Category Archives: Distance Learning

Your Turn: 2021 in Education- Back to Normal?

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Online Teaching, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized | , ,

Is going back to “normal” a valid goal? Or should we learn from our experience in order to grow and change?

The last year and a half has caused a lot of havoc in education. We had to learn new ways to deliver instruction, and we had to face important equity issues with a crisis igniting urgency. What did we learn from this?

We asked our bloggers these questions: We keep hearing “back to normal,” but is that what it is? Is that what we want? Here are their responses:

Gretchen Cruden

Going “back to normal” may be a comforting thought, but I hope we don’t—at least not completely. There have been some incredibly wonderful new changes that have arisen in education due to the pandemic. I am beyond thrilled that an emphasis on SEL is occurring across the state with…wait for it…actual money to support it!  We are starting every day with mindful breathing and stretches now. Life feels good!

“I am beyond thrilled that an emphasis on SEL is occurring across the state…”

I am also grateful for the opportunity for more educators to explore the ways in which technology can play a powerful in personalized instruction. And, shhhhh…but I am also over having my students sit in pods ever again. Short sets of direct instruction in rows with break outs for small group interactions will forever be my new norm, as I can see where this serves the learning brain the best.

Jan Kragen

One of the best parts of the day is Circle Time. We spread out our chairs in a big circle around the perimeter of the room. I have a karaoke machine, so I use the microphone as our talking stick. It’s so much easier to hear kids talk through their masks with an electronic boost!

This year every one of my students has a ChromeBook. That’s been a learning curve, just in terms of logistics. Every ChromeBook goes home every night and gets charged at home. They return to school every day, get out of backpacks, and into desks. I’ve worked much harder on helping kids keep their desks organized this year because I can’t have them stuffing things on top of their ChromeBooks!

“Now everything is in Google
Classroom…It’s paperless
and super easy.”

At the same time we’ve switched to Google. For decades I’ve taught students using all of Microsoft Office. Trouble is, not everyone had MS at home, so files would go home as MS files and return as RTF or OTD or PDF files–or even pictures of files. Sometimes I could do electronic comments and sometimes I couldn’t. Now everything is in Google Classroom. I post the assignment, kids hand it in, I add comments and a grade. It’s paperless and super easy. 

What I’m missing now is the ability to have lunch with small groups in my room. That’s been so useful in the past for small groups who want to have a writers group or who share another common interest.

Lynne Olmos

I often reminisce about the old days, back when I wasn’t shocked to see what a seventh-grade student looked like without their mask. That said, I think we unveiled issues concerning equity and emotional support over the last year and a half. 

We have seen the need to ensure access to technology for all; however, we started this year without seeing to that. I feel that the hope was that we would not have to get ChromeBooks and hotspots out to those who needed access. We have less capability to provide this access than we did last year! Hope of normalcy set us up for a possible disaster, should we have to go remote at some point.

“I won’t go back to normal, because normal wasn’t good enough for the kids.”

Some of us shifted our practice to take care of our vulnerable students during a time of crisis. Personally, I changed  my grading practice and relaxed a lot of traditional discipline and “classroom expectations” to meet kids where they were and give them a safe place to feel respected and supported. I won’t go back to normal, because normal wasn’t good enough for the kids.

Denisha Saucedo

NOPE, we did not learn. In fact we took three very LARGE steps backwards. Education may never be the same. This is not meant be be negative, but reality is that we as a society may never be the same.

“New habits were formed. Students and staff have new needs.”

From year to year we know that we teach the students in front of us. Well, those students had to do (or not) school online for over a year. It is said that you need to repeat something  66 times to create a new habit, well you can triple that. New habits were formed. Students and staff have new needs. Families and communities look different, therefore the education has to look different. Educators are also dealing with trauma and that in itself has caused them to grab onto bits and pieces of the way education “use to look.”  

Emma-Kate Schaake

I’d love to have seen a full scale reimagining of education after last year, but I know that kind of revolution needs to be more of a slow burn than a five alarm fire. What I have seen in our building is a dedicated focus on student mental health, systems of support, relationships, and community. 

“..education should look different going forward, to meet students where they are and provide what they need…

We seem to be coming in with a strong “kids over content” lens and I think that’s absolutely essential. Some students haven’t been in “real” school in a year and a half. Many have crippling social and academic anxiety. 

I fully believe that students didn’t “lose learning,” but we’ve all been changed by the last year and half. So, education should look different going forward to meet students where they are and provide what they need, academically, personally, and holistically.

Your Turn: Should we be trying to get “back to normal?”

