But mostly, I think it’s about being a few months into the school year. The new-ness has worn off (even this year, with so much new) and a holiday break is sounding good, and I (and I assume you) could use a reminder of the positives.
So, the struggles with tech and attendance and the impacts of the world on our students (and our teachers) are very real and very present. But, I’m taking a minute to remind myself of the wins.
Including …
+The student who came, so sick and still determined to zoom class.
+And the classmates who taught her the exponent lesson she had missed. (And passed along home remedies and good wishes)
+And the one who had been MIA for a few weeks who came back (I think it was the email “I’m worried because we haven’t seen you…” Because, connection, even in the slog of managing remote attendance)
+And the one who asked for quadratics. And the one who has been in school for like 2 months in the last 10 years who jumped into algebra on Khan academy.
I am worried about other students, and the challenges of the year, but these and others can keep us moving forward and reaching out and putting the best teaching we can out there.
Maybe it’s just me (except I know it’s not) But it’s easy to get caught up in an unattainable quest for teacher perfection. Especially here on the interwebs, where drive by comments are easy, and only the Pinterest-perfect shows in our feeds.
But, if ever there was a year for letting go of teacher perfectionism….this is it.
This will be — for many of us — a year of adapting and flexing and mostly making the best we can of decidedly not optimal situations.
Personally, I am resolving to never complain about the photocopier again, because I so miss a physical office and a classroom that is not my laptop angled strategically for the best video conference background view. I will be grateful when we are back to it in a way I never was before.
And yet, the truth is: the photocopier frequently jammed, and it hasn’t stapled right in ages, and imperfect as it was, I will still be grateful to work on paper in a real classroom again (all the wistful sighs for group work, and physical manipulatives, and no more zoom sessions…)
That teaching is better, and dearly missed, and also imperfect.
I am hoping that this is a thing I will learn from all of this. (Because, we ought to learn something for all we’ve been through) To be grateful, to flex and adapt, and also, to give some grace to the imperfections. Maybe, even, to my own.
And so I’m thinking about the ways we adapt. Ourselves, but also our materials.
Text books and worksheets are resources, if we use them well. I’m grateful for a shelf full (and grateful I brought them home when we first shut down)
And, yet. They are not perfect either.
Sometimes the examples are confusing or there isn’t enough practice or there’s too much of one thing. Or the critical thinking could be higher, or the focus clearer, or any number of other limitations.
So I hack it (read: adapt, modify)
Make a copy or a scan, block out the parts that don’t apply, hand-write in new instructions or questions, mix and match exercises or books, cut and paste if I have to. Make it work. (Mentally apologize to the human who labored to creat the resource in the first place)
The result is not the prettiest, perfect-looking activity. But it is a class that is planned, with a teacher who is calm(er?), and materials that are imperfect but good (like the rest of us) as we flex and adapt and make the best of it.
Nudge students to examine the explanatory text and/or example problem (that always gets skipped!), by asking them to write a summary, or read/think/pair/share.
Add a retrieval practice task.
Reading/writing task + neuroscience. Read the passage, turn the paper over, and write what you remember on the back or in your notebook.
Isolate one skill.
Interleaving is great. But for the love of numbers, sometimes we need to learn one thing at a time. Select the questions that are most relevant, eliminate the others.
Use copies and a glue stick or scans and a computer to cut and paste questions from two skills together to review, or to practice distinguishing two similar tasks
Add an annotation task.
Ask students to underline or circle a particular type of information in each question.
Add a problem analysis task.
“Before you solve each question, write the units you are looking for/operation you will use/restate the question/etc.”
Break the question into steps
Particularly useful for complex problems. Add a), b) and c) with prompts to scaffold thinking.
Change the question/answer format:
Add or remove an answer bank, or convert multiple choice to open ended to differentiate or adjust the challenge level to you students
Add or remove equivalent forms.
Ask students to give answer in two forms, or edit the answer key to accept un-simplified answers. Again, differentiation.
22/7 might be a better approximation of pi than 3.14, but sometimes you don’t want to reteach fractions in the middle of the geometry lesson. Sometimes you do.
Pandemics. Living through a pandemic. Teaching in the middle of a pandemic. Learning while living through a pandemic.
Let’s just acknowledge: this is hard.
Actually, it’s many different kinds of hard.
But the kind of hard I’m thinking about today is how it makes it hard to plan, but also, how much planning helps all the other hard things.
I’m back to remote teaching this month.
My students’ tech access is limited, and demands on everyone’s time are high, and I have a well-honed set of routines and teaching tools that are not all going to transfer, and it’s hard to let go of things I’ve worked to create.
But, we’re all making the best of it.
As teachers, we’re making new plans, discovering new tools, crafting new routines, finding new ways to support our students.
It’s helping me figure out a curriculum and new tools and design video conferencing classes.
It’ll help my students, as they figure out video conference classes and asynchronous work, and their kids’ video conferences or hybrid schedules or strange new in-person school routines.
And then we make a new plan for when vacations happen, or big exams approach, or something else changes.
