Ideas for prepping for fall

Last time I talked about my thoughts on what needs to happen for a successful start post COVID-19. Today I want to get more into the nitty gritty of the classroom. What things can teachers be doing over the summer to get their classrooms, curriculum, management systems, etc. ready for whatever the fall may bring us. As with most of you out there I am waiting with baited breath to see what guidance our state is going to give districts on opening up schools next fall. However being the planner that I am, it is hard for me to sit and wait so I have already started planning what things will look like in my classroom post COVID. A lot of the ideas I talk about below are based on years of teaching in a tech classroom as well as from what I have learned worked and didn't work this year. I hope you find some these ideas/thoughts useful and would love to hear your ideas on how you are preparing to a post COVID classroom.

To start off with I am going to rework my classroom procedures so that kids know how to do things digitally in my classroom. I am going to spend a lot of time showing students how to use email, Google classroom, and hangouts as a communications tool. This was a big hurdle in my online teaching this spring is that kids were not familiar with:

• How to communicate with me digitally and I with them
• My goals/plan
• Teach them how to use email
• Teach them to how use Google classroom comments
• Show them how and when to use hangouts
• I also plan on opening up a class Instagram
• Shorten instructional videos to 5 to 6 minute clips
• How to submit work digitally in classroom
• My goals/plan
• Teach how to read an assignment description
• Show how to attach various type of work to google classroom
• Use private comments as a feedback tool
• Put together a cheat sheet/webpage for families
• My goals/plan
• Put together instructions for families on communication
• Show them the connection between our google classroom and Skyward (IMS)
• Question to ask their child to check for work/understanding of assignment
• Key things to look for when students say they are finished with work
• Create a flowchart
• How assignments or done in my class from when I assign to turn in
• How communication works in my class with students

The hope/goal is for kids and families to be ready if/when we have switch to digital/distance learning next year. 

Along those lines I am going to have more digital options of assignments in my back pocket ready to go. This spring I went with one curriculum for my each of my classes. However I heard loud and clear that students were either really excited about the work or not very interested in the work I chose. I know that some of you may not be able or want to run multiple curriculums/projects in your class. So my suggestion to you is to have digital versions of your curriculum ready to go. This may be a bit of extra work but it is good to have them in your back pocket ready to go. Also you may find that digitizing your work may make it more engaging for students. Especially your presentations. I have found that recording my presentations (what some may call lectures) opens me up for working more with kids 1:1 or in small groups. Also by recording your presentations if we do go to more digital/distance learning you can throw a lifeline to parents and families. One thing I have heard consistently is that parents are frustrated with not knowing how to do some or all of the work kids were assigned. I know I can speak personally about that. However when I chatted with some folks in my neighborhood almost all agreed that it would a little easier to help their child watch a video and take notes. This makes sense as most people have experience watching video, tv, etc. and recalling the key or important concepts.  

As for classroom management a lot of that is going to be centered on the classroom procedures I mentioned earlier. Teaching and reinforcing the process getting and submitting work. However I also want to teach my students what it means to be present in a digital world. I know that I went into digital/distance learning thinking this is going to be simple for kids. They have their chromebooks and other digital devices and they already knew a lot about apps, websites, etc. No I wasn't naive in thinking there wouldn't be challenges like lack of connection, distractions at home (games, siblings, toys, etc.), lack of familiar support, social emotional challenges, and others. What I wasn't prepared for was how kids didn't know how to be present in an online world. Watching my kids doing digital learning gave me great insight. To them being present online means 2 different things on is social and one is academic. The two are very different from what I expected. Academically they would get online look at the work and try to figure it out then wait for someone to check on them it was one of passive engagement. They were expecting either the teacher or me to prompt them or check in with them before moving on. There was no active engagement unless we pushed them to engage with their teacher. However watching them engage online in a social context was more what I was expecting. They was active listening with questions about things they didn't understand, synthesizing information shared to accomplish a task and giving feedback and support to encourage others, and even calling out others when behavior is not appropriate. My goal is to help my students transfer their social online skills to a more academic setting.  To do this they need to know what office hours are and how to use them. They also need to know how to get into an online classroom whether that be a zoom or google hangouts, or other platform.

These are just some of the thoughts and ideas I have and hope you find them helpful. If you need help applying them your classroom and/or situation please reach out out to me in the comments or via email listed below. I would love to hear from you and help out if I can.

As always Go Forth and Do Great Things!

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Fall will be here sooner than we think, Then what.

