.

Was it worth it?

Without a doubt.

Virtual learning isn’t going away. What lessons have you learned so far?

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