I was walking my dog. By myself. No headphones, just the rustling of trees so I could think. I am collaborating on a resource for our teachers with some of the fabulous teacher-librarians in my District to help support teachers as we embark on a model for this school year which requires synchronous teaching for an in-person cohort of students in addition to two other groups at the same time.
At one point, I felt like I had a really good grasp of what this would look like, and in the next moment I started to rehearsed the very frank, courageous conversation I was going to to have with my principal and staff. This just isn’t going to work.
As if Jennifer Gonzalez was a witness to my whiplash as I vacillated from hopeful to cynical, she posted this:
Alrighty. Let's pool some ideas for Ts trying to teach face-to-face AND broadcast to kids at home at the same time. What have you learned? Let's skip the comments about how impossible it is. We know that. Do you have any lessons learned or ideas to share?
— Jennifer Gonzalez (@cultofpedagogy) September 6, 2020
As I read some of the comments, I was reminded of several things:
- When you focus on solutions rather than obstacles creative problem solving happens
- There are many educators on Twitter who are smart and helpful and generous with resource sharing (and Jennifer is awesome for asking the question)
- Trust yourself–so many of the suggestions were ones that I had already thought about, but had talked myself out of.
Student voice and feedback
My contribution was focused on student voice and feedback:
We will only know if we got it right if we ask students.
Focus on student work
Stacey Roshan responded in the thread suggesting that her strategy will be to focus on student work. No matter if students are in front of you or at home, putting the focus on student work is going to be the most useful way to unify your class and also to prevent you from standing at the front of the class and speaking into a microphone which will be of very little benefit. Here are my top 3 tools for focusing on student work/
Peardeck
Peardeck is my go-to interactive tool because it works well with Google Slides (my favourite G-Suite app and technically perfect on its own if you give students editing rights), and are completely modifiable. Here are a few video tutorials.
Padlet
Padlet is a virtual wall which students can access in class or from home and allows for multi-modalities. I have been using Padlet for many years from checking in to asking students to share ideas, questions, and their work. Here is a video tutorial.
Jamboard
Jamboard is easy and interactive and again, can allow students to showcase their work. Video tutorial here.
If you are required to teach synchronously to more than one cohort, have a good cry (that helped me) and then take a look at the suggestions shared in Jennifer’s tweet. Also, be sure to reach out to your Teacher-Librarian, Digital Resource Teacher, or a colleague for support.