Distance Education Round Two?

This semester, we have been exposed to many new tools as well as a lot of history of educational technology.  Teaching in a pandemic has not been easy; there have been a lot of ups and downs, especially when I think back to the spring and our stint of supplemental learning.  I felt like I was decently prepared for it, given my knowledge of tech tools, and my students trusted me to pull off the transition.  However, it was still rocky.  Engaging students in an online format, when they had already been given the green light to move onto the next level was difficult.  I lost a lot of students and the few that stuck around preferred to do it mostly on their own.  I was left feeling pretty unfulfilled and missing my students as I continued to post projects, videos, and schedule meetings with little turnout.  I was so excited to get back to the classroom and back to teaching my students face-to-face and thankfully we haven’t had too many hiccups yet!

However, when we got back to teaching face-to-face, a lot of things had to transform to hybrid models of teaching.  I was really excited for this opportunity to integrate more tools and tech into my everyday teaching because we had to be prepared to go online at a moment’s notice.  Having an online platform set up also allowed students who have to miss school for a few days due to illness or covid testing to stay caught up on classwork.  I have been using Google Classroom as my platform to keep students organized and so far, it has been working wonderfully.  It allows students to submit work, ask questions, and stay caught up on all the things going on in the classroom.

Along with using Google Classroom to connect my students, we have been using lots of other tools like Remind, Flipgrid, iMovie, Google Docs, Slides and Forms, and occasionally Zoom.  These tools work great for my ELA classes because they allow students to connect in a variety of ways.  Remind allows them to send messages and pictures so I can help them out with assignment issues or they can notify me in a quick way that they are missing class.  Flipgrid has been great for creating discussion about novels, stories, and other topics we cover in class.  It also gives me an opportunity to see their speaking and presentation skills without a mask on!  The other tools have been great for creative assignments and presentations.  It’s awesome that students are able to collaborate in real time on the projects without needing to be together.  Zoom came in especially handy this week as I was out sick for a few days.  I was able to teach from home and zoom into my classroom to teach my students, answer questions and still be present.  It definitely isn’t the same as being there, but being able to talk to them through a scene, assign and grade projects through Google Classroom and send messages through Remind made it much easier for them and for myself to stay connected to each other.

Being out sick also gave me the opportunity to really reflect on this week’s blog prompt and what I would do if we must suddenly move to an online format.  I think if I were to move to an online or blended format, I could see myself using Nearpod and Pear Deck to organize lessons.  We have had presentations using these tools in the last couple of weeks and they seem both easy to use and engaging for the audience.  I love that students can follow along on their own screen or access the presentation to go through at another time, at their own pace.  This gives the option to teach using both synchronous and asynchronous means and giving student more freedom to access content.  As Jennifer Gonzalez said in her blog post about distance learning, “when we are kept apart from one another for whatever reason, our need for human interaction increases. So if you’re teaching a distance learning course that was set up that way to begin with, it’s important to build in structures to keep students interacting with each other and with you.”  This idea is something I both lacked in the spring and crave if we ever go back online again.  Keeping up engagement is important and I think by using tools like Zoom and Flipgrid, I could continue to engage students in those interactions.

One tool from this week that really intrigued me is Planboard.  I have never heard of it but by the sounds of it, it would be an excellent tool to use for staying organized in the online world.  In the spring, I used Google Classroom to schedule my days and it worked okay, but I needed something a little more structured.  Planboard looks like it would do this for me!  It looks like a Type-A personality’s dream and I am looking forward to exploring this tool further!! 

I think my most difficult task in the spring was preparing my AP Calculus students for their exam.  How does one teach an advanced level math course as well as run practice exams via online supplemental learning? Not easily, I admit.  The amount of work that went into developing the lessons, quizzes, practice questions, and zoom sessions was easily triple the amount of work I normally did to prepare face-to-face.  So, going online and teaching math again is my living nightmare.  I have had a prep this block, and all I have done in that prep is make lesson videos for my Calculus students just in case we have to go online in the block system.

When I think about my math courses, I prep them in an entirely different way than my ELA courses.  I have been using SmartNotes to create my notes for years, and then I use Screencastify to record my own videos.  I began using DeltaMath in the spring and I know if we end up online again, I will be using this awesome tool to create quizzes and formative checks.  I am also looking forward to checking out Explain Everything to see if it can cut some of my prep time in half.  Desmos and Khan Academy are also a great help for my math courses and for giving students an opportunity to explore the subject on their own.  Overall, when I think about teaching math online again, I know that engagement is key and if there is a way to do group problem solving over Google Docs or Zoom breakout rooms, I am going to do it.

If online learning does happen again, I’m going to take some advice from Jennifer Gonzalez first: “treat the beginning of the shift the same way you’d treat the beginning of a school year, by establishing routines and protocols before digging deeply into content, and giving extra energy to rekindling culture and relationships on the new platform even if they were already established in the face-to-face setting.” Once those routines and relationships are built, it comes down to remembering to go with the flow and as we talked in class on Tuesday, keeping a growth mindset is vital!

Until next time,

Shelby