The end of this rather strange and completely unexpected school year is fast approaching. Within the past few months, teachers and students alike have navigated uncharted waters to the land of distance learning. Some of us only had a few days to prepare to teach in an entirely different way - one we never trained for - one we never could have dreamed would be come reality. But, we did it. We tackled distance learning, and darn it, we rocked it!
I usually take some time at the end of the year to start planning and preparing for the following school year. I am generally exhausted by Spring, but have found, over the many years I have been doing this, that coming back in the fall to a few planned units is a LIFESAVER! The beginning of the school year is always so hectic. Getting students trained in, creating norms, establishing rhythms, pre-testing for everything, etc. but to top all of that off, we also have to complete our SMART goals (to measure student success), and craft IGDP Plans (individual growth and development plans), and fill out pre-observation forms, and go to meetings on data driven instruction, and set up PLC groups, and… and… and…
Now, these are fairly specific to my personal district, but you can insert your districts version of these things! I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
But, how can we plan for next year when there are so many unknowns? What will this next school year look like? How will students attend school, how much will be virtual, and what type of in class learning will really take place? These questions have been spinning in my head over the past few weeks. The answers are just not there, yet. I know some districts are planning a combination of online/virtual learning offset with some in class learning days. Some districts are planning an A/B schedule where students will learn online one day, and attend the next day to keep numbers low and keep distance between students. Some have no plans, and may not make them until the weeks prior to school starting.
So, how do we plan ahead? What can we do now, or over the summer, to be better prepared for a new and completely unique school year? By focusing on what we do know.
Digital learning is not going away.
Incorporating technology into our lessons used to be a goal area on our Charlotte Danielson observation form. Now, it is an essential piece of our curriculum instruction and design. Whether we have students in our classrooms for most of the day, part of the day, every other day, or not at all, reaching them through digital lessons will be standard practice moving forward. My district uses Google everything and we employ Google Classroom to allow us to deliver our content to students wherever they are. My son’s district is Apple based, and they use Canvas to deliver their content to students. My son uses an app called Notability to write directly on top of PDF documents to submit them digitally. A silver lining to this quarantine distance learning situation, is that districts quickly pulled together a plan for delivering content to students digitally (for the most part!) What we do know about next year, is that we will continue using and refining these systems regardless of where our students are physically located.
Creating engaging digital activities will be more important than ever.
The one thing I have learned about distance learning is that getting and maintaining engagement while students have even more distractions at home is very difficult to achieve. I wrote a blog post about ways to create engaging online lessons - ways to get students actively participating in your Zoom or Google Meets meetings. But, we also need the student led activities to be engaging. Here are a couple of ideas that I am thinking about for next fall. I am creating a blog series about these ideas, and will link them as soon as they are finished! Subscribe to my email list to get these delivered to your inbox!
Personalizing learning. Leaving assessments open for voice and choice.
Flipping the classroom. A recent approach that just might work.
Project based learning. A slightly older approach that just might work.
Choice novels in lieu of class novels. The ELA teacher in me is struggling with this one a bit!
Literature circles for social/emotional learning.
A class blog to host discussions and share writing.
At the bottom of this article, I will share my favorite resources for digital learning. Feel free to check these out!
Socialization and collaboration may look different but will likely be even more important.
This Spring I noticed that my students were craving socialization. I wrote about that in my most recent blog post: Ending the School Year with a Focus on Social and Emotional Health -11 Engaging Activities. I created a Google Meet session each week simply devoted to socializing - no school work, no lessons, just time to connect. It was incredible! It made me realize that if any sort of distance learning remains next fall, it will be more important than ever for me to include opportunities for students to connect and collaborate. I plan on doing this through literature circles and creating my own class blog. The post above about 4 unexpected literature circle ideas shares how we can incorporate the idea of literature circles outside of the standard novel discussion. I am excited to implement these virtually or in my classroom - likely it will be some combination of both!
Engagement will look different. Our teacher tool bag of tricks may change a bit.
