Today marked 2 weeks of distance learning with my students. Ā It has been an incredible amount of work to train students on how to use the technology to a degree, revamping my lesson plans and creating a balance of collaborative projects with direct instruction and student practice. Ā Not to mention helping students develop a routine for motivating themselves to do school at home.
Today I found out that we will be losing our spring break, Ā I was devastated. Ā These past two weeks have been taxing. Ā The last time I worked this many hours was my first year teaching. Ā I was planning on using it to plan, and maybe finish painting my bathroom that I started in October.
Distance Learning means that we have fundamentally changed how school is executed. Ā All of my skills in classroom management are no longer applicable. Ā I make it a goal to talk to every single student every day. Ā I need to know how the learning activity is working for them so I constantly speak to them and elicit responses about how much they understand. Ā We also talk about their lives and I do my best to know them. A lot of my classroom management is structured around them knowing that I genuinely care about them. Ā Throw that out the window with this new structure. Ā
So today I tried something new. Ā I earned a 66%, so that is a passing grade. Ā Today I planned on Google Meets with 3 of my 4 classes. (My other class goes tomorrow). Ā Students have been working on projects and today was presentation day, 45 minutes with time slots already chosen on a collaborative google doc. Ā 2/3 classes were successful so Iāll take it. It turns out that there was an issue with the wifi. Ā The Hubs and I canāt be on the same extender at the same time and after the video chat crashed for the 5th time my Medical Intervention class bailed and decided that students could opt to record their presentation and post it to the google classroom or try again with the Google Meet on Friday. Ā
We would call this Habit of Mind thinking flexibly. Ā I am proud that my students were just happy to see each other and helped me to figure out a solution that works for them and made sense for our goals. Ā
My student presentations were great! Students had to hear the same content over and over and will have to present on the same, but a requirement was to include a video of each concept. Ā This allowed me to reinforce the content in lots of different ways and students had ownership over how they presented content. Ā
Students have been working so hard! They have had to learn in isolation, without their peers or teachers to learn from. Teachers have been working so hard in order to deliver meaningful instruction in this new novel learning environment. Ā We need a break. Ā We deserve a mental break. Ā
So my solution... Students did not choose to make their own videos or try any experiments. Ā Although I am not surprised, I am also disappointed. So I will assign an optional at home lab to demonstrate and explain the concepts. Ā Students will have to record a video and explain the concept. Ā I will also post a daily check in and SEL Prompts. Ā Keep it simple. Ā We all deserve a break. Ā