Summary

Overview of emerging countrylevel response to providing
educational continuity under
COVID-19
Best practice in pedagogy forremote teaching
Authors
Tony McAleavy, Education Development Trust
Kristine Gorgen, Education Development Trust
Input from Rob Rodney (UK Department for Education) and Jamie Proctor (UKDepartment for International Development and the EdTech Hub)
April 2020
Part of our EdTech and coronavirus (COVID-19) series: edtechhub.org/coronavirus
Full report: edtechhub.org/coronavirus/resources-and-tools/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Executive summary
Scope of study
This report provides a rapid evidence summary of what is known about best practice inteaching when school students are educated by distance learning.
It considers both theoretical concepts and empirical evidence relating to the eﬀectiveness ofteaching methods used in a distance learning context.
The report includes a consideration of the grey literature about pedagogy produced in
response to the current period of global school closures.
There are limitations in the nature of the evidence base. Much of the research into remotepedagogy comes from a higher education context. Little attention has been devoted toremote pedagogy at primary school level. Research evidence from low-income and middleincome countries is limited.

Key themes
The general principles of eﬀective pedagogy remain valid in the context of remotelearning, but there are additional challenges facing the remote teacher.
The highly eﬀective remote teacher must be proﬁcient in the same domains as the face-toface teacher: planning and teaching well-structured lessons (structure), adapting teachingwhen appropriate to meet individual needs (adaptation), and making accurate and productive
use of assessment (assessment). However, physical distance between the teacher and learnerbrings considerable challenges and requires changes to planning, teaching and assessment
practices. Online teaching should not try to mimic the entirely synchronous teacher-student
engagement of the conventional school. Ensuring equitable outcomes for disadvantaged
students is more diﬃcult for remote teachers and requires greater intentional eﬀort.
Pedagogical performance is circumscribed by the digital capacity of the teacher. The digital
capacity of teachers in some high-income countries is poor and is poorer still in most lowincome countries. Many teachers need professional development support in the use oftechnologically enhanced pedagogy.
Research highlights the importance of developing and maintaining ‘teaching presence’, inorder to ensure that learners thrive when studying remotely.
The failure of many MOOCS demonstrates the importance of student persistence andmotivation and this, in turn, depends upon substantial teacher-student engagement. There isa well-established theoretical framework for considering the work of teachers in a distancelearning context which emphasises the need for proactive planning to ensure ‘teachingpresence’. This was developed by the Canadian researchers, Anderson and Garrison. The
remote teacher starts at a disadvantage in terms of social interaction and must therefore
deliberately strive to remedy this, making students aware of their teaching presence throughmany diﬀerent forms of dialogue with remote students: instructing, guiding, questioning,
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listening, assessing, advising, admonishing and reassuring as appropriate. Student successdepends upon having a strong sense of the teacher’s virtual presence. A well-designed
sequence of remote learning will involve frequent, diverse opportunities for the teacher todemonstrate ‘presence’ to students, including assessment activities. Teaching presence can bepromoted regardless of whether the main form of remote instruction is via centralised radio/
TV broadcasting or whether students are engaged in online learning with a local school.
It is a false dichotomy to propose that undesirable ‘teacher-centred’ rote learning ordesirable ‘student-directed’ enquiry constitute the two main forms of remote pedagogy.
The model proposed by Anderson and Garrison is neither ‘teacher-centred’ nor ‘studentdirected’. For them, the eﬀective remote teacher is a subject matter expert skilled in diﬀerent
aspects of ‘direct instruction’, including exposition and explanation. At the same time, students
are highly engaged in their own learning. Students are encouraged to take responsibility for
their work and to develop metacognitive strategies. Eﬀective teaching presence involves theprovision of a well-structured sequence of intellectually engaging learning activities andfrequent diagnostic feedback.
The USA has substantial experience in educating school students via distance learning, but
virtual charter schools achieve poor academic outcomes.
There are currently about 300,000 students enrolled in the virtual K-12 school sector in theUSA. Pedagogical quality expectations are set out in national standards, which were revised in
2019. There has been substantial research into the sector, particularly into learning outcomesand provision in virtual charter schools. Some major studies have been negative about theoutcomes and provision oﬀered by these schools. One important study highlights theexcessive ‘personalisation’ of provision and the emphasis on ‘self-paced study’ as a factor
contributing to student underachievement.
The Chinese government approach to pedagogy during the current school closuresprovides an interesting case study.
The Chinese authorities reviewed the literature and identiﬁed key pedagogical risks in moving
to remote learning: teachers can be overwhelmed by the curation challenge of organising
online resources; teachers need training or support when moving to remote pedagogy; somelearners lack mature skills in self-regulation and independent study. The Chinese authorities
sought to mitigate these risks and advocated a blend of asynchronous and synchronous
teaching and technologically enabled assessment practice.
Governments can assist in the curation of learning resources.
Creating entirely new learning resources can take up a disproportionate amount of a remoteteacher’s time, thereby reducing available time for interaction with students. Governments
can help by providing centralised guidance on suitable learning resources. Open Education
Resources (OER) are particularly useful because they allow teachers to modify materials tosuit the particular needs of their students.

