I had the privilege of assisting with a zoom event for the TRiO Upward Bound Program (at my undergraduate institution)’s Friday session this afternoon. Upward Bound is a federally funded program established in 1968 as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty. It services high school students who will be the first in their families to attend college. Their programming is currently virtual and once a month they host Friday’s sessions for their participants on different topics. Today’s session was a fun jeopardy game.
The game was created from the website Jeopardy Labs and consisted of the categories Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry, English, Grammar, Statistics and History. We split into six different breakout rooms and each room had about nine students. We played for about 40 minutes. It was really fun! And I’d like to explore if this is something possible to create for the students on my team as a fun option evening activity as my district is the anomaly in Michigan and virtual the entire year.
One thing that struck me was with such a large group of people on the call (over 70) there were a lot of technological logistics to consider and plan for. I received a lengthy email a few days ago with detailed instructions and all the volunteers met on the Zoom call 45 minutes before we started to iron out the game plan. The most immediate issue was that the host forgot to give breakout room hosts the ability to screen share. After a quick text and some moments of waiting, that got sorted out.
Upward Bound is very close to my heart and it was special to be able to help tonight.
Friday, March 26, 2021
week 11: summary of Lets Make Better Slideshows
This post summarized some general tips for powerpoint or google slides presentations. Here are a few things that stood out to me:
Cut Way Back on Your Text
I agree completely and know this is best practice. Yet, for my weekly SEL lessons I am teaching the content prepared by another staff member with information I am only partially familiar with. Having more words on some of these slides makes it feel safer as I can’t speak fluently about these topics like I can about middle school math or foster care. One remedy would be creating more slides so there is less words on each slide.
Create Previews and Signposts
Teachers do this already by sharing their agenda or through the learning targets for the lesson. I can see how I could do this more in-depth for specifically the material in the presentation.
Proofread Out Loud
I feel like when I've finished a presentation it’s already taken me a long time and I’m ready to shut my computer and be done. I need to push myself to take a few extra minutes to proofread out loud and make it a polished and clear presentation.
Saturday, March 20, 2021
week 10: Adaptability Required
I had a new experience this afternoon when I was teaching virtually and our district’s internet went out. By the very nature of virtual teaching, the internet is a necessity. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that it was the internet and not my devices malfunctioning. I immediately joined the meet on my phone and was able to give my students directions. I tried to continue to teach the math problem we were completing while simultaneously troubleshooting my computer. The internet appeared to reconnect so I quickly joined the google meet again on my desktop only for the internet to crash a few seconds later.
Eventually, I thought about holding my phone up to the physical whiteboard in my classroom to teach the remaining 15 minutes of the lesson to the best of my ability. It was rough. My left hand got tired holding my phone while my right hand was writing on the board. My audio cut in and out so kids couldn’t clearly hear my instruction. I finished the lesson to the best of my ability, but covered about ⅓ of the content that I needed to. It was frustrating. I remained cool and collected, but left school feeling like I hope that never happens again.
It’s interesting to think about all the elements unique to online learning. The internet has gone out in the building before, however when we’re in person it’s much easier to adapt quickly. It also made me think about how a more discussion based class like social studies could perhaps more seamlessly change lesson plans on the spot. I don’t think I’m going to redo that portion of the lesson tomorrow. This year is so mumbled jumbled that I know the kids got exposure to the topic and I feel like the best decision would be to continue to move forward with content.
Eventually, I thought about holding my phone up to the physical whiteboard in my classroom to teach the remaining 15 minutes of the lesson to the best of my ability. It was rough. My left hand got tired holding my phone while my right hand was writing on the board. My audio cut in and out so kids couldn’t clearly hear my instruction. I finished the lesson to the best of my ability, but covered about ⅓ of the content that I needed to. It was frustrating. I remained cool and collected, but left school feeling like I hope that never happens again.
It’s interesting to think about all the elements unique to online learning. The internet has gone out in the building before, however when we’re in person it’s much easier to adapt quickly. It also made me think about how a more discussion based class like social studies could perhaps more seamlessly change lesson plans on the spot. I don’t think I’m going to redo that portion of the lesson tomorrow. This year is so mumbled jumbled that I know the kids got exposure to the topic and I feel like the best decision would be to continue to move forward with content.
week 10: summary of Connecting Students in a Disconnected World
All teachers know strong relationships between students and teacher and among students are essential for high engagement and participation within a classroom. Virtual learning makes relationship building feel very different. Is it still possible? Most certainly. It takes a deliberate effort to give kids the opportunity to interact and learn from one another. Which is why utilizing breakout rooms is an impactful and fairly simple to use strategy. Kids learn so much through processing content out loud with a peer.