In your opinion, what should education look like going forward? What changes should we embrace? What did we learn? What are the new priorities we need to acknowledge? Share your thoughts with us.

Hello/Good-by

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment

This week we celebrated fifth grade graduation. We had a drive-through event at the office building for our 100% on-line school. At the top of the driveway families turned in laptops and all the curriculum materials.

Then, with music playing and the bubble machine blowing, cars drove down the hill to the cheering teachers. We passed out balloons filled with confetti, bags of treats, and wristbands that read “I 100% survived 100% online school!”

For each student we also handed out a graduation certificate. One line read, “You have successfully completed fifth grade.” I read that with each student and told them, “You are officially done with school. You don’t need to log into the system anymore.” That announcement led to a happy dance every time, the child in the car, me outside. “Freedom!” “Escape!” (in Finding Nemo fashion). “Hallelujah!”

Some students had their picture taken at the “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” photo backdrop. Some said no thanks.

There were lots of smiles and even a few hugs.

I also spoke to every parent. Each time I said, “You did a great job.” The most common, instant reaction was physical. Shoulders fell. Heads dropped. Then the parent would say, “I thought I wasn’t doing well at all.” “I thought I was messing up.” “I thought I was failing.”

“No!” I said. “You were amazing! And you made it through this year. You did an awesome job.”

They straightened up then and starting talking about how hard it was.

“Yes. It was hard for everyone. I can’t imagine how you did it—

  • you, with three other kids at home.”
  • you, with a new baby.”
  • you, with your husband deployed.”

Side note here—I had been telling parents all year what a terrific job they were doing. On that last day of school it was clear that they read my notes as general and applying to  everyone else. Not to them. Individually, they each felt they were not doing well at all. Clearly, even phone calls hadn’t worked. All my encouragement during the year went nowhere. It wasn’t until I saw them face-to-face and spoke to them one-on-one that they actually believed me. Sigh.

Graduation was a thoroughly weird experience for all of us. It was the first time all year we got to see each other outside of Zoom. How strange was it? I didn’t recognize one of the other fifth grade teachers when I saw her in 3-D! She and I had met for PLCs nearly every day all year, but she looked different when she wasn’t flat.

One of the best things I heard that day was from one student’s mom who said it felt like I had reached through the computer and touched them. I told her it was mutual—we made a real connection in spite of the distance learning.

The other best thing was from a student who wrote in a card about how much she learned this year and added, “This year could have been so awful, but you made it close to wonderful!”

You know, I’ll take that. Close to wonderful is about the best I could hope for this year.

My take-away from all of this is that we must keep encouraging each other.

Encourage literally means put courage in.

  • Put courage in students.
  • Put courage in parents.
  • Put courage in each other as teachers and staff.

Courage comes from cour, which means heart.

Discourage literally means to rip the heart out of someone.

Our job is to put heart in. So let me start.

It was a ridiculously hard year. You maybe felt like you were failing. You maybe felt like you couldn’t do it. You maybe felt like you were never going to make it.

But look at you. You are here!

And you learned things. Like how to persevere. Like how to stay engaged with people even when you can’t be with them physically. Like how to use more and more and more technology. (Right???)

And you  made it.

You all did a great job this year.

Leap Year

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Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching |

It was the spring of my first year teaching, and I was walking hurriedly through the hallway on the way to pick up my class. I saw our music teacher in the hallway, and she asked me how I was and how things were going. Her concern was genuine, and I told her how tired and overwhelmed I was.

She smiled at me and said, “Let me give you my best piece of advice. They say in your first year you sleep; in your second year, you creep; and in your third year, you leap”.

Admittedly, her words have been rattling around in my brain for the last three years. The statement felt too simple to be good advice, but now that my third year is coming to a close, I’ve found she was absolutely right. 

In the fall of my second year, I wrote about how the rating of “Basic” on my evaluation affected my perception of myself as an educator.  

Looking back, I realized I was unable to see the ways in which I had grown because I was far too fixated on the rating my evaluator was giving me. In the months following that observation, I worked tirelessly to improve my teaching. With the help of an instructional coach, I built solid structures for managing my classroom and facilitating my instruction. I was proud of my hard work and asked my evaluator to visit my classroom to see firsthand all that I had worked to improve. 

Then, the pandemic hit, and the classroom visit never happened. 

As my third year of teaching comes to a close, I can’t help but feel robbed of experiences and opportunities for growth. I was assigned to a fully remote position this school year, which means I have been out of my classroom for essentially as long as I was ever in it. My foundation of classroom skills lies with a version of myself I’m having a hard time recognizing.  

