Episode 8 on the Challenges of Remote Working & Teaching

This week, I discuss some of the common challenges that we face with remote teaching and learning. I delve into the challenges of fostering trust, communication, setting boundaries, and engaging in a lot of reflection, perspective-taking and empathy.

Transcript

Heather Woods: 0:03

Hello, and welcome to the SEL in action podcast, the podcast where we discuss what social emotional learning looks like in educational and professional settings. I'm your host, Heather Woods. And on today's episode, episode eight, we'll be talking about some of the challenges that, you know, we're facing with the current work from home context and working remotely and learning remotely during the covid 19 pandemic. So, you know, working in remote teams and virtual teams, or working from home, whatever we might call it, if we're working away from our primary office or away from our classrooms, you know, it's becoming more and more common in the 21st century, but most certainly, it's become very, very common with the current pandemic. And so, you know, we're having these virtual teams, which there are benefits to it, employers are able to find the best suited employees from a much larger pool of candidates doesn't necessarily have to be local anymore. But you know, there, there's also the flexibility that working from home oftens offers. And, you know, there's less than travel costs and potentially improved work life balance, according to some research. But before we jump into kind of this discussion, I encourage you to kind of think about, you know, what are some of the challenges and benefits that you've noticed, with remote work and with remote teaching, whether, you know, it's, it's something you're experiencing now, or something that you're quite well versed in and have been experiencing for a while, in your professional or educational setting. And so one of the like, really big aspects of remote, you know, teaching and learning that I hear come up again, and again, has to do with this idea of trust, when you're, you know, engaging with an audience online, whether it's your students or your colleagues, trust is facilitated in a much different way. So, you know, it's a huge factor that often gets overlooked. And how do you build that trusting relationship? When you know, we can't see each other, we can't see the work that people are putting in. People can't see how caring or organized and smart we are, how can we trust our team and foster our team and our students trust in ourselves. And so research is showing that, you know, we need opportunities to demonstrate reliability. And in previous podcast with Julie Dick, you know, she talked about that, how she really went out of her way to make sure that her superiors knew that she was reliable and could take on this extra role, when she was trying to engage in building her career within her company. And we need to show that we're reliable at work, we're reliable, in all settings, but also there's this sense that we also need to demonstrate vulnerability, and to show empathy. So it's striking that balance to build that trust that we're reliable, but we're also human, you know, we have feelings, we're vulnerable things happen. And then being able to show that empathy and respect for others that other people are also human and need, maybe need some support and grace. So trust really comes from demonstrating what we know and being transparent about what we don't know. And then providing that opportunity for others to do the same. And then this provides an opportunity for discussions and and really opening the room as to what to expect and the ability to set realistic expectations, and, and goals for the group in an online setting, and one of the probably biggest pieces of that's changed with kind of this work from home and working remotely learning remotely, is the shift in communication. Communication on any given day is a complex challenge. So there's a shift in the type of communication that's happening. You know, we're using email phones, you know, chats, like instant messaging, and like things like that much more frequently. And then with that comes an added space for miscommunication and misinterpretation. And so relying kind of on these text based communication, or perhaps a voice only communication has the potential to be misunderstood. There's a lack of tone, there's a lack of body language, both from the individual like from both ends of the the conversation, right have the individuals engaged in this discussion. And so first, there's that lack of body language and tone from the speaker. And research has found that texts and emails tend to be interpreted more negatively then in person or through voice or video communication, you know, and that's why we've got emoticons, although maybe not acceptable in some professional settings, but they can really help to set the tone of a communication. We can all think of a time when our sibling or partner or a friend texted just k instead of Ok, like, o k, or O k a y, you know, and we immediately jumped to thinking that perhaps we've done something or said something wrong, you know, if there's no kind of exclamation, or anything going along with this. So just being conscious of this, we really have to be extra self aware of how we're conveying messages how the tone that we're using through text based mediums. I often joke with students sometimes that using an application like Grammarly or something helps to identify tone, because it'll assign like a an emoticon to the tone of your message that you're sending, so that you're taking the time to reflect on how things are being