Researchers Katelyn Morman and Sarah Stilwell join the Michigan Minds podcast to talk about their research examining the unique needs of K-12 teachers in remote education settings and the experiences of educators throughout the pandemic. 

Morman is former high school educator and current PhD student in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology (CPEP). Her research focuses on how teachers think about and enact culture within their classrooms, and expanding classrooms to places where multiple ways of being and knowing are adjunctively constructed. 

Stilwell is former elementary school educator and recent CPEP PhD program graduate. As a current postdoctoral scholar at the U-M School of Public Health, Stilwell’s work aims to understand student and practitioner conceptualization of effective and equitable instruction, and alternative approaches to curriculum and kindergarten through 12th grade context.

During the UX@UM Conference in April, Morman and Stilwell presented their research during the session, “What do experiences tell us? Learning From and Supporting the Unique Needs of K-12 Teachers in Emergency Remote Teaching.” Stilwell provides insight from their research in the context of educational efficacy, which takes on the perspective of educators during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We were very interested in learning from educators—what their perspective on efficacy was at this very unique time, what we can learn from them, and how we could use their their voices, their experiences, and their own perspectives to really support their future efforts to lead to more effective educational outcomes and understandings of what this idea of educational advocacy truly does mean.”

Sarah Stilwell

“Our research was aimed at understanding teacher needs during this emergency remote transition that happened as a consequence of the pandemic,” Morman says. “This was something educators really hadn’t experienced before, they hadn’t been prepared for, and we were interested in understanding their perspectives about their experiences.”

Stilwell emphasizes the idea of context, and how it often determines what resources are available in the school or community. Although online learning may vary in different classroom contexts, Stilwell says that there continues to be various opportunities for the way we can reimagine how teaching can look in both online and in hybrid settings.

Morman outlines a key finding from their work regarding how important it is for educators to have a coalition with other educators.

“Continuing to think about multiple meanings, and how to value dialogue within teaching, whether that be in a remote setting, a hybrid setting, or an in person setting.” 

Katelyn Morman

In relation to how the pandemic has impacted education, Morman says teachers and caretakers should continue to recognize that their roles may have shifted throughout the past two and a half years. She highlights the importance of developing strategies that are going to allow parents educators to continue to be gracious with themselves and their students. One of the schools Morman connects with, she explains, uses an online homework club to allow students to work together and connect while maintaining a shared  accountability among teachers and administrators to ease the reliance on one teacher to be doing everything for their students.

Stilwell provides advice for students, caretakers, and educators on how to think or reframe the idea of learning over the past few years—focusing on the positive things students have gained from this new experience. She also shares that having discussions with children about expectations and what the school year may look like can help students prepare for the school year. 

“I think that one of the things that we can do is think about how to center parent and teacher expertise that they’ve learned within the past few years—that can be a really powerful place to start. Many times as we reflect on the progression of the pandemic, we enter that reflection with a deficit oriented mindset and it can be a helpful way to recalibrate this mentality and focus on our collective gains and the ways in which we can leverage our communal learning and what we’ve learned instead of what we’ve lost.”