However, despite all of this, I did leap.

I learned what I am truly capable of as an educator and grew in ways I didn’t think I would. Things I could never quite get a firm grasp on in the physical classroom became second nature in my virtual space. In a year with so much uncertainty, I adapted to everything thrown at me. 

In the end, I was finally marked proficient on this year’s evaluation. Truthfully, it didn’t feel as satisfying as I thought it would. It was always just a label and never a true reflection of how I perceived myself or my teaching abilities. 

When you’re a new teacher, the evaluation process can feel daunting. It carries with it the weight of something that is the end all, be all to your teaching career. I’m here to tell you that it is definitely not, and share my big takeaways from my first three years:

Your teaching is not binary

Nothing in life is black and white, and neither is your teaching. Yes, there is such a thing as “good” teaching and “bad” teaching, but nothing is 100% all of the time. Some days are good, and some lessons are bad, or maybe it’s the opposite. Or it’s both at once. Either way it doesn’t matter because teaching will always be fluid and messy. Give yourself a little room to breathe, good things take time. 

You are more than your teaching abilities

Being an educator is just one facet of our identity; it is not everything. Your value as a human being does not hinge on your teaching abilities. Truthfully, I often still struggle with this one. 

Openness to feedback and other perspectives is key

To hear feedback, you must allow yourself to be vulnerable. Someone pointing out the things we are not excelling at never feels great, but it’s necessary for growth. However, another person can only offer what they see on the outside and how others see you is rarely the same as how we see ourselves. Others cannot view you through the lens of your past experiences, traumas, and projections. For better or for worse, feedback is just a mirror. It only reflects the surface. It can show you what’s happening on the outside, so that you can begin the work on the inside.   

Observations are never as bad as they feel

After every observation, I’ve thought it went horribly (and honestly, sometimes it did go horribly) but most of the time, it was just the nature of teaching. I know those moments where you feel like the train is two seconds away from leaping off the tracks, but if that’s how it feels, it’s because you care. It means despite everything you perceive to be going wrong, you are doing your very best, and it’s enough.

Finding Hope in the Remote Wilderness

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Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, High School, Mentoring, Online Teaching, Social Issues

Since the Coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020, teachers and students have been thrust into remote learning. A year has passed since classrooms have become Zoom rooms and while some students are starting to go back, others continue to learn from home — creating an opportunity to reflect on this journey.

An article titled “The Crushing Reality of Zoom School” had the tagline:, “We’re only a few weeks in. We can’t keep doing this.” This was an interesting read because at the time of the article (September 2020) we had no idea how things were going to play out. The author talked about the toll “Zoom school” was taking on families, and the difficulties his children faced engaging with online learning.

However, I had one striking takeaway: the lines between home and school have become infinitely blurred. The author wrote, “There’s a lot of humanity visible through the Zoom windows. Every day we log on—teachers, children, parents—and, invited or not, we enter tiny portals into each other’s lives.”

Remote schooling has invaded students’ most personal parts of their lives without their consent. Students with complicated home lives suddenly found their peers joining them in spaces they wouldn’t normally share with the world. For many, their personal spaces were gone. In turn, cameras went off, participation dropped, and for some, showing up to school was no longer an option for them.

As an educator, teaching to little black squares was disheartening. With lack of nonverbal communication, we struggled to know if our students were connecting to anything we were saying, or worse yet, if they were even physically at their computer. But, it’s not our place to force ourselves into spaces we wouldn’t normally be in or command that we be welcomed into those spaces.

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Night School For Kindergarteners

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Equity is a buzzword in education. We hear it used by staff, administrators, and presenters. Under regular circumstances the practical application of equity seems to fall short of the ideal. During a pandemic, ensuring equity for students when teaching digitally becomes an almost insurmountable challenge. 

This school year my district stepped up to tackle this challenge with an innovative approach: an evening school option for elementary students. 

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Behind the Score

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Assessment, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Uncategorized

Every teacher out there can safely say, “I hate testing!” Yes, it is a part of checking for student growth. Yes, it gives us a baseline and can inform instruction. Yes, in some cases it may be necessary.

In every case, there is always more behind the score.

Testing is a complicated, sore subject. Educators work hard to create the best possible setting for students to excel on these tests. So, what does this mean in the midst of a pandemic, when the testing environment is no longer our classroom? 

Testing environment is one that teachers work so hard to get just right. The right lighting, music, no music, chairs, no chairs, water breaks, snacks, seating charts. It even comes down to what is on the walls. If testing environment plays such a huge factor in student success, how does testing at home correlate?

