Resources

The Six Teaching Principles and Online Learning

April 15, 2020

Promote accessibility to your online classroom by incorporating the Landmark Six Teaching Principles™ into your content. The Landmark Six Teaching Principles™ were developed to guide teachers in approaching the presentation of both content and skills across the curriculum and can be adapted to work in a remote learning environment.  

• Provide opportunities for students to experience success.
  • Online classrooms are often language dense.To mitigate the amount that students have to read and/or write, teachers can get creative with how students can submit work. For example, students could submit video or voice recordings in lieu of paragraphs or essays or draw or map out concepts as opposed to short or long answer questions. Encourage students to find or create visual representations to demonstrate their understanding of the material.  

• Use multisensory approaches to teach.
  • Vary the format in which information is delivered to reduce the volume of reading for students. Record yourself reading important class information for students to listen to instead of requiring them to read and understand the content. Experiment with surveys, videos, discussion boards, or video components for assignments. 

• Use micro-units and structured tasks for every student.
  • Break larger assignments apart: assign reading in small chunks, micro-unit larger writing assignments, break out study plans day-by-day to help students study for larger tests or quizzes. 
  • Think about the routines created in your classroom before going online, and adapt them to your online learning platform. Have assignments due on the same days of the week, assign similar types of assignments, and, as always, be explicit and consistent with expectations.  
  • Create a schedule for when will you be available for help and connection. Create a protocol for how students can contact you.
  • Stick to a platform and technology and help students learn to use it.

• Ensure automatization through practice and review.
  • If possible, switch the focus of your class to practicing and reviewing skills over learning new content. Teachers can spiral back to previously learned skills and content. As opposed to assigning new lengthy essays, have students focus on one part of the essay writing process. Work on honing introductory skills or analysis skills with familiar content. 

• Provide models for students to use as a guide.
  • Sample assignments, sample discussion posts and responses, sample long answer question guided notes on a reading, and sample project outcomes can all help students visualize your expectations.

• Include students in the learning process.
  • Try to be in regular communication and set up live sessions if possible. Work to incorporate ways that student voices can be heard in the online learning platform by posing questions on discussion boards or encouraging student presentations during virtual meetings.
  • When possible, give students choice in the content that is covered, and give them the freedom to choose how to demonstrate their knowledge