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Remote teaching brings challenges, but technology can be used to enhance the impact of
distance learning.
Whether the medium is radio or TV broadcasting or online learning, remote teaching activities
can be designed in ways that maximise cognitive engagement and minimise the risk ofpassivity on the part of the learner. Students should be frequently encouraged to evaluate
their own work and to understand ‘what good looks like’ and how they can take responsibility
for improvement.

Recommendations for policymakers
1. Promote safeguarding
Remote learning creates new health and safety risks for children. Online engagement byminors can lead to diﬀerent forms of abuse. Some children and young people unable toattend school will be at a greater risk of harm at home. Governments have a fundamental
responsibility to mitigate these risks and promote the importance of diﬀerent forms ofsafeguarding.

2. Make teaching engagement with vulnerable and disadvantaged
students the top priority
The evidence relating to distance learning identiﬁes student motivation, engagement and selfregulation as the single biggest challenge facing the remote teacher. This challenge isexacerbated in several ways by disadvantage. Insights from this Evidence Review areconsistent with the global consensus that policymakers must make learning continuity withdisadvantaged and vulnerable students the top priority during the period of school closure. Ata local level, teachers should use all available means to keep in touch with high-risk students
and their families, providing pastoral support and guidance for learning.

3. Look for all available opportunities to promote ‘teachingpresence’
Students will beneﬁt from the highest possible level of interaction with teachers. Achieving
teacher visibility will be particularly challenging in those countries where the primary meansof remote instruction is through a centralised radio or TV channel. Those responsible for thedesign of the programmes should ensure that there is continuity in the face or voice of thecentral teacher. The broadcast teacher should demonstrate a caring persona, demonstrating
warmth and an interest in student welfare and academic progress. Opportunities should be
identiﬁed to create a sense of community. Conventional radio routinely promotes the idea of‘the community of listeners’ by inviting individuals within the audience to submit questions via
SMS. This humanises mass media broadcasting.
In the context of centralised remote teaching through radio or TV, there may be scope forsupplementary engagement by local teachers using SMS messaging or social media toestablish ‘presence’ with students. If possible, teachers should contact their own students,
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checking that they are engaged with the broadcast resources. In the context of very large
classes and high student-teacher ratios, teachers should always give priority to contacting themost vulnerable learners. Local teachers should also attempt to establish SMS or social media
contact with parents, encouraging them to ensure that children engage with the broadcast
material and providing regular tips on the focus of the children’s learning.
Policymakers should manage centralised broadcasting adaptively, gathering data fromlocalities about levels of use and engagement, and looking for practical ways to modify
provision in order to increase engagement.
Where online learning is possible at school level, teachers should promote ’presence’ throughthe design of both synchronous and asynchronous activities. Teachers should look for every
possible opportunity to humanise and personalise pedagogical messaging. Synchronous
teaching may be technically diﬃcult but provides a potentially important context for teacherstudent engagement. Formative assessment dialogue is both essential for learning and a wayof transmitting the message that the teacher cares about the wellbeing and progress of theindividual student. Video, used either synchronously or asynchronously, gives the teacher apowerful means of promoting their presence. A ‘virtual oﬃce hours’ approach should ideallybe used so that individual students can proactively ask for guidance and feel that theirpersonal academic or pastoral problems matter to the remote teacher.

4. Design broadcast and online teaching activities that encourage
cognitive engagement and learning
Whether the medium is radio or TV broadcasting or online learning, teaching activities should
be intended to maximise cognitive engagement and minimise the risk of passivity on the partof the learner. The remote teacher should provide frequent examples of ‘modelling’,
personally demonstrating the skill that is being taught and inviting the student to understandthe components of good work. The teacher should make visible to the students the thoughtprocesses and decisions made when producing the modelled work. There should be frequent
low-stakes assessment activities which encourage students to retrieve and apply theirknowledge related to the topic. The remote teacher should promote metacognitive strategies.
Students should be frequently encouraged to evaluate their own work and to understand‘what good looks like’ and how they can take responsibility for improving their own work.

5. Understand the challenges and limitations of self-paced andstudent-directed learning
It is, of course, important that students develop the ability to work independently. However,
too much emphasis on self-paced learning can lead to disengagement. In a distance learning
context, great care is needed in considering the required levels of self-regulation. The lesson
from the world of MOOCS is that even adults ﬁnd self-paced learning, with limited teacher
interaction, problematic. Student project work requires particularly careful design. Students
need opportunities to research and answer enquiry questions, but they also beneﬁt fromcareful structure and regular access to inputs and guidance from an expert teacher.
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6. Support teachers through the curation of learning resources
Remote teachers should be given as much help as possible in accessing existing, qualityassured curriculum materials. Teachers are likely to ﬁnd OER particularly helpful because they
have the potential to provide both high-quality resources and scope for modiﬁcation to meet
speciﬁc local circumstances.

7. Plan for school re-opening and beyond
Despite all best eﬀorts, it is inevitable that some students’ learning will be harmed by thecurrent phase of school closure. Policymakers should be planning now for ‘catch-up’
programmes when schools re-open. While the world awaits a vaccine for Covid-19, there
remains the possibility that schools will be forced to close repeatedly and there is a need toplan for a more resilient remote teaching infrastructure that enables better maintained
learning continuity during any future school closures. The current crisis also provides anopportunity for learning about the strengths and weaknesses of technology which can beused beyond the period of Covid-19 crisis.

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