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The Promise of 2021: The Irreplaceable Educator

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, Equity, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized | , , , , , , ,

Hopefulness is evident in celebrations all over the world. There is such hope that the New Year will bring a return to normal, a return to a less complicated time. Of course, we are more pragmatic than this. We know that the normal we once knew has changed, and we will take many of this year’s complications with us far into the future. That is the truth, and, well, that is how progress happens, too.

As educators, this is significant. Most teachers I speak to relate similar feelings. Their jobs have become so different, practically unrecognizable. “This isn’t what we signed up for,” is the common refrain. I’ve said it, too.

No, it is not what we expected, but it is what we have now. And it is a bit scary. There is a real danger of people leaving the education profession. However, change can be leveraged to solve problems. As educators, let’s unite to do this. Let’s make this next year the year we start a revolution in education.

REVOLUTION. Not renaissance, not pivot, not shift. Let’s flip this system.

This is not to be taken lightly. If we sit quietly and wait for normal, the entrepreneurs out there will convince the public that they can create products for online learning that are better than in-person teaching. They will market these miracles to the masses and this will be touted as ethical and equitable. Anyone with access to the internet can learn. Who needs teachers?

You may think, so what? Let them turn to online systems. But, if this year has taught us anything at all, it is the value of human connection. We teachers may be struggling to realize our value as purveyors of knowledge, but we know our true worth. It is obvious that we are invaluable when we are the ones coaching lonely youngsters through their studies, reminding them of their worth, laughing at their antics during Zoom meetings, and consoling them when their practices and games are canceled. That humanity is irreplaceable.

I treasure every moment of connection with my students these days. And I know that I am a better teacher for seeing the value of it. Because of this, there is no going back to normal for me. I don’t even want it to be the way it was. For me, the lifting of the veil revealed that all students need to feel safe, in control of their learning, and valued by their teachers and by the education system. That is the only way to move forward successfully.

For equity, for ethics, we need systems that honor the value of each individual. In light of this, I am reinventing my practice to put students clearly at the center, giving them more power in the process of choosing the learning they will do. I will involve them in the grading process, and I will work every day to ensure that they understand their worth.

I understand mine. And I know that every educator out there needs to see their worth, too. You are the connection. You are the humanity. You are irreplaceable.

Related Readings (Or, Why Is Lynne All Riled Up?):

Schools aren’t failing, grades are.

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Assessment, Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, High School

Oh, the headlines. The numbers of students who are failing is “off the rails.” Others talk of COVID wreaking havoc on grades. And there are occasional wonderings if just maybe grades during a pandemic aren’t fair.

The panic: What ever will we do about all these low grades?

We’re once again paying attention to the wrong thing.

For decades, the standard logic is that grades are necessary extrinsic motivation for students. Fear of getting an ‘F’ is what drives the student who gets an ‘A.’ While that may be true for some kids, secondary schools have for too long operated under the assumption that if fear of an ‘F’ might (might) motivate an ‘A’ student to perform, then giving any student a low grade should motivate them to invest time and effort.

Never in my 20 year career have I seen this to be the rule. If students (as a rule) were truly motivated by grades, we would see grades motivating them. In many cases, the high-grade-earning students are motivated by something other than the learning that supposedly accompanies the grade. Those students may be motivated by the one-must-go-to-college-to-be-successful narrative, of which grades are the opening scene. Those students may be motivated by parents who threaten punishment or consequence for low grades. They exist, but rare is the student who earns an ‘A’ solely because of the learning it represents and not for the supposed benefits attached to that mark on a page (the car insurance discount, the access to some post-HS program, preventing their video games from being taken away…)

Grades simply do not function as motivators the way we want to believe they do. If they did, all the kids logging Fs right now would be supremely motivated to get those grades up. What I’ve observed far more in my career is the de-motivational impact that grades have on students, particularly if such “demerits” accumulate to the degree that the student begins to see themselves as inseparable from their grades.

For students who lack a track record of “good grades,” bad grades are punishment, not motivation. Sure, relying upon intrinsic motivation would be a great root for motivation, but those intrinsic motivators assume that the extrinsic needs are being met… self-actualization, of which intrinsic motivation is a part, is the pinnacle of Maslow’s after all. And regarding intrinsic motivation, there’s another unwelcome reality: not everyone wants to learn in the way that schools frame learning, or even what schools require (by law and policy) that kids must learn. A kid intrinsically motivated to learn everything there is to know about their favorite anime, or how a two-stroke engine works, or why there are two political parties, or why shortening and butter result in such different chocolate chip cookies… these curiosities, intrinsically driven, can’t always fit into the rigidity of a 24-credit hoop-jumping system. That is further proof that our system is locked into valuing grades rather than valuing learning.

