Teaching in Turbulent Times: Due March 23 (approx)

Hi all, as I stated in the contingency plan, all due dates are approximate, and I understand that you may be working on slightly different schedules depending on your work/personal situation right now. You will not be penalized for “lateness.”

This week, I’d really like to hear about how and what you’re doing, both personally (if you’re interested/willing to share) and particularly in regards to your school and teaching. How has your school community handled coronavirus and the need to shift to remote/distance/online learning? What resources do your students need right now? What resources do you need?

If you are not currently teaching, consider reading over some of the resources I included in the contingency plan and discussing what questions, concerns, and ideas you have about teaching online/teaching during coronavirus.

11 thoughts on “Teaching in Turbulent Times: Due March 23 (approx)”

  1. Hey y’all:
    I HATE TO BE THE ONE WHO SAYS THIS, BUT…
    I’m extremely excited to be teaching remotely. I have a background in digital journalism and have used online sites/sources/resources for over 6+ years such as slack, Google Suite/meets, Zoom, Kalo, Spark, etc.

    **IF ANYONE IN CLASS NEEDS HELP WITH NAVIGATING ANY SITES/NEEDS NEW SITES/RESOUCES, PLEASE HIT ME UP:
    ATanney@schools.nyc.gov
    I’d be HAPPY to help you out**

    I’m doing much better than expected in terms of moving onto remote learning. I feel like I’m fortunate in this retrospect because my students all have access to Internet and some sort of device at home. I know other teachers are struggling with this. However, due to the neighborhood/area I teach, my kids have at least one computer/tablet at home.

    I’m using Google Classroom for all assignments and correspondence with my students. They all have school emails connected to G Suite, so they are able to sign up. Here’s my breakdown of what I have posted:
    On Google Classroom, students will find the following:
    1. An eLearning Assignment Schedule:
    -This schedule will have all assignments including date assigned, date due, reading and writing assignments. I will upload this daily.
    2. ELA Rubrics
    -All writing rubrics that students will be graded on. This includes Constructed Response rubrics, Literary Analysis rubrics, Thematic Essay rubrics, and Argumentative Essay rubrics.
    3. ELA Resources
    -I have uploaded all of the resources I have in our ELA classroom, including graphic organizers, essay organizers, figurative language packets, transition words/vocab words phrases.
    4. Reading Journals:
    -In place of annotating the text, I am asking students to complete reading journals for the remaining chapters of the novel. All directions are posted on Google Classroom, as well as journal templates made for each individual student to type into.
    5. Reading Quizzes:
    -I will still be assigning chapter quizzes for the students to take. This will be done on Google Forms and posted on Google Classroom.
    4. Short-Form Writing Assignments:
    -I will post all questions for constructed response work here. Students can simply answer them in a Google Document and upload it in the appropriate spot on Google Classroom.
    5. Long-Form Writing Assignments:
    -At the end of the novel, students will be asked to complete an argumentative essay. I will be posting the prompt choices for students and will give them ample time to complete this and will be available to answer any questions or concerns students have.
    6. Reading Packets:
    -After we complete the novel, I will be assigning some short story packets and poetry analysis packets for students to complete.

    [file:///Users/alexatanney/Downloads/Screen%20Shot%202020-03-18%20at%2012.07.18%20PM.html]

    My students have about 9 chapters left of “To Kill A Mockingbird,” so I uploaded the PDF version of the novel for students who lost their book/can’t find it. Additionally, I upload the audiobook of the novel by chapter for struggling/IEP students. To add to this, I’ve added chapter summaries and breakdowns/analysis of the chapters for students who are struggling with comprehension.

    They will take Chapter Quizzes every 2-3 chapters that I’ve created on Google Forms—all multiple choice/True/False.

    Instead of doing annotating right in the novel that they have been doing, I’ve replaced this with “double-entry reading journals.” Every chapter, my students will pick 5 text-based details/quotes to analyze, and write five responses (5 sentences per response). I’ve provided them with sentence stems/starters for this.

