Category: Student Posts

When I decided to become a teacher, virtual instruction is not what I had in mind. So much of what I love about the craft of pedagogy is rooted in the face to face content between teachers and students within the classroom community. Online instruction is a hurdle for both students and teachers, as both look to continue their academic careers. As an MAT candidate, an extended online period is obviously scary and concerning. While I am confident in my abilities to build student relationships and wield content, lack of time in the classroom may decrease my confidence as a standard educator. 

Although our current MAT courses prepare us quite well for the modern COVID-19 world. I wonder what we’re missing in terms of classroom management that is not related to virtual instruction. If things were to snap back into the pre-pandemic world, will our unique training help us secure jobs in the “normal” world? Obviously, this is just one of the concerns MAT students might be dealing with as educators of the uncertain future. 

However, there is hope – and quite a large amount of it. Obviously, regardless of our education medium, we can be confident in the course work which we are completing. As MAT candidates of the UP program, we can take pride in the rigor of our academic requirements, and at the quality of our performance. We must be sure that the education which we are receiving will arm us for the challenges ahead and prepare us the change the minds of the future. Although we are currently online, our process of becoming greater educators is not stowed. The work we do for the next 9 months will help us secure future jobs, and create a future generation that fosters change within their societies. 

The education methods which we add to our arsenal are amazing techniques which will help us as future teachers and mentors. Our road ahead may be tricky and untraversed, but it does get easier.. hopefully. As I look to the future, I am delighted for what’s in store. Despite adversity, I know that my experience here will prepare me for the challenges ahead, whether online, or in-person. Fear not – for the future is bright! 

Technology in education has come a long way since when I was the first student at my elementary school district to use a laptop in class. While I certainly cannot wait to get into a real classroom and teach in person, I believe the online teaching environment of COVID-19 is an excellent opportunity to experiment with a variety of technology-based adaptations, strategies, and rituals to create a more engaging experience!

Rituals:

Teachers and students are both dealing with difficult times right now and allowing for more genuine human interactions to take place could help students feel more ready to learn and engage in classroom conversations. Sitting in front of a computer all day in an online classroom format can be isolating. As Jennifer Gonzalez states in Distance Learning: A Gently Curated Collection of Resources for Teachers, not every minute of the day needs to be set aside for instruction. Start every day with a community-building ritual, which could be as simple as encouraging them to write a journal, playing a game, share poetry, or even just leave sometime in the day to encourage storytelling, laughter, and venting. Teachers should be creative and try adding new rituals and activities into online classes that might be more difficult to pull off in person.

Embrace asynchronous learning and flexible deadlines:

An unfortunate reality of the current remote teaching scenario is that not everyone has equitable access to the same internet connection, personal computer, or quiet place to participate in educational tasks. Some students may have additional responsibilities at home, which could impact their ability to participate as much as they otherwise could due to these circumstances. Creating short videos, chat tools like Gmail chat or Slack, and utilizing tools such as Google Docs or Voice Thread to embrace an asynchronous learning style could help create a collaborative environment.

Additionally, teachers should create a more flexible deadline policy for their classes, and communicate these policies with students early on. It could be helpful to provide students an anonymous way to communicate particular concerns that could impact their participation and ability to meet deadlines at the beginning of class. This could be completed by asking students to complete an ungraded ‘getting to know you’ survey or quiz during the first class through Google Docs, or Poll Everywhere. Establishing expectations early on will help avoid misunderstandings and create a clear process for students to reach for extension requests or help when needed.

Encourage students to take ownership of their learning:

In the age of COVID-19, teachers should be careful that their instruction doesn’t become little more than a low-budget MasterClass video. Students should be encouraged to take ownership of their education, and teachers should differentiate assessment to encourage experimentation and creativity. This can be accomplished through a choice menu that offers learning targets, resources and options for assessment for students to choose how they would like to demonstrate their knowledge of a particular subject. Rather only presenting students with the option of writing a paper on the overall causes of the Cold War, students could create a presentation and narrate over it with Voice Thread, make a podcast or video on the topic, create an interactive map with Google Tour Builder or an interactive book with Book Creator. Each of these options presents engaging ways for students to share their mastery of concepts with the class either synchronously or asynchronously.

Conclusion:

Most teachers and students will be happy to be back in a physical classroom once it is safe to do so. However, rather than viewing online teaching inherently bad, I believe this period is an excellent opportunity to experiment with new ways to make instruction and content more engaging. Methods we develop for effective online instruction could help uncover better strategies for engaging in-person instruction as well.

It may seem straightforward, but one of the most perplexing pieces of going back to school for many school districts will be how to measure attendance and participation.  The in-person classroom experience has largely been standardized by most districts to include a simple way of determining what counts as “attending” a class, and how much participation in class is included in the final grade, along with what counts as participating.  However, we are now in uncharted waters, and the move to online and hybrid learning has left schools scrambling to redefine what to look for, how to measure, and how to enforce attendance. 