COVID and remote learning has only confirmed to me that grades do not do what we have made ourselves believe they were capable of and designed for. We have to accept: In their supposed role as a motivator, grades did not do their job during remote learning… and perhaps revealed that they were never really right for the job at all.

Let’s move past grades and design schools that find better ways to motivate students to actually learn.

Engaging with Students Long-Distance

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment, Social Issues

For the last month, the number one topic in our staff meetings has been student engagement.

Meanwhile, I have a 10-year-old student who wrote a personal narrative about how he got his first car, a 1971 VW Beetle. He plans to convert it to an electric car. He said, “I want my Bug to be the first car of my old car electric conversion shop. My next car is going to be for my dad. He wants a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette with a big electric engine.” He explained that his current car, the Bug, needs work on its transmission.

Transmission? Student engagement? Same idea, right?

If the transmission isn’t working, the gears aren’t meshing. They aren’t connecting properly. The engine can have all the power in the world, but the car won’t go anywhere.

It’s the same for us.

  • If teachers aren’t connecting with students, or students aren’t connecting with teachers …
  • If schools aren’t connecting with parents, or parents aren’t connecting with schools …
  • If districts aren’t connecting with families, or families aren’t connecting with districts …

… then we can have all the skills and experience in the world, but we can’t drive our class anywhere.

Teachers at my school monitor students as they work through our district’s 100% online curriculum. We have weekly Class Connect Sessions (CCS—similar to Zoom) where we focus on the social and emotional side of school.

As far as academics go, we have students who come to CCS and do their work independently. They need an occasional check in about a lesson. Other students come to CCS regularly but don’t do their work. Or vice versa. Or they do well in one or two classes and skip others. There are students who come to about half the CCS. They struggle with the coursework. They are often behind. They occasionally come to help sessions set up by teachers, but often they don’t. Then there are the students who don’t come to CCS, who don’t do the work, who skip most of the lessons. They aren’t making progress. They don’t come to any help sessions.

We are used to having a captive audience in our classrooms. If a child won’t come to our desk, we can go to theirs. We can kneel down to their level. We can connect face to face.

The first question we wanted to solve was, How? How do we fix the problems in front of us?

Instead, the first question we asked ourselves was, Why? What makes the students (and families) less engaged?

There were several reasons why kids might not come to CCS (or Zoom):​

  • ​They have high anxiety about being on video (even if they can turn off video)​
  • ​They have speech impediments and are embarrassed (even if they can turn off audio)​
  • ​It’s one of the only things in their week that happens at a scheduled time, and they forget​

There are several reasons why students may struggle with work. Kids lack the organizational skills to tackle online learning without an adult at home to help them during the day. There are kids with ADD/ADHD, and there are so many more distractions at home than in the classroom; again, there is often no adult at home to consistently redirect them. Keep in mind, many parents work full time. Even if they are at home, parents may have up to five school-age kids, which taxes their ability to monitor them all.

Some parents and kids may not trust us yet.​ And it can be hard to reach students and families. Phone calls, emails, texts. Sometimes nothing seems to work.  

It can be daunting! Here are some ideas to help.

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The Pivot

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Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Online Teaching, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership | , , , , ,

We are pivoting, again.

Pivot? I keep hearing this word, and the famous phrase from The Princess Bride keeps running through my head: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

In the dictionary, pivot (v.) means to turn in place, as if on a point. Synonyms include rotate, revolve, and swivel. I get it, because what it means in a staff meeting is that yesterday may have been an in-person hybrid day, but now we are pivoting to fully remote teaching temporarily, due to a rise in cases of Covid-19 in our district. We are swiveling, changing direction, quickly without pause. We have done it three times this year, and it looks like we need to be prepared to pivot in the future. This is the new normal in education, shifting to meet the immediate needs of our students. Not a bad thing, in general.

However, I don’t want to merely pivot, at least the swivel variety of pivot. In business, a pivot is a true change of course. The product is not selling, so change the product or get a new one to sell. I’m feeling more like that. Students are failing in record numbers. Teachers and students are struggling with engagement and isolation. Not only is this a problem in itself, but it has also revealed and highlighted some troubling pre-existing conditions in education. (There are many, so I will leave you to imagine your favorites.)

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