    When we complete the novel, students will be writing an argumentative essay from a prompt of their choice (given 5 different text-based prompts). They will also submit this on Google Classroom for feedback/grades.

    After we finish the novel, if we’re still out of school, I’ll be doing a few Newsela articles with them. My plan was to teach “Night” after the state tests/spring break. IF we come back to school, we’ll be continuing with this as planned. If we don’t go back April 20th, I may do a different plan of action. TBD at the time.

    Otherwise, SMOOTH SAILING SO FAR!

  2. I have been doing ok during this transition. But I am frustrated by the lack of support from the DOE. I genuinely don’t feel like I’ll struggle, but it’s clear to me at my school that a lot of people will. The DOE pretty much told us to use Google Classroom, and other than that, good luck. I feel as if the expectations of students and learning that is going to happen will be so varied, and this is mainly because of the lack of support the DOE has provided.

    This whole situation also creates a lot of stress for me as well thinking towards next year. I am a leave replacement teacher, and now my uncertainty has fallen even farther down on the priority ladder for my admin. I feel as if I will have job uncertainty for next year hanging over my head until an undetermined time. I need to remember that other people don’t have jobs at all; during this trying time, I am lucky. But all of the uncertainty with this situation makes it even harder to deal with.

    Also, I feel terrible for my students. First off, the students who will be most negatively affected are the ones who are worse off to begin with. School closures will most impact students with special needs and students with low-income families. My high achieving students will be fine. They will do all the work I give them, and when school comes back in session, they will be ready to go. But my students with special needs who are already behind in most classes will come back even farther behind. And several of my students are home insecure, and I honestly don’t know how they will be dealing during this time. It frustrates me how apparent the flaws in our system are during this pandemic.

  3. This week has been nothing short of overwhelming and confusing for me, beyond belief. My school administration has been doing the best they can, in the circumstances provided, to make the transition to online learning, however many teachers in my building have been struggling. I wouldn’t say teachers aren’t prepared or “tech savvy” enough for remote learning, however it’s just overwhelming. Between creating assignments where students, in some cases, have to teach themselves, we’ve had questions that have yet to be answered–will these students still be expected to take regents and AP exams? How can we truthfully penalize students not completing their work, if they’ve now become a care-taker for their younger siblings? How urgent is the need to monitor education when there’s an influx of new cases every hour?

    Many of my students have been reaching out, as this isn’t the “vacation” they wanted…and the date of April 20th has frightened them beyond belief. This is the aspect that breaks my heart the most, simply because their desire to return to normalcy is equally matched by me. I think this is the largest “resource” I would need, some reminder that we will return to normalcy, as my students leaning on me, truthfully, drains me. I do not like distance learning, and from student feedback thus far, they hate it as well. This, and the media has been driving me crazy–let alone my students. The main resource I need includes a “how-to” on existing without massive anxiety during a pandemic, as I seem to have missed that graduate course when it was offered. I need to be sane, to help my students, who have been emailing asking me what’s going to happen. I can’t help them if I can’t help myself, and right now I have no idea how to do anything.

  4. This week has been completely overwhelming for me, in terms of setting everything up for remote learning and connecting with parents. Most of my students do not have access to WiFi and do not have any tablets or laptops to work with, so it has been a challenge getting in contact with all of them and providing them with the resources needed for this transition. The DOE has been unprepared for everything that has happened this past week and it has trickled down to administrators and educators, in terms of creating a uniformed environment for students about to begin this digital learning journey. My school community has tried the best they can, in terms of coming up with a plan for the upcoming weeks and providing resources for all of their teachers to use. As for the older staff in my building, they are really struggling during this transition, since the use of technology has never been a necessity for them and I have now found myself in five different group chats explaining Google classroom to them. As Amelia stated, my anxiety is what has been the biggest problem for me right now, in terms of worrying about the pandemic and just worried about how my students are.