I’ve been involved in discussions between middle school teachers planning for the upcoming school year at a k-8 school (I’ll call Maryhill), and from this will present a few of the discussion points, challenges, and solutions presented during the meetings.

What is Attendance?  What is Participation?

The simple question that is currently plaguing Maryill is “What is Attendance?”.  This is where we have to start.  Unfortunately, upon reflection, this is a much more complicated question.  Maryhill first had to determine the difference between Attendance and Participation.  Attendance, it was decided, is the simple act of being online, while participation meant class discussion and turning in homework on time.

But wait!  What if a student comes to the online class, but leaves their camera off, and never participates?  Have they “attended” the class?  What if they do this, but still turn in their homework on time?  In this scenario Maryhill decided on a two-part method of determining attendance:

1. A student must be online and seen on camera for each class (unless on break)
2. A student must turn in a majority of assignments for classes for that day

What, then, determines “Participation”?  We tried to understand better what kinds of methods of participation students can have in a classroom.  Maryhill broke down participation into two categories:  In-class participation and Assignment Participation.  In this way assignments became both a method of determining attendance as well as participation.  Again, Maryhill decided on a two-part method of determining student participation:

1. Students earn participation points for each class period as a part of a final grade
2. Students earn participation points simple for turning in assignments on time regardless of the grade of those assignments as long as they meet the minimum qualifications.

Challenges and Ongoing Questions.

To the keen observer there are obviously challenges with this setup.  Maryhill has done a good job of trying to balance the need to engagement along with trying to be sensitive to student needs, but there are going to be shortcomings and compromises no matter what the setup.

1. This setup creates equity challenges
   • Maryhill is a private Catholic school which prides itself on equity and a diverse student population.  Uniforms are touted as a method of “equalizing” students who otherwise may not be able to afford nice clothing.  What happens then, when we are invited to peer into those same students’ homes?  However, allowing those students to turn off cameras would create attendance and participation measurement challenges.  Students may be embarrassed of their living situation, especially in front of their peers.  To address this challenge Maryhill suggests implementing a standardized digital background.
2. Who keeps track of attendance?
   • This is an administrative question, but a challenge, nonetheless.  Previously attendance has been straightforward, with teachers taking it each class, and turning in attendance at the end of the day, along with alerting the office if a student isn’t present.  However, in this context teachers at Maryhill are sometimes co-teaching, and cohorts of students move around from one group to another.  If a student doesn’t show up for one class because of technical issues, how would the next teacher know this?  To try and address this situation, Maryhill created a living Google Document in which they could all see attendance, and make notes for each other regarding vacation or technical issues that relate to students being online.

Maryhill has created a system wherein students are held accountable for their own learning, which can be a challenge for younger students.  This is just one solution out of many schools out of many school districts.  Some schools have been purposefully more lenient in their application of online attendance.  I may revisit this question later on in the year and see how taking attendance has developed throughout the schoolyear.  Like all things with online learning, this will change and evolve as both teachers and students get used to the new mode of education.  But this is just one example of the new challenges of online education.

From my perspective as a student, I think that is really important to provide variety and choice with virtual instruction. While there should be consistency in communication and where information is located, students lose interest quickly when you are sitting on a Zoom for hours on end. In my opinion, the best practice is to provide multiple ways for students to interact with each other and you. Maybe they watch a pre-recorded video of you explaining a new topic, then get to discuss that with their peers in a forum before meeting for a debrief Zoom discussion. While synchronous instruction is important, I think we need to remember that students are going to be as burnt out as we are with constantly videoconferencing and staring at a screen.

I think that an opportunity that will come with online instruction is the chance for students to get creative. For me I can see this applying to assessment in particular. A lot of methods of testing that we are used to are not going to be possible this semester, so it is the perfect opportunity to lean into project style assessments where students have the flexibility to choose how they want to demonstrate their knowledge, whether that be a podcast, video, virtual design or book, etc.

A challenge that I am foreseeing with my placement is engagement. My district will be using Canvas which is typically used in college settings, and I think that the middle schoolers I will be working with will have to become more independent as they get used to navigating this type of LMS. Additionally, I am worried that both my students and I will be experiencing so much screen fatigue that it will make it difficult for us to engage with one another. Relationship building is such an important part of teaching and I am worried that building strong relationships with my students is going to be incredibly difficult when I can’t meet them face to face.

Despite these worries, I am optimistic that I will be able to make the most out of this virtual semester with my students. There are a lot of cool apps and platforms out there that create so many exciting possibilities for online learning and I am excited for my students to teach me about what is relevant to their lives so that we can set up an online learning model that works for us.