said. And, you know, how are you conveying your ideas and information through this less expressive mode of communication for making a presentation like is if we're sharing our ideas and information in kind of a bland way, you know, are people engaging with it the same way that they would be if we were, you know, face to face and presenting it. And you could see the dynamic movement and embodied presentation. But on the flip side of that, there's also a lack of body language and tone from the listener, or the receiver of the message. So in person, we can generally tell if students or a team member, understanding what we're saying, by their body language, you know, if there's a furrowed brow, or enthusiastic nodding, you know, you can get that feedback from somebody and either address a concern or, you know, feel encouraged to keep going. And so we have to create space for what is already a challenging task and asking for clarification, or asking for help and creating those pauses, and invitations for that feedback that maybe you aren't seeing, you know, and if you know, text, and email is such a problem, there's obviously the other side where we could say, well, like, let's just go to Video conferencing for everything. But you know, particularly during the pandemic, we're starting to see more and more that, you know, we're overdoing the video conferencing, and it's just, you know, there, there's zoom fatigue, as some people may call it, and then how we convey messages, you know, through a video chat is still a little bit different, but having to have somebody sit there in front of their computer all day, on a zoom call, like there is something going on that requires quite a bit more cognitive load. And it's, it's tiring for people. And so it's really striking that balance between how do we engage in zoom calls, but also, you know, find that balance between some other modes of communication that are maybe more text based or, you know, phone calls or something like that. And, you know, we've got the the flexibility with remote working. And with that, comes some communication issues in amongst itself, remote workers can work when and where they want to, in some cases, and how does that influence kind of teamwork or collaboration, leadership? You know, there's a certain level of we mentioned, the pros being that, you know, employees or collaborators or guest speakers, even in a class could come from anywhere in the world. It really breaks down the remote working really breaks down that barrier of kind of proximity. But with that comes a need for cultural and geographic awareness. Do we know how other groups from around the world would prefer to communicate and how and when, for example, in North America, we tend to be a little more unstructured in our communication. However, Europeans prefer more formal meetings and plans for communication. And the one challenge that comes up time and time again, is what I like to call the the watercooler challenge. So not with everyone working remotely. And separately, you know, what happens to the ideas, the learning the informal verbal memos that happened around the watercooler in the break room. So coming from like a communities of practice perspective, in the kind of theoretical lens, those are spaces where information and learning occurs, people can share their knowledge and what they've been learning about and how they do things. And then other people can take that into their own practice, that sort of thing. And so suddenly, that's not happening anymore. And You know it, like the watercooler example, kind of allows for knowledge and best practices to be shared informally, and creates a space where employees are more comfortable and better able to understand what other people do within their organizations. And so this information then really has an influence on how they work with their colleagues and what they expect. So for example, you know, in my role as a PhD candidate, I may meet colleagues in the hall who work in administration, they could mention a process that's more efficient if I drop off a form directly to them, or how to fill out a form even though it you know, it may there's like just this hidden knowledge that is around that could be getting from different people within campus. It's not formally presented anywhere, but it's something that I can kind of share with other graduate students or that sort of thing. It's a pretty simplistic example. But hopefully, you get the point. And, you know, the next kind of area, I think that's a concern for remote learning. And teaching is just support, you know, working at a distance with your team members or students, trying to find ways to support your team and colleagues becomes much more difficult, you're no longer able to see when they may be struggling or notice, you know, when they've missed understood an idea. And, as with the classroom, in remote work and learning settings, unless someone tells you they don't understand or are struggling with something, you're not going to see when to step in, you know, you're not going to see that person rubbing their temples, as they're trying to like struggle through something, or, you know, putting their head down for a second, or they're trying to grapple with something. So we need to find a way to create space for these individuals, where they're able to identify what they don't know or need help with, and be confident in asking for that support. So whether that's creating like a chat room that's more informal, or specifically about support, that sort of thing. And this confidence includes not only their self confidence, and being able to ask for the support, and knowing