Remote Education Coaching (REC)
Remote learning gives us a unique opportunity to rethink how we motivate students academically. Learning how to work successfully from home is a challenge for everyone. Distractions are abundant and students may struggle to stay engaged with 5+ hours of videos and live streams. We believe that motivation and productivity can in fact be increased through a well-structured use of in-person and remote mentoring, innovative online platforms, and cooperative gaming.
Through our platform, called Remote Education Coaching (REC), we use evidence-based practices for managing workload, motivation, and task completion with our students. Students will be assigned to a “REC Room” via squads of four students matched with a coach for virtual support.
Our coaching is focused on modifying behaviors related to executive functioning – specifically targeting the ability to plan, organize, multitask, and see activities through to completion. Improving executive functioning skills early on in a student’s education can cultivate resilience, critical thinking and self-reliance. These essential skills lay the groundwork for independent learning. During this time of remote learning, we aim to improve quality of student’s education both academically and emotionally, as well as to help enable parents to successfully work from home. Remote Education Coaching was developed with all of this in mind.
How It Works:
Our current offering is flexibility. We prioritize physical activity, workload, and emotional check-ins using a mix of technology and self-reflective communication. We provide your students with coaches who have tutoring experience, as well as training in a clinical method for improving your child’s engagement in the digital and physical world. One major challenge for students will be convincing them to sit down at a screen to complete tasks during or after a full day of screen-based instruction. Our coaching seeks to take the burden off of parents and teach students to be independent learners.
REC Room offerings will be available during two separate sessions each day. One During-School session and one After-School session. In each session, students with the same school schedule will group into squads of four and will work with their coaches on their academic and social activities.
During-School REC Rooms will work best for students at schools that are committing to a blend of live stream and pre-recorded video instruction. Coaches will provide check-ins in between scheduled meetings to discuss material and keep students on task.
After-School REC Rooms will work best for students at schools that are committing to full days of live streamed instruction.
Rewarding Success:
We help students set daily and weekly goals that set them up for success. Daily rewards focus on social time that will be inherently lacking in a remote learning environment. Shorter gaming session rewards (Monday through Thursday) will focus on cooperative and collaborative play. Friday REC Rooms focus on rewarding students’ hard work from the week and will allow them to have longer gaming sessions after checking in with coaches. Student squads that have sustained success in accomplishing their goals will have access to various rewards which will drive the digital content they interact with in the upcoming week. Instead of offering afterschool courses, we offer shorter workshops as rewards. This allows each group to have the freedom to choose how they want to spend their afternoons with friends. These special rewards can come from a number of topics such as:
How To Twitch Stream: Beat Saber & More With Friends Your squad will be given a single VR unit for a week. They can use it to play physically demanding games solo, and are guided on how to stream the content, post appropriate commentary to private channels, and use their creativity. Private channel commentary will be reviewed and edited by coaches before being shared with parents.
Digital Filmmaking Using Minecraft We will be offering intro script writing and editing using Minecraft! Students can spend free time recording their Minecraft interactions into a movie.
Becoming A Hacker Kids learn about hacking, cryptography and how to protect their privacy and stay anonymous in today’s social media-centric world. Squads will engage in a public social media project posting encrypted messages on public platforms such as Twitter, Instagram & Facebook.
Digital Music Making & Music Theory Learn how to loop and mix your own music and the basics of music theory. Mixing in great rythm and lyrical video games, this workshop reward is educational and fun.
E-Sports Coaching & More! Master the most popular games in E-sports. Focusing on team work and responsibility, students learn to take gaming to the next level.