Shutdown Food for Thought: OHDELA Lessons

As we begin this first week of Distance Learning, I've been thinking back a lot to my first year out of college. I graduated and began teaching at a point in time where teaching jobs were tough to find. I couldn't get a "classroom" teaching job, so I began my career as a Math Teacher at OHDELA, the Ohio Distance and Electronic Learning Academy. We were an Online Charter School housed in an office building in downtown Akron next to 5/3 Bank. My "classroom" was an office cubicle. It was like spending your entire day in a teacher's lounge; no students on site. If you're a fan of "The Office," it was almost identical to that environment. Even back in the old-days of 2004, we were experimenting with live instruction through video conferencing software and different methods of online learning. A lot of fun to be a part of, but after a while I started to really miss working directly with students.

But, set all of the flashiness of cutting edge technology aside, and you realize really quickly that Distance Learning is really a game of motivation via personal connections. I can still remember analyzing data and seeing how strong the correlation is between the number of contacts made with a student and their success rates in our classes. We tracked every single phone call, email, video chat, etc. religiously for each student, and sure enough, the more contact the better the students performed.
At first, we're going to have to be active in reaching out. Students aren't going to flock to our office hours like flies to... well you know. It might take some phone calls. It might take some emails or personal invitations to video chat platforms like Meet or Zoom for our students to get them comfortable with the idea. Most of our time in these first couple of weeks is going to be us trying to make contact. Once that personal connection is established, the communications start to flow both ways. I know it's a lot. We carried rosters between 250-300 students in our courses back in the OHDELA days. But, take it from me, it's worth it. When you hear from that student who dropped out of her public school and enrolled online because of bullying issues shares with you before her graduation that you were the person who turned things around and made it possible for her, all of the sudden the hours and hours spent on the phone seem pretty well spent. I can still remember Whitley from back then, even though I only met her in person ONCE. Connections are still there even if they are made remotely.
10-15 years down the road, your students are probably not going to remember what it was you were teaching them during this upcoming 8 weeks, but they will remember that you reached out, made a connection, developed a relationship, and made a difference.