Synchronous or Asynchronous??

Synchronous and Asynchronous.  These two words have suddenly become frequent terms in our vocabulary. In this article by Mark Lieberman in Education Week, these terms are defined as:

"Distance education can be broken down into two broad approaches: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous consists of the teacher offering a lesson to the class of students at the same time; Asynchronous provides the student with tools to complete the work on their own time, and direct involvement from the teacher can happen anytime."

“Virtual Education Dilemma: Scheduled Classroom Instruction vs. Anytime Learning” by Mark Lieberman in Education Week, March 30, 2020, https://bit.ly/2VKeJn0

What have you noticed with your students?  Which model has more engagement and participation?  Please take the poll below.

As in many things in education, this is not an 'all or nothing' proposition as detailed by the author's identified bottom line: 

"Neither approach is sufficient all on its own, but there are situations and subjects that do tend to favor one of the two strategies. Experts say the best recipe for success is to mix the two—but in what proportions? And for which students?"

The author recommends that:

• Asynchronous communication (e-mails, text messages, videos) is efficient for basic instruction, launching a discussion, and setting deadlines. 
• Synchronous communication (a videoconference) works best for discussions, sharing ideas, brainstorming, and spontaneous conversations. A big advantage of asynchronous lectures is that students can watch at their own pace, rewinding if necessary or watching more than once to fully grasp the content.

Additional hints are summarized by Kim Marshall in the Marshall Memo (Marshall Memo 834, April 27, 2020. 

You may want to review these during your collaborative team meetings. What will the combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning look like for the students you support?

            • Don’t go overboard with synchronous teaching. Overly long live classes can be overstimulating for students and maddening for teachers. “Expecting students to be glued to their computers all day is especially unrealistic in households with more children than devices,” says Lieberman. “So relying too much on this approach could contribute to equity gaps, with students who have easy access to technology getting an edge over those who don’t.”

            • Asynchronous learning allows flexible pacing. Teachers can use a variety of approaches: an interactive game, a practice quiz, a supplementary video. Students can feel a kind of ownership of their learning that’s not possible in classroom settings, feeling less rushed by their classmates and able to go over material at their own speed.

            • Give parents clear direction. There are big differences in how parents should be working with elementary students (lots of structure) and what’s appropriate for high-school students who might, for example, choose to do all their English work on Sunday and all their math on Monday.

            • Synchronous learning can be informal. Teachers might conduct virtual office hours, inviting students to join them between certain times, or arrange for an optional lunch chat. Real-time class meetings or kick-offs for the day are especially helpful for younger students.

            • Choose the best modality for different subjects and lessons. English might be best taught asynchronously when students are doing a lot of thinking and writing on their own. Math, on the other hand, might lend itself more to synchronous instruction, when students need to ask questions and get real-time help.

            • Asynchronous doesn’t mean absent. Because some students won’t take the initiative to get in touch, teachers need to be systematic about setting up individual video or phone check-ins, perhaps several times a month for each student.

            • Teaching is different for the time being. Effective synchronous teaching can be powerful, but it’s often difficult to engage students at the level of in-person classes, and this frustrates teachers. For many, online teaching is more facilitative. “You’re not leading through the learning process,” says Illinois curriculum director Jennifer Kolar Burden, “you’re guiding them, you’re pointing them in the right direction, you’re letting them explore on their own.”

Marshall Memo (Marshall Memo 834, April 27, 2020.