Backtalk: The limits of rapport: What’s lost when we focus on connecting to our students

Abstract

As schools turned toward remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, they focused on preserving the connections between teachers and their students. But Dan Coleman argues that connections among students are at least as important — and easy to neglect in remote learning. He encourages teachers to design new ways to deliberately build in to their experience of virtual school the things they used to get around the edges of in-person school.

Fieldwork placement reflection from a regional Pacific university during Covid-19

“…Pacific students face a mammoth task in achieving their aspirations. Coleman (2020) stressed the importance of creating and designing ways where students can support each other-or be better supported by tutors-while doing distance learning. One way of supporting students, which was part of my pastoral support strategy, was to allow handwritten assignments to be submitted, especially for those who did not…”