Upgrades to google meets have allowed for easily set up breakout rooms which was a game changer mid year. The second half of this article discusses best practices for making breakout rooms effective and purposeful. Some suggestions are: assigning roles, having a time limit and finished product, including an icebreaker, having a technological means for students to use to collaborate, and modeling what you want to see in the breakout room ahead of time.
I use breakout rooms occasionally with my two accelerated classes and they are more effective in my 6th hour than my 2nd hour due to having more kids take leadership and be willing to talk/dialogue in the group. I’ve realized that when I’m writing my lesson plans, I need to think specifically about how/when during the week could I use a breakout room. It’s not going to be an effective strategy for just any assignment. I do much of the structure/setting expectations that is described above already and have noticed the more we do breakout groups (and I know my teammates use them too) the better the kids have gotten at participating.
I haven’t used breakout groups for my two regular classes yet (except when there is an other adult leading the group). I’m scared to use them with my regular classes. I think kids would get distracted. I think there would be misconceptions over the math content. I think many of the kids would not unmute or turn on their cameras. Part of me feels terrible stating that I'll use breakout rooms in accelerated, but not in regular as I know it’s essential to use good strategies for ALL kids not just the “smarter” kids. But the other part of me is making a pedagogical choice based on knowing my students and knowing my curriculum.
Upgrades to google meets have allowed for easily set up breakout rooms which was a game changer mid year. The second half of this article discusses best practices for making breakout rooms effective and purposeful. Some suggestions are: assigning roles, having a time limit and finished product, including an icebreaker, having a technological means for students to use to collaborate, and modeling what you want to see in the breakout room ahead of time.
I use breakout rooms occasionally with my two accelerated classes and they are more effective in my 6th hour than my 2nd hour due to having more kids take leadership and be willing to talk/dialogue in the group. I’ve realized that when I’m writing my lesson plans, I need to think specifically about how/when during the week could I use a breakout room. It’s not going to be an effective strategy for just any assignment. I do much of the structure/setting expectations that is described above already and have noticed the more we do breakout groups (and I know my teammates use them too) the better the kids have gotten at participating.
I haven’t used breakout groups for my two regular classes yet (except when there is an other adult leading the group). I’m scared to use them with my regular classes. I think kids would get distracted. I think there would be misconceptions over the math content. I think many of the kids would not unmute or turn on their cameras. Part of me feels terrible stating that I'll use breakout rooms in accelerated, but not in regular as I know it’s essential to use good strategies for ALL kids not just the “smarter” kids. But the other part of me is making a pedagogical choice based on knowing my students and knowing my curriculum.
Friday, March 12, 2021
week 9: Google Classroom app student selector
I’ve found myself this week getting really annoyed with the decreasing engagement and participation from kids during virtual learning. Virtual learning was a huge adjustment this fall and I don’t think I set a strong expectation for engagement just due to feeling everything out and unsure what was best practice. I’ve learned there is a fine line to walk when calling on kids in class. Ideally, they would unmute immediately and respond outloud. But in reality, students take forever to respond and then other kids answer in the chat while you are waiting for the student called on. Or the student called on has walked away from their computer and the teacher is unaware. It’s just frustrating and sometimes I feel like it’s not worth the time to call on kids to answer questions.
I’ve recognized one way to increase student accountability and participation is by calling on kids more frequently and randomly. I am not good at “randomly” selecting students. Especially in virtual learning, I know I would be much more inclined to pick a student I’m confident will respond and tempted to not call on students who are less engaged. The google classroom app has a neat student selector feature that shuffles the enrolled classroom students. It also allows the teacher to select when the student is absent or to call on them later. I’ve tried this week to use the student selector more frequently. I review with students the expectation when called on is to unmute promptly and answer. I remind them that if they don’t know the answer they can tell me that and that is fine. But if they don’t respond, I am unsure if they are at their computer.