I hope you all are enjoying or making the best of whatever situation you may be in during these unprecedented times. I know I am enjoying some warm sunny weather as I give feedback on student work, plan out my next lessons, and meet with colleagues. I hope you all are getting out and enjoying the ever increasing summer like weather where you are at. I and my wife try to get out as much as we can to enjoy a walk or leisurely drive either with our kids or by ourselves. Often times when we are out we run into neighbors, friends, strangers, etc. During these encounters it comes up that I am a teacher which usually shifts the conversation towards my thoughts on distance/online learning and then to what I think school may look like in the fall. It might be a bit early to think about going back to school in the fall and what that might look like, but then again maybe not. I know that a lot of my colleagues are curious about what school might look like and I am seeing news story after news story contemplating what it will look like once we reopen in the fall. The CDC has issued guidelines/recommendations for schools. I also know that my state is starting to look at what the fall may look like with a 100 member task force looking at roughly 7 different models and hope to be able to give guidance. I have no clue as to what it might look like going forward I have my thoughts and preferences which I do share with the people we encounter. However that is not what I want to do here with this post. My goal with this post is to give some guidance on how we can prep kids and ourselves over the summer to better reach out and support kids for the next school year.

I don't have a crystal ball so I don't know what next fall will look like other than we will need to be teaching kids in somewhat shape or from. The suggestions I talk about today are my own based on my work reviewing online learning programs as well as experiences starting up schools and classrooms over the past 20+ years. The suggestions I mention here can be adapted no mater what opening up situation we encounter in the fall. With all that said I do welcome your comments and ideas as well as to call me out on why I suggest something that doesn't make sense. So lets get started. 

So as we move into the fall we need to look at things from 3 different aspects:

1. Teaching content
2. Platform
3. Communication
4. Fun

Starting with the first one content. One thing that goes without question and that is we are all masters of the content we teach. We can all agree that face to face learning is best but in absence of that there are some things we can do to make content delivery better. One suggestion is to work with the curriculum you have as in most cases it can be adapted to an online format. After all that is what we as teachers do we adapt and overcome as we encounter obstacles. Don't think that just because it is online that you need some crazy new fanged curriculum or delivery system. As an example I am using the same curriculum as I do in the classroom with some slight modifications. A second suggestion is to look at moving to a flipped model. Hopefully most of us are familiar with some sort of a flipped model classroom. With the flipped model you are having kids watch your instruction at home which is easier for not only students but also families. Most students can watch a video and take notes with some instruction to relate it to how you do with in class. Along with that most families can help their kids with watching a video and taking notes. The biggest complaint I have heard about is that families are struggling with helping their kids with things like math or science or other subjects. Which brings me to my third suggestion for content which is to assume nothing. This is something we as teachers have good experience with already but it is something to keep in mind. It is hard to deliver content without a platform.

To get the content out to students we need a platform. This is probably the one that may be out of our control but I hope to give some suggestions you can pass along to your districts and/or encourage you to look at the platform you have in a different way.  What ever platform is used it should be easy to access and navigate for both students and families. If the platform is not easy to access students will resist doing and turning in work. Also families will struggle to support you in your efforts of helping students get work in. As I mentioned in the last paragraph don't assume your platform is easy to use. One thing I have learned during this time is that a platform I use, Google classroom, is not as easy to use as I thought. Yes it is simple but there is a learning curve for all that use it. For example I had to learn what the parent side of google classroom looks like. It is simply an email (either a daily or weekly) summary of what is "going on" in the google classroom. I also learned that in that email are working links to sites you include in posts and/or assignments which is helpful. One thing to keep in mind is that summary can get overwhelming as it is one long email for each class that a student may have (if the families have linked to your class). Whatever platform you use it should be as close to one stop shopping as possible.  Students and Families should be able to get all the info they need from as few places (clicks/links) as possible. They should be able to get grades, assignment info, materials, and hand in all in the same place. The more links/places they have to go to complete an assignment the better the chance they will loose engagement in your class. To help with this we need to talk about the 3rd area which is communication.

This is probably the most important of the 3 areas that of communication. There are as many ways to communicate via distance as there are lessons we need to teach (if not more). There is no one tool that is better than others if anything we should be tailoring what tool we use to the audience we are trying to communicate with. For most students email probably is not the best. Students these days are used to a more instant form of communication such as Snap chat or Instagram. What I have found is communicating with them via comments on assignments or email (although they will do that reluctantly). If you are brave enough you can try google hangouts or say Instagram (make sure to have a personal and professional account). Teacher that have done this have had more success in communicating with students. However I know that may not be allowed in your district. Make sure to check with your district regarding communication policy with students. As for families email or phone may be a better way to communicate. Lastly as we all know whatever method you choose or are allowed to use make sure it is consistent. The more consistent you can make it the better results you will get. Along with being consistent within in your class if you can make it consistent school wide that is even better. Although then again as teachers we know that. Lastly with communication it is important that expectations are communicated once established. One thing that I learned over the last 3 months is that I need to do a better job of teaching my kids my expectations regarding:

• Communication
• email
• Google Classroom
• Hangouts
• Work habits
• Note taking
• Watching videos
• Assignments
• Structure
• Turning in
• Asking for help

The more we can teach students what the expectations are and how to meet them (just good teaching) the more successful any program (online and face to face) will be. 