It is so hard to determine engagement when students are not seated directly in front of you. We know when students have lost interest, are distracted, or generally just tuning out by their body language. This is so challenging in a virtual setting. We will see engagement in the work they produce for us, within their participation in Zoom or Google Meet sessions, by their discussions on a class blog or digital platform, etc. We will have to, in essence, investigate their engagement. If I had to boil down what was most exhausting about teaching virtually - I think this might be it. One of the best tools I found for checking engagement was Google Forms. I use them as exit tickets to check for engagement and understanding. I created a weekly Google Form check-in just to see what my students were needing, how they were feeling about the work, and what they needed from me. This was probably the most helpful tool. Those that didn’t complete the form at all were a quick red-flag. Those that needed help were able to receive it, and those on track could be quickly checked off my list! This is a tool I plan to keep long after schools return to… ‘normal’.
New approaches to teaching will come faster than ever, but old approaches just might be where it is at.
New and better approaches to teaching is not a new idea. I remember when I first started teaching, long before digital learning was a possibility, (okay, not that long before) we were introduced to new ‘best practices’ in a staff meeting. I turned, overwhelmed, to my team. This was the first time I heard of the education pendulum. Those of you that have been teaching for awhile know exactly what I am talking about, right? I was told, correctly, that the ideas for new teaching practices swing back and forth like a pendulum. We try an approach and we love it. We all jump on board, and then discover what does not work. So we swing back. Over and over. So, of course, we can predict that new ideas will be shared. New approaches will be expected. And, in truth, that might be a great thing. These approaches might help us reach our students digitally. They might help us use technology to enhance learning, especially when we know that this is the future for our students. But, we might just find that older approaches work, too. We might jump back to the flipped classroom model or the project based learning model to reach students during this time. At least, I think that is where I am headed. We will see what our administration rolls out for us, but this last sentence leads me to my next topic.
Other people will tell teachers what learning should look like, but we will always know what is best for our students. Period.
People with and without teaching experience love to tell us what works best for our students. But we know what is best for our students in our class. Period. The way you reach your students will depend on your style - on who you are. If I have learned one thing from teaching all of this time it is that you cannot force a method on a teacher. We succeed as teachers when we are true to ourselves and our style. I know teachers that can engage a group of angsty 8th grade students in direct instruction for the full 50 minute class period. They are story tellers, they are active, they are moving. They put on a show that students want to watch. I know other teachers that can personalize learning and create engaging activities that keep students motivated while they become a ‘guide on the side.’ Both teachers are immensely successful, but if one is forced to prescribe to the other’s teaching style… well, we know that answer. As my 18 year old daughter would say, “you do you.” Stay true to yourself and your style.
We can adapt to - literally - anything. We have done it before and we can do it again.
Does anything more need to be said on this topic. I think not. These past few months have shown that teachers are freakin’ awesome.
Teacher self-care will be more important than ever.
This goes along with the previous statement a bit. We can adapt to anything. We can create anything. We can do anything. But, this often comes at a very personal cost. We talk about self-care a lot in this profession. We spout ideas about ‘filling our own cup first’ but when push comes to shove, we sacrifice our own time, money, and health for the benefit of our students. I can’t tell you not to do this, because you will. You are reading this post, likely on your own time just to be better for your students. It is what we do. But, when we adapt to these massive changes, we must put a focus back on ourselves as people, too. Do what works for you - just make sure you do it. For me, it was taking back my Sunday. I allow myself one hour on Sunday afternoon to work, but that is it. I cut it off, and the rest waits for Monday. And, you know what, everything is always fine on Monday morning. :)
Pro-Tip: Don’t do it all yourself!
Ready Made Digital Resources:
I have almost 50 digital units for sale in my TpT store to help you get started with digital resources if you are interested. You can take these digital lessons and add in some of the engagement tools we chatted about above to create meaningful learning for your students. A few of these are linked below as well. Be sure to check out my freebie library for some free digital units as well!
