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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A Call for Credit Flexibility

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Education Policy, High School, Online Teaching | , , ,

On the OSPI website, I found this statement (originally posted at the start of the school year):

“The continuation of the COVID-19 public health crisis has meant that many school districts are re-opening using either a fully remote or hybrid learning model.  However, there are currently no additional credit flexibility or waiver options for the Class of 2021 graduation requirements like those used for the Class of 2020.”

As the legislature reconvenes in January and as other policy-making bodies weigh the second half of this unprecedented school year, I hope that flexibility around graduation credits for the class of 2021 gets swift and decisive attention.

Specifically, I believe that individual high schools should be granted complete discretion to waive up to two credits, no questions asked even for core classes, with the opportunity to apply for individual waivers of up to an additional four more credits for students who faced particular identifiable challenges during remote and hybrid learning. Yes, that is six credits: An entire school year. On top of that, waive all other non-credit-count requirements associated with graduation pathways. Put an asterisk on their certificate if it makes you feel better, but grant the diploma.

It is the humane thing to do.

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Anxiety in the Highly Capable Classroom

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Current Affairs | ,

One afternoon we read the poem “Thumbprint” by Eve Miriam. We talked about the metaphor in the poem, comparing the uniqueness of the thumbprint to the singularity of the individual. Suddenly one of my fifth-graders “Edward” blurted out in panic, “What if I’m all there is? What if everything is just projected inside my head and nothing else is real?”

Calmly, I reassured him, “That’s a philosophical position called solipsism.” I quickly googled solipsism, showing him the definition and that the term had been around since the ancient Greeks. “This is an idea that people have thought about for a long time.”

“Oh,” he said. “Ok.”

“By the way,” I added as I walked him back to his seat, “questions about what you know and how you know it are part of a branch of philosophy called epistemology. If you are interested in questions like that, you might want to study philosophy.”

“Ok!” Now he looked interested instead of like his world was caving in.

Of course, the boy next to him said, “I want to study science!”

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Remote Attendance

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education Policy, High School | , ,

Taking attendance on asynchronous (no-Zoom-days) is presently my absolute least favorite thing about remote learning. (And my “least favorite” list is long.)

Because we in Clark County are experiencing a significant COVID spike, it seems like the earliest we’ll move to hybrid in-person learning for our secondary schools will be February (note: this is not the official line, this me reading between the official lines).

Depending on which period a student is in, they may have two or three scheduled zoom sessions with me each week. I’m fine using zoom attendance as Attendance with a capital “A,” but I’m struggling hard keep up on attendance for non-zoom, asynchronous (or “on-demand,” as our district calls them) days. OSPI has provided guidance around marking absences, and I understand the impulse to hold a base level of accountability.

Nevertheless, I believe that the BIGGEST mistake we are making in distance learning is our persistent systemic disposition toward replicating in remote learning the rules and practices of in-person learning.

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Learning and Leading for Equity: Just Keep Going

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Current Affairs, Education, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership | , , ,

By Guest Contributor and Tumwater High School English Teacher, Emma-Kate Schaake

Humble Beginnings

Three years ago, our equity team was the new kid in school and we had all the hallmarks of not quite fitting in.

We dressed a little differently; Black Lives Matter shirts and rainbow pins. We asked questions while our peers rolled their eyes, understandably exhausted on a Friday afternoon. We visibly perked at the mention of data as everyone else sighed.

Together, we read articles, analyzed school data, and challenged our perspectives. We wanted to examine our privilege, change our classroom practices, and dream big for the future of our school.

Year one, we hosted a staff professional development session on white privilege and, let’s just say, it didn’t go well. People reacted defensively and resisted the very definition of white privilege. They then shared that we wasted their time, because our school is mostly white anyway.

 We had high hopes for systemic revolution, but progress on the ground was slow. We were asking staff to dig deep and examine what they knew about their lived reality, which was inevitably uncomfortable.

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Conferencing without a Conference Week

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Current Affairs, Elementary, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment

In a typical school year, our elementary fall conferences run for three days at the end of October. I sit and talk with parents and students for half an hour at a time.

This year, however, our schools started 100% online, so our district decided to have a “soft start.” The first three days in September became our “conference days.” Teachers called every family to talk them through what to expect for the beginning of school and checking that every family had computers and internet connection.

Meeting parents on those phone calls, I made brief notes about their children. “She has severe social anxiety, especially on Zoom calls.” “He likes doing his work on the computer. Online learning has suited him.” “She has ADD/ADHD, so staying focused is hard for her.” “We have two other children in the online program, and we both work full-time, so he’s going to have to work independently.”

Moving our conference days to the first three days of school meant we lost them in the last week of October. No time set aside even to Zoom with parents!

But that didn’t change the normal reminders running through my head:

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Goals: 2020-Style

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

Tell me about your goals. What were they before Covid-19? What are they now?

I’m guessing they are somewhat different. Our priorities have shifted. At home, this is good – more time with family and pets, and far less time on our hair!

However, my educator goals have suffered terribly. Prior to this year, I had clear and powerful goals for my classroom, my students, and myself. In fact, I had three areas that I was independently researching or promoting, and I was really fired up about them, too. I was building a toolbox of my own to be the best teacher I could be to my students.

Here are my goals, pre-Covid:

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TPEP: New Student Growth Rubrics

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Uncategorized | , , , ,

We’re almost a decade into the “new” teacher evaluation program (TPEP), and this year OSPI has introduced a change that I think has the potential to shift the model closer to its intention: promoting improvement of teacher growth and practice.

Of course, the middle of a pandemic is a rough time to add yet a potentially non-essential change to systems and policies…or it is precisely the perfect time. That’s not what I’m interested in debating.

For background: State law requires that “student growth” be considered in a teacher’s evaluation. To assess a teacher’s impact on student growth, one or more of five universal rubrics are used to evaluate their impact on student growth (it is “one or more,” because it depends on where the teacher is in their evaluation cycle… it is less complicated than I’m making it sound).

To really simplify it: Teachers are assessed on the growth goals they set for subgroups of students or for whole rosters of students. We often refer to this as the “inputs,” or the elements we as professionals have control over (writing goals, choosing assessments, etc.). To be proficient for “whole roster” goals, our work must match this description:

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Hybrid Model: The Inside Story

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

My district was one of the first in our region to go back to school face-to face this year. We began a “hybrid model” on September 14, with seniors and K-3 going four days a week, and all others going twice-a-week in cohorts (Monday/Thursday and Tuesday/Friday). On Wednesdays we delivered online material and caught up with our work, while reinventing it simultaneously. Some of our students opted for full-time distance learning, but the vast majority excitedly prepared for the first day of school.

Our neighbor districts were watching us intently. Would we pave the way for others to follow us, or would we cause an outbreak in our tiny town?

One week in, “it” happened. A student, who later tested positive for Covid-19, attended the first day of school. Dozens of staff members and students were subsequently quarantined due to contact with the student, and the decision was made to suspend school until the 14-day quarantine period was over, giving the health department time to do all of the necessary contact tracing. Our schools and buses were disinfected, and our teaching staff pivoted to all online learning, something we were told was likely to happen from the start.

Not an auspicious beginning, you might say. But let me elaborate.

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