Lastly whatever we do we have to remember the fun aspect of school. We may not think it but kids expect to have fun at school. They expect fun work to do and also expect to get some of their social needs met. When I say focus on fun I am not saying that all the work/assignments we give kids has to be fun (although that would be a bonus). What I do suggest is that you do things like my music teacher does and host class contests. He is currently hosting an idol like contest with his choir class. Kids are loving this and totally engaged. Also our ASB is hosting weekly activities like trivia night. Things that I have done is to host a typing contest using nitrotype. Also when I host a zoom meeting I make sure to let kids know they are welcome to ask questions, request a demo, or just check in. I find more often that not they want to simply check in which is ok. Along with the fun part is to check in with them and ask them how they are doing and what they are doing. Just as in our face to face classroom students want to get to know us and see us as a whole person and not just a teacher. 

There is a lot here to think about and I would love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions about best practices of starting up next year. 

As always: "Go Forth and Do Great Things!"

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Video link mentioned in podcast: Quick video on how to make better instructional videos by Edutopia

Link to article on need for uniform LMS (Learning Management System).

Starting back up

For many of us we have been immersed in online learning for the past couple of months. Hopefully you are handling the transition from face to face to online learning at least somewhat comfortable if not something that really isn't too hard. If you are struggling I recommend checking out the Virtual Ed Tech conference at https://learningrevolution.com/. I have attended a few of their sessions and found them to be helpful both for online teaching and for when we get back to face to face. Regardless of how you feel about online/distance learning it is time to start thinking about starting back up. If you are like me you may have been thinking about how do we deal with the issue the loss in learning that may (say I said may) be facing us if/when we get back into the classroom. I used the word "may" very purposefully which I want to talk about today.

It is not lost on me that students are missing out on some learning or that there will be skill gaps between peers as we move forward next school year. If you are like me you are embracing this as an opportunity to dig deeper into topics/skills that you would normally go an inch deep and move on so you can get through what you need in the curriculum before the end of the year. I know I have read and hear a lot of professionals approach panic about next year about how we are going to "Get kids caught up" or " Make up for what they lost" or some even saying they worry about the future due to the loss of learning. I thought that way for a few moments then as I was discussing this topic with my "How Do I Learn" (HDIL) group, that studies application of brain science in education, I was reminded learning is sequential and can't be compressed. It needs to happen over time and can't/shouldn't be forced. That has been tried in the past and currently and it just doesn't work. So I am going to postulate something wild; that we should start up next year as a new starting point and move forward.

I have learned over the years of working with HDIL that kids are resilient and will bounce back as we move towards normal. However that being said it is not lost on me that there will be inequities between peers due to trauma. We will have a wealth of kids who fit into several categories ranging from little traumatic affect to those who had severe trauma. Yet don't we have those issues in class normally and we adapt our teaching to meet their needs. What I am saying though is we should look at starting next year as if kids are coming to us fresh from last year, meet them where they are at and move forward form there and not try to forcibly try and catch them to where "standards" say they should be (dare we even think about adjusting the standards). Yes I know I can imagine the in rush of air and possibly panic attacks going on as you read this blog.

I can hear it now "But what about the standards?" "If we don't get them caught up then they won't be ready for the state tests" "They won't be prepared for (insert post school choice here) if we don't catch them up". Yes you might be right but what happens if we do try and forcibly try to catch them up? We risk kids hitting and going past frustration level where learning stops due to shut down, kids not being emotionally ready to learn, not enough time for kids to absorb all that needs to be in order to be "caught up". Most importantly we risk turning kids off to learning which will be more detrimental than not being caught up by the end of next year. Maybe it is time to look at the standards or state tests for what they are; simply mile markers and way posts along the journey of learning.

I am not saying we need to abandon standards in education. What I am proposing is that maybe it is time to reassess them in the post pandemic educational world to make them work for our kids rather than against them. I have always seen standards as way makers in the journey of learning. They help me guide what I should be teaching but I never look at them for where kids should be by a specific time. Yes it would be nice if by the end of say 7th grade all kids new how to type at 25 to 30+ words a minute and be able to consistently use unique file names on digital work they create. Yet I know that there are some kids who are not ready to meet that standard until later on for a variety of  reasons.

Bringing it back to starting up next school year we will have a lot more kids who will need us to be able to meet them where they are and help guide them along the journey of life long learning. Dare I say we continue to adopt what our State Superintendent of Public Instruction has tasked us with when this all started approach learning from the stand point of being Communicative, Compassionate, and Do No Harm. That challenge has resonated with me both as a struggle to fit into how I teach and engage kids but also as a guiding light. I truly believe that we should start next year from where the kids are at and move forward rather than trying to get them caught up.

I can't wait to hear your thoughts and ideas about this topic. I encourage you to subscribe and/or leave comments. As always "Go Forth & Do Great Things!"

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