that it's okay to not know something, but it's also the confidence in their employees that they're not going to be criticized for not knowing something. And one of the next points that'll bring up is kind of the isolation that comes up with working remotely. And I mean, I'm sure many of us have experienced it through the pandemic. But, you know, one of the biggest challenges for online learning and working as part of a remote team can be this isolation, it can be incredibly lonely. One thing that I hear a lot from teachers, right, in talking about my dissertation topic, and social emotional learning is that during a crisis, this is the biggest time to kind of check in with students and colleagues and try to build that community. It's not easy. And you know, as I've mentioned, you know, setting these things up to make sure that people feel included and safe are things that really kind of, we have to struggle through. And many times have to change our way of thinking, and be much more aware of how we're creating those spaces now that they're not in person. And so, you know, how do we kind of balance the two much video being, you know, exhausting with trying to create this community, with your classroom or your team? I suggested, some of the research suggests that using message rooms, like a slack, or if you have something built into your platform, is a great way to create channels for sharing knowledge about work and school related things. And having a space aside from that for more informal conversations, where maybe colleagues and students can support one another in a more social way, and then you know, having a video call that is maybe just at a regularly scheduled time, and just for people to have coffee and chat with one another. So for example, I've opened up my office hours every other week, I do a open office hour, which includes, I call it a brunch, anyone can come from my course. And we just sit there and chat as a group about whatever they're struggling within the course and I may take more of a backseat role and let others kind of give their input and support one another in developing their research project or whatever they might be working on. And then finally, Think checking in. So checking in individually with people or as a group, it's not only important just to check on their well being, but check on the well being of the class or the group, do kind of a survey of how people are feeling and get a sense of your things that maybe could help or maybe what people need in the time of working remotely, on a fairly regular basis. And then one thing I've noticed, in working from home is, the boundaries that require are required to be set, it's definitely a little bit different. One of the most often cited kind of challenges is the ability to set boundaries between work time and personal time. And so, you know, we can see that in the research and just our daily lives that we we know that this has been a challenge for remote workers for even last 20 years or so. And individuals mentioned that they struggled kind of shut off from work. And so often they're working into what should be personal or family time. And particularly right now, with the technological advancements, we're connected to our laptops, or our phones kind of constantly, which makes us feel perhaps particularly as leaders that we need to engage or respond to, even outside of work hours. Often teachers right now are citing that they're, you know, just responding to emails well into the night and on weekends. And yeah, so having that technology is a boundary that needs to be established to, you know, protect our time. And so for educators, or leaders who have team members around the world, this is again, Further complicating things, because we're in different time zones. And so we're striving for efficiency and creating a supportive climate. And then it goes back to this communicate, communication and clarifying what the expectations are and what the availability of people is. And so while research is suggesting that remote workers have an improved work life balance, it's also important to note that these boundaries need to be set into place to set time aside for that social and family time. Um, for instance, there's like, this lingering assumption that if you're working from home, you're always available. And people may call you or ask you to do favors during the time that you've set aside for working. So it kind of goes both ways where people may think that your time is too flexible, because you're working from home. And so they may ask you to do things outside of work during your set aside work time. And then so it's kind of like the reverse. And, you know, there may be expectations from senior members about expecting you to work outside of your time that you've set aside for work. So it kind of is this fluid thing. So setting those boundaries is very, very important and difficult. And so one important point to kind of think about though, is when we're critically thinking about this situation is if we're in a social or family setting, where maybe both parents are working from home, who's responsible for childcare, and what perceptions might go along with, for example, the mother working from home, and kind of the, the ensuing kind of snowball effect of those assumptions or expectations of who is doing, what role and how you navigate that, I think that's really come to light with a lot of the media articles that I've been seen recently about mothers particularly are struggling during the pandemic, but with working from home and balancing the work and family life. And so specifically to education, I want to think about, have you