Planning doesn’t solve everything. Some students never consistently make homework work. Some weeks, even for the most dedicated student, other things take priority. But, it helps.
So, in between all the new plans I’m making for this new year, I’m planning to keep our homework planning.
I’m glad we’re having these conversations. (We need to have more of them. )
And, as I am thinking about helping my students learn remotely, I am wishing we were talking more about the ability to learn (largely) independently.
Online learning takes screens and wifi, and it takes being able to focus (especially when all of the kids are home and everyone is stuck inside) and it takes being able to make choices and plan your time (when all the schedules have been altered) and pace yourself; and to motivate yourself (when you’re also worried about the news and your job and your kids). It takes being able to persevere when it gets hard and there’s no one around to ask for help.
I’ll be honest: I’m dealing with moments of worry, and frustration, and discouragement, and worry (again) for my students and our attempts at distance learning.
But, I’m also taking it as a lesson: this matters.
I’ve always thought independent learning would matter for homework, or for college, but we are learning that it also matters for our resilience and flexibility in the face of the completely unexpected.
I don’t have all the answers, but I spent some time adapting the tools I do have to online learning. I hope they help you and your students navigate this transition, and learn, and grow, and maybe emerge a little stronger on the other side.
Distance Learning Resources
Brain based Learning: Teaching our students the research on how to learn/study effectively
For at least the next couple of weeks (and for at least the rest of the semester for some of my classes) we’re figuring out distance learning. My inbox is full of tips and resources. It’s a little daunting. These are a few I’m actually bookmarking.
National Emergency Library (Because I love that this is a thing, and I’m sad that I didn’t get to my public library for a stack of paper books)
Panic-gogy (because, lets be real, it where a lot of us are)
Virtual Museum Tours (because, educational and uplifting, and we could use that)
The list of things I am not good at prominently features “change” and “uncertainty”
And these are times full of change and uncertainty.
We are all coping as best we can. My personal list of strategies includes yoga, walks, tea, naps, complaining, trying to count my blessings, meditating and not getting past 6 breaths without a worry, girl power pop anthems, and stress-eating too many cookies.
Which is to say, you do you, and no judgement about what gets you through.
And, because I am an over thinker, and curious about the human brain and performance, and because it’s better than alternative lines of thought, and — you know — it’s relevant: I’ve been thinking more than ever about self care.
Sometimes, often, self care is about taking a break. Taking the breath, the break, stepping away from the to do list to relax and rest and restore. This is important and helpful.
Putting on work clothes (even though I’m working from home), and checking something, anything off the list, and reminding myself that while I can’t fix or control many things, I can do some small things. This is helping. A lot, actually.
So, as we’re all experimenting with walks and cookies and yoga vs. pandemic stress, reminders to myself…
I desperately want clear, calm communication about what is happening. But, I feel better when I channel that anxiety into providing as much clear, calm communication to my students as I can.
I am grieving some of what will not transfer, as we are told our classes will be digital. But I feel better when I take a small first step and find a way to ask my students what they want the new thing to be. (Here’s a quick survey I sent my students about distance learning goals, if you’d like to do the same)
I particularly like this one to start with a new group.
It’s powerful to start by saying “Yep, we all feel stuck sometimes. “
It’s even more powerful to start the year by saying “But ‘stuck’ isn’t the end of the story”
Originally published Feb. 2018, updated spring 2020
These hint cards floated across my teacher-media radar. And I was intrigued.
I see too many students hit a roadblock and stare at it helplessly, unsure of how to get around it, and that’s the end of that study session/class/learning until someone comes around to get them unstuck.
I liked the idea of a resource that they could access when they hit those roadblocks, that wasn’t just waiting for me.
I work hard to convince my students that it’s great to ask questions, so I wanted to be sure I didn’t discourage that, just to broaden the options to include resources and strategies that they have or can implement themselves.
(Because self-directed learning, but also, homework.)
Also, I didn’t want to make a different set of cards for each lesson.
(Because in the reality of my prep time, I couldn’t be sure they’d actually happen every week, and I needed something reliable if students were going to use it.)
So, the idea rattled around in my head for weeks until it was ready to come out.
What emerged: have a discussion about strategies, and combine it with a math lesson so students don’t revolt about losing math time. (Because, #reasonstoloveadultlearners, they would be upset to miss out of math time)
Some of my students were far better than others at this, and one class ran out of ideas after ‘keep trying’ and ‘ask for help’. This says much about the struggles of that particular group of students.
But it also says, come prepared, teacher, with some ideas of your own.
Once we had a list, we collected data about my students’ current habits. (I had my students come to the board and make tally marks, you could use a printable ballot, hands, four corners etc.)
Then we analyzed our results. One class made bar graphs, one wrote statements with ratios. Since that first time, I’ve done percents and a few other math skills.
And, now their strategies (and the bar graphs) are on the wall, right next to my white board. A reminder – I hope! – for the rest of the trimester.
The lesson plan includes the plan (with standards and procedures), extension ideas, multiple data collection variations, and student handouts for fractions, ratios, percents, and bar graphs.
