How learnbylayers can assist with remote learning – DFE guidance

By Phil Cotton learnbylayers founder

So we finally received the eagerly awaited guidance from the DFE (Department for Education) on a return to fulltime teaching in September. The guidance was extensive and has far-reaching impact in all educational settings.

Since lockdown, we have found ourselves having to migrate lessons online with almost no notice at all (including myself). With the prospect of temporary school closures upon us at any time with no notice, we have to be prepared again to make the move to remote learning with immediate effect.

With such an unpredictable time ahead of us, the importance of high-quality remote learning that ‘aligns as closely as possible with in-school provision’ was clearly stated under section 3 of ‘Curriculum, behaviour and pastoral support’.

The DFE guidance states that schools must;

“Develop remote education so that it is integrated into school curriculum planning: Remote education may need to be an essential component in the delivery of the school curriculum for some pupils, alongside classroom teaching, or in the case of a local lockdown. All schools are therefore expected to plan to ensure any pupils educated at home for some of the time are given the support they need to master the curriculum and so make good progress.”

With schools having to plan for potential rapid school closure and needing to switch to remote learning with no notice, I wanted to share how learnbylayers can be used in this situation. Also, how the curriculum can be taught in a remote scenario and were practical activities will be limited.

Learnbylayers is a digital curriculum. You get to download the PowerPoint, word, and video files (STL files included). You can edit them and integrate them into their sequence of learning or teach them ‘straight out of the box’ in their current format. Each lesson pack has teaching slides, printable lesson and homework tasks, video tutorials, and assessments that can be used in class or remotely.

This has many advantages when needing to switch rapidly from classroom learning to remote learning. You may start delivering the lessons in school under normal circumstances and then a school closure is announced. You can continue with the curriculum with no interruption remotely with ease.

Simply uploading the teaching slides, worksheets and video tutorials to Google classroom or Microsoft teams (or whatever online learning platform your school uses) will allow learning to continue uniterupted. Students can work through the lessons at their own pace from home or you could teach the curriculum via ‘live lessons’.

1. How to deliver live lessons?

Many schools have been delivering live lessons during lockdown and with future school closures likely, live lessons will be at the core of remote teaching and learning for the foreseeable future.

With schools being able to download the files, you can teach the curriculum through a live zoom session, Google classroom, or Microsoft teams session by sharing your screen with the class and teaching the curriculum as you would in school. All you need to do is open the PowerPoint during the zoom lesson and share your screen with your class.

2. How to 3D print the designs?

With all the CAD programs used in the curriculum being free and cloud-based. Students have the ability to share their designs remotely so you can easily keep track of their progress and also store class files to be 3D printed at a later date.

Also, when schools are closed with no notice you won’t have to worry about students accessing the school network to get their files, they will be saved in the cloud and accessed from anywhere (no excuses from students of ‘I left my USB stick as school and now it’s closed’).

By embracing features such as ‘TinkerCAD classrooms’ and Fusion 360 collaboration teams you can easily mark and feedback to students. Also during a live lesson, you can also showcase their work to everyone in the session.

Some teachers may find themselves still attending school to teach lessons but without students in the building (as had happened in many schools during lockdown). With this in mind then it could be possible to print out designs using the school’s resources when the students continue learning at home and showcase their work via zoom.

3. Lessons are aligned with national education standards.

With schools having to deliver a curriculum that is matched as closely as possible to classroom lessons, each lesson is clearly aligned to national education standards so you can teach with confidence knowing your students will still progress with high-quality teacher planned lessons.

The curriculum standards page could also be printed off and uploaded alongside the lessons so parents can clearly see that the lesson content is aligned to national standards.

4. No extra planning needed.

With all the resources being fully planned this will free up your time massively for other tasks during a lockdown situation. If you find yourself in the situation of having to teach remotely and also homeschool your own children, this is a massive challenge. Having something pre-planned and ready to access with immediate notice is a huge stress reliever.

If you want to learn more there are two different packages, the CAD design curriculum and the Coding curriculum. Use the ‘free lesson’ tab on the edge of each webpage to review the sample lessons.

If you want to get in touch to ask questions then use the messenger chatbot and I will reply or use the contact form below. Thanks for reading and stay safe.

Phil