As Schools Remain Closed, Class Is Still In Session On YouTube

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It is very likely most – if not all – schools will remain closed until the fall; but social media has a filled a void for what is missing in the classroom. YouTube has plenty of education and instructional videos that could help students, especially those in elementary and middle school, stay engaged even if the school day is cut short.

Increasingly, class is now in session on YouTube, where educators are posting not only simple instructional videos, but what are actually equal to distance learning courses for children from elementary to high school.

Appreciating Our Teachers For Teacher Appreciation Week

Given that this year’s Teacher Appreciation Week – which runs from May 4 to the May 8 – fell on the faux “May the Fourth” holiday, one Dallas-Fort Worth Teacher took to YouTube to engage students with a Star Wars themed YouTube video: Quarantined With Mrs. Speed.

Other teachers across the country have created similar videos – whether it is Metamora, Ohio’s music instructor Jonathan Torrence who offers simple lessons online; or Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer who launched his science-themed channel before the coronavirus outbreak and who has some 11.3 million subscribers. Rober’s videos have become increasingly popular since traditional classrooms have been shuttered.

“Learning has always been a beloved category on YouTube, but it’s become increasingly important during this time,” explained Katie Kurtz, director of content partnerships, learning at YouTube. “With parents, students and teachers across the globe adapting to school closures, we’ve seen the average daily views of videos with ‘homeschool’ in the title more than doubled globally since March 13, 2020.”

In January and February there were just over 300 videos that had “remote learning” or “distance learning” in the title, but by the end of March that number was over 23,000 and growing.

To help ensure that students can virtually learn, even if class isn’t in session, the service also launched its Learn@Home website, which offers parents and families resources across different academic subjects, electives and a daily schedule of livestream learning experiences. In addition it expanded the YouTube Learning destination to serve as another helpful resource for high-quality learning content on the video sharing service.

“To help navigate the new norm of remote learning, we want to make sure YouTube is as helpful as possible,” added Kurtz.

Teaching the Teachers

While YouTube has taken a lead in distance learning for the kids, there are now also plenty of channels where educators can turn for advice and tips on how to best teach via video.

Among these is Pocketful of Primary, which is currently one of the most-subscribed-to teacher channels in the U.S. This month it featured some of the most-viewed content with “distance learning” in the title – as well as videos on how to handle coronavirus as a teacher.

In addition, New EdTech Classroom, run by junior-high teacher Sam Kary, is a channel entirely dedicated to providing education technology tutorials.

The Caffeinated Classroom, a channel run by high school English teacher Marie Morris, who has been uploading teaching-focused videos since 2018. Since Morris’ school district was shuttered in March, she has uploaded numerous videos about distance learning and offered tips on how educators can connect with kids online instead of the classroom.

“I am keeping students engaged in many of the ways I do in my regular classroom settings – by providing choice in the texts and materials they study, by ensuring the concepts we cover are relevant to them and their lives, and checking in regularly and often to make sure they are accessing the content,” said Morris.

“The absolute best strategy for engaging students in distance learning, though, is to keep things simple, clear, and easy to access,” she explained. “If students have a hard time understanding what is expected of them or figuring out how to access materials, they are likely to get frustrated and give up, so I make sure that all lessons, assignments, and content for any given week is all found in one central place – a Google Slide with a weekly overview – with clear explanation and directions.”

Morris emphasized that YouTube is now, more than ever, an essential space for connecting people and sharing ideas.

“Teachers looking for inspiration can find it with a simple search, and along the way they find videos from educators sharing personal experiences with the exact same struggles they themselves are experiencing, and poof – they aren’t alone anymore,” added Morris. “Most of us went home on a Friday and just never went back to school, so our experience of teaching remotely is disjointed, isolating, and just plain lonely, and even small amounts of connection with a fellow teacher on the internet can make a world of difference.”

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