I’ve recognized one way to increase student accountability and participation is by calling on kids more frequently and randomly. I am not good at “randomly” selecting students. Especially in virtual learning, I know I would be much more inclined to pick a student I’m confident will respond and tempted to not call on students who are less engaged. The google classroom app has a neat student selector feature that shuffles the enrolled classroom students. It also allows the teacher to select when the student is absent or to call on them later. I’ve tried this week to use the student selector more frequently. I review with students the expectation when called on is to unmute promptly and answer. I remind them that if they don’t know the answer they can tell me that and that is fine. But if they don’t respond, I am unsure if they are at their computer.
week 9: summary of Distance Learning: A Gently Curated Collection of Resources for Teachers
This post was published March 2020 a couple of weeks after the country shut down in response to covid-19. The post seems to be a response to the initial feelings of overwhelm and uncertainty how to chart the new territory of virtual learning. Here are some components of Gonzalez’s post that resonated with me.
-Get Physical: I’ve been walking or going to the gym for an hour plus almost daily with another teacher since covid began. This has been a highlight of the last year as it also provided a time to fill my relationship bucket with this friend and I know has helped me physically, mentally, and emotionally in tremendous ways.
-Connecting and Communicating with Students: I wish I had more time and energy to devote to strengthening connections with students. There are lots of little things that I do daily, but I want to be doing more handwritten notes and special activities. I have both synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for communication and learning in my virtual classroom, but I wish I had more time to devote to strengthening asynchronous content and resources.
-Keeping Everything Organized: I’m proud of the organization in my google classrooms this trimester. I have topics categorized by week and every single post has the date that it was covered in class as the first part of the title. These dates then match to the assignments in the gradebook.
-Options for Delivering Content: I would like to push myself to learn how to create good digital videos. I think it’s neat when kids can hear their own teacher’s voice. I’ve been intentional to use a variety of tools/platforms for delivering content in order to keep kids on their toes. However, I’ve thought more this year about examining the purpose of different tools and making sure it strengthens my instruction.
-Options for Demonstrating Learning: It’s been really nice to have the flexibility to not use district provided tests this year and rather create my own shorter assessments. I’ve struggled coming up with creative assessment ideas for mathematics.
-Make Social Interaction a Priority: Some of our kids are really struggling right now lacking this social interaction. It’s sad and scary. But on the flip side, what’s the best way to provide this social interaction when you also have content to cover? I was watching two of my student’s screens in a breakout room and they were talking about very inappropriate topics.
At the end of each year I draw a bubble map to reflect on my big takeaways/growth from the year. It’s interesting how the pandemic has forced us to examine pedagogy and practices from a new light. I’m hopeful some of this increased insight I’ve gained will transfer back to my in-person classroom in the fall.
-Get Physical: I’ve been walking or going to the gym for an hour plus almost daily with another teacher since covid began. This has been a highlight of the last year as it also provided a time to fill my relationship bucket with this friend and I know has helped me physically, mentally, and emotionally in tremendous ways.
-Connecting and Communicating with Students: I wish I had more time and energy to devote to strengthening connections with students. There are lots of little things that I do daily, but I want to be doing more handwritten notes and special activities. I have both synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for communication and learning in my virtual classroom, but I wish I had more time to devote to strengthening asynchronous content and resources.
-Keeping Everything Organized: I’m proud of the organization in my google classrooms this trimester. I have topics categorized by week and every single post has the date that it was covered in class as the first part of the title. These dates then match to the assignments in the gradebook.
-Options for Delivering Content: I would like to push myself to learn how to create good digital videos. I think it’s neat when kids can hear their own teacher’s voice. I’ve been intentional to use a variety of tools/platforms for delivering content in order to keep kids on their toes. However, I’ve thought more this year about examining the purpose of different tools and making sure it strengthens my instruction.
-Options for Demonstrating Learning: It’s been really nice to have the flexibility to not use district provided tests this year and rather create my own shorter assessments. I’ve struggled coming up with creative assessment ideas for mathematics.
-Make Social Interaction a Priority: Some of our kids are really struggling right now lacking this social interaction. It’s sad and scary. But on the flip side, what’s the best way to provide this social interaction when you also have content to cover? I was watching two of my student’s screens in a breakout room and they were talking about very inappropriate topics.
At the end of each year I draw a bubble map to reflect on my big takeaways/growth from the year. It’s interesting how the pandemic has forced us to examine pedagogy and practices from a new light. I’m hopeful some of this increased insight I’ve gained will transfer back to my in-person classroom in the fall.
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