think about a little bit about your online education experiences, if you have any, and what those challenges might have been. So learning online, and in higher ed, like post secondary education, college university, and high school isn't necessarily a new concept. It allows for students to be able to access education no matter where they are, and without the additional cost of potentially moving for school. I know it's quite common in Newfoundland, for example, for students in high school to do majority of their studies online just due to location and being in remote locales. However, there is kind of like this steep learning curve, right that that happens with the different digital technologies. You've got different learning management systems, you've got to engage in a higher level of time management, and then feelings of isolation again, come through here. And so there's also the whole asynchronous versus synchronous versus high flex debate. You know, there's just various ways that we can present information online for learning purposes. I mean, one, one positive, is have that flexibility to work around your schedule if you're doing courses online. But again, it comes back to that boundary issue, right. And so there's the synchronous versus asynchronous debate. And, you know, there's the challenges of communication. And it's really at the heart of kind of a lot of these barriers is being able to communicate, but then also being able to communicate your expectations and availability and values in terms of what you are envisioning for your online or distance learning and working as a team. And so how are we communicating and engaging our students and meeting their needs for learning within their schedules? Well, asynchronous is providing that flexibility. So that's, you know, of course, it's posted at the start of the week, the students can work through it on their own time. There's no life component that they can work through at their own pace. It's not ideal for all situations, for example, skills based learning and counseling, where you need to practice that with a peer. And then, you know, there's also there's research on the hybrid mixed, which has worked well, which, you know, there's synchronous or live interactions, and then there's, you know, facilitated discussions kind of asynchronously for those that are not able to attend, I will put in the show notes, a kind of quick infographic that I made about Hy-flex learning, and this kind of hybrid model where you can try to meet the needs of both the students who want the structure of a synchronous class and attending live. But then for those that can't attend, there's an asynchronous option for them. So it's a really interesting dynamic. And I think there's a lot of social emotional competencies that, you know, are facilitated or taken into consideration with a high flex model. So maybe that will be an episode on its own at one point, you know, and in within education, there's often this kind of idea about a one size fits all approach. And so this has always been a concern in education, but particularly in online education. You know, we know from teaching and physical classrooms that not everybody engages with the content in the same way, or demonstrates their learning in the same way. And so, you know, how do we differentiate learning in an online setting? And so, differentiation, online learning relies on creating community and frequent formative feedback. So it does require quite a bit more engagement from the professor or teaching team, and really providing opportunities for students to make links to their own interests. And, you know, so that there's engagement and an opportunity for them to create a deeper connection to the content that they're learning. And so, yeah, I think there's quite a few considerations regarding social emotional competencies. You know, there's a self awareness that's needed, what our expectations are, how we'd like to work, you know, what our expectations are of others, there's the social awareness of knowing how your other team members are going to interact with you. Communication and relationship building is huge and facilitating trust and finding ways to communicate that are clear and convey the same emotion that you could convey in person, it definitely takes some work. I mean, there's just that natural tendency to for negative attribution when reading text based messages. And so you know, we do have to go a little bit out of our way and be aware and work on those communication, those nonverbal communication skills, those written communication skills, and, you know, it requires a lot of, I think, empathy and perspective taking. It definitely has heightened kind of these aren't new concepts to leadership or teaching, but I think there's a greater emphasis now on them. So yeah, I hope that, you know, you found some interesting things to think about, and I encourage you to share your thoughts. Maybe you have some solutions, I'll definitely be sharing some resources through social media about, you know, how we can kind of mitigate some of these challenges, because I don't want to leave you with just the challenges and no solutions. But I think that is all for today, and I really appreciate you taking The time to listen. So you have been listening to the SEL in Action podcast. I'm your host Heather Woods. And, again, thank you for taking the time to listen. If you have any comments or thoughts, please feel free to leave a comment on the episode webpage or engage with us through Instagram or Twitter. It's sel.in action. And the website is SEL-inAction.com. And, again, thank you for joining and we'll talk to you next time.