Why Choose In-Person Teaching

Interaction

In the classroom teachers can connect to their students. Students can better read a teacher's expressions, body language and energy, therefore drawing on many more cues to learn from. They also have their peers to learn from and interact with. Students are developing their whole self by interacting with others. They learn social norms and how to be a part of a community. One of the biggest drawbacks with online learning is isolation. Students are learning in isolation. They may not be alone, they may have family members in the home with them, but the learning is taking place without the interactions of their peers to cement what is being taught.

Learning Environment

In a classroom teachers invest time creating a learning environment that best supports the needs of our students. This is done in a variety of ways. Firstly the organization, students have all materials on hand and readily available. Secondly the visuals, classrooms are filled with stimulants to help students access and recall their learning to enable every opportunity to succeed. In an online setting there is too much emphasis placed on the student to be well prepared and disciplined. Students need to have all materials prepared, create an environment free of distractions and in most cases work without visual stimuli to draw upon.

Language Development

In the classroom language is everywhere. It is on the walls, it is being heard in conversations between students, it is in interactions with teachers and a class, a group of children or individual children. Students' exposure to language is magnified in the classroom. Unfortunately, that is lost online. In tutorials there is a lesson being delivered, no opportunity for interaction. In a zoom classroom there is an opportunity to ask questions but students spend most of their time on mute so the interaction is limited to a one on one discussion. There may be small group breakout rooms but you’re still lacking the volume of language that students are hearing. Therefore it is not the same exposure to language that you would receive from an in person classroom.

Teacher Training

Teaching is a profession. Teachers spend years developing their craft to become a professional. Many teachers hold multiple degrees in areas of education and then have implemented this learning to create the effective classroom environments that we see on a daily basis to support our young people. Unfortunately online learning hasn’t undergone that same rigorous process. In this changing environment teachers are tech savvy, but the same time and investment in best practices for online education have not been made. We cannot be confident that your child receives the best learning opportunities based on comparison between the years of development a teacher undergoes to be an effective practitioner in the classroom and the boom of virtual education.

Teachers Can Improvise

In the classroom, teachers change their plans on a daily basis. Teachers find themselves with well thought out plans implementing a lesson with students, only to discover an alarming misconception that wasn’t planned for. You can’t leave this, you can’t ignore it, you must be flexible and make changes. This misconception is best addressed when the students are given opportunities to learn, unlearn or relearn the concept or content. Flexibility and improvisation are a must in the tool kit of a teacher. These skills are virtually impossible in an online context. It is very challenging to improvise online because of the vast factors that are beyond the teachers management when working from distance. Flexibility is an impossibility when you cannot ensure management of resources, the environment or any other factors that can be maintained in the classroom.

Content Driven Focus

One of the easiest ways to teach virtually is to focus on content. Students are given content to learn, this can be in the form of a tutorial video or a synchronous lesson. Unfortunately education is far more than learning content. In all education there is too much content that cannot be covered. That is where conceptual understanding becomes vital, focusing on a big idea that has transferable meaning is essential to a student's learning. This is done best in a personal classroom.