All posts tagged: COVID-19

Back in the saddle

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Even with all the masks, face shields, social distancing, and awkward conversations, it feels great to be back in person. I didn’t realize how much I missed working with students in a face to face until I started doing so today. I’m sure I have said this before, but I cannot stand distance learning. There is just something so mind bogglingly dull about it. But beyond getting to see my students again, it was nice to be back on a new project. I have been asked to take on an afterschool program for students who are falling behind and may be at risk for not graduating on time. This is where I thrive. I love the problem solving aspect of it all. I spent most of today trying to gather lists from our student management system, testing different ad hoc reporting combinations until I landed on one I felt would give me the most bang for the buck. There is something satisfying in solving technical problems and discovering what works best. Now I just have …

Hybrid Teaching

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With the first week of hybrid teaching under my belt, I can officially say that I am exhausted and excited at the same time. This week has been great. Being around people and being social were things that I sorely needed. I could never have continued online teaching as a full time job. However, everything is different, and we are having to adapt to a new normal as we deal with masks, socially distanced seating arrangements and a never ending cycle of communications with our students as they transition to online learning every other day.  Occasionally I will watch the show Alone on the History channel. It always amazed me at how many people would drop out of the competition because of social isolation. Now I get it. Even though I was almost never alone at home, I missed all things social, even being in meetings. I never realized how much I needed to reconnect with people until after the first day. Even though I was physically exhausted, I was emotionally recharged by the the …

Best Practices For Teaching During COVID-19

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One of my favorite pictures of teaching in action. “Hey Google” “What are the best practices for teaching during Covid-19?” Spoiler alert: There are none. When my school district produced a mandatory professional development session that taught teachers how to transition to online learning, I became immediately skeptical. I was also frustrated at the utter hubris it takes to claim to know anything about online learning when your background is everything but, and then present it as a mandatory training module. While I did learn some things about Canvas that I was completely unaware of (which I am deeply grateful for), there was a lot of unnecessary stress added by the way the PD was rolled out. I want to make it very clear, I’m not frustrated with our district coaches. I’m frustrated with the administration that made the decisions and how it was rolled out in typical half-ass fashion, i.e., not having their poop in a group. Every year teachers are bombarded with crap. And I do mean crap. Between education corporations looking to sell you the latest …

Teaching During Covid-19

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Recently, I saw a post (I can’t remember who even reposted it for citation purposes) that discussed the language we are using during our online teaching. The post brought up an interesting point that I want to dig deeper into. What do we call what teachers are doing right now? Is it online learning? Is it distance learning? Why am I so hung up on what it’s called? What we name it matters. Just as with all language, the vocabulary we choose to use when discussing a subject can affect the process just as much as the physical change itself. The term online teaching or online learning carries a connotation of presence. Presence implies that teachers are live and lessons are synchronous. Distance learning, on the other hand, carries the connotation of sameness. It implies that the only difference between the classroom lessons and those online is the distance between the teacher and the students. Neither of these terms accurately defines what is actually happening in the virtual classroom.So what are we doing? What should we …

Small Successes

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I was going to come on here tonight and blast away at my problems and issues. This online learning thing is overwhelmingly anxiety inducing. But as I was avoiding writing by doing some grading, I noticed a trend that changed my attitude. My students are flourishing with the current work I have given them. Last week I decided to try an experiment. I saw a post from someone about how to use the 5 Es (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate) to create lessons online. I took those five components and made one module out of each of them. On top of that, I did some serious brainstorming before creating modules. I did this because creating modules is time intensive. If one doesn’t work, you have just wasted quite a bit of time. The first thing I did was I created a bland google slides presentation. In each slide, I put one of the 5 Es as base slides. In each slide I took notes for ideas. For example, in the engagement slide, I wrote down ideas to engage. …

Distance Learning: Day 5 (Still Planning)

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After having spent a disproportionate amount of time stress eating and fucking off, as the Brits would say, I am finally feeling productive. It’s difficult not to think about the challenges that I still face as well as the incredibly labor intensive task that online teaching presents, but I am incrementally getting comfortable and checking off items on the to-do list. I think the one thing that has helped the most has been to see and hear from other teachers (in online meetings) that they too are struggling. Instantaneously, I felt better knowing that I wasn’t alone in the struggle. It also helped that we were tossing ideas at each other, you know, like a team, and discussed options for resources.  One challenge I now face is trying to find an app or another digital means for students to annotate text or take notes on and simultaneously read the text, from one computer. However, this will have to be something I tackle tomorrow as the dishes are piling up, and I’m hungry and need to cook …

Comfortable Un-certainty

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We are all stressed. Every teacher in the nation, no matter how adapted to using technology in the classroom, is now being ordered by their respective governments to provide all content through various forms of distance learning. Every teacher is now being tasked with not only handling their own families and anxieties but also with the added pressure of moving all curriculum online. Curriculum which was never designed nor intended for such a move. In Minnesota, we have been granted 8 days from the governor to adjust to this system. From the ESL perspective, this is a monumental task only overshadowed by that of the SpED teachers. How can we effectively provide services to students, especially those who are new to country? The answers remain to be uncovered in the weeks and months following this national experiment.  At this point in time, teachers are being asked to decide what items need to be cut. Mind you, these types of decisions are typically made at a district or state level by teams of people. Now, individual teachers …