    I have not been able to stop thinking about my students, in terms of those low income families that are really struggling during this time. Many of the students have reached out to me and just want to have daily conversations with me because they miss the normalcy of going to school and partaking in conversations with others outside of their homes. I have been trying to answer as many questions as I possibly can, in terms of students already feeling overwhelmed and scared for what is to come. I wish I could do more for them, but I know I just have to be there for them in the only way I can for right now and hope everything goes back to normal soon.

  5. Although I am not teaching, my position as an advisor really does rely on meeting with students face to face. I’ve been working on launching a Skype advising schedule, as well as advising through email, but I have also been in the middle of a few projects for our program that are really important. Given the shift to online classes, a lot of the students that I work with are worried about their grades and are considering withdrawing from their courses. (I work with Biology students, and a lot of them are hoping to go to medical school or PA school– so grades are everything.) I’ve actually been working with some of my program’s new adjuncts to help them find ways to engage their students online, like having a small group format (like we’ll be doing in this class), individual student videos, online games, and online peer reviews. At the same time, I have been working on trying to identify the struggling students who haven’t reached out to me. Something I really wish I had teaching (and now have as an advisor) is access to an “early alert” system, in which a professor can alert a student’s advisor that they are struggling in class. I’ve been sifting through these alerts as well as GPAs in order to find those students who need some help. I’ve also been working on recruitment strategies for our program; I planned some really interesting tours of labs for high school seniors, and now need to figure out how to get the same appeal in a webinar format from my home. Overall, I really do enjoy my face-to-face interactions with students, and it’s difficult to share challenging news (like their inability to graduate this spring) with them over email. I try to keep as organized as possible, but it’s not the same to email a student as it is to hand them one of my handy dandy to-do lists with our decided-upon action plan. I enjoy making students laugh and feel comfortable in my office, and it’s hard to transition to a distance-based system that really does make you feel distant.

  6. I know I’m late in responding to this thread, but I have to say that I’m definitely excited to teach remotely from home. Seeing my school being forced to transition into digital learning has been an interesting experience to say the least, but a necessary one that has been overdue. However, there are many of my students that lack access to internet or technology in order to access their Google Classroom class which has made it difficult for me as a teacher. Most of my students with the exception of 3 have been able to successfully join their classes, but my 8th period class is still missing a significant portion of my students. Despite multiple attempts to reach out to these students, there hasn’t been much success in getting them up and running which is worrisome when it comes to their education. I hope that the admin team will be able to reach out to the parents of these students or to the students themselves soon.

    In terms of the initial setup of Google Classroom and getting my assignments up and running, it has been relatively easy for me. One of the things I dislike is prerecording my mini-lessons which just feels rushed and robotic. I’m counteracting this by having my students join me in a live stream during our standard class time so that I can walk them through the essential parts of the both the lesson and the text. I’m going to try to use Google Hangouts to see how well it works for my purposes, but I may look into Zoom if that doesn’t work.

    For myself, I’m doing fine. I had a scare with my grandmother going into the hospital last weekend when the outbreak really started hitting its stride, and being in close proximity to people who were confirmed to have it. Fortunately my grandmother was fine (she was admitted for non-coronavirus related issues) and she left better than when she entered. I’ve just been trying to continue to live my life within a safe manner. I think that’s all any of us can do at this time.

  7. As someone who is not currently teaching, I can’t imagine the difficulty my classmates are currently experiencing while trying to successfully execute remote learning, especially for those who are teaching students from low income backgrounds who do not always have the necessary tools and environments needed to keep up with their learning. I admire all of your efforts and I am continually amazed by some of the strategies my peers have been coming up with.

    Looking over some of the resources as well as others, I noted that many propose using Google Meet and other such video-based mediums to replicate a kind of digital classroom setting. It is being implemented in other classes I am taking as well. While it works well enough for a group of 10, I often wonder of the success and impact it might have on classrooms with larger size capacities. With large class sizes that range from 25-40 students, it seems near impossible to have productive discussions without experiencing technical failures or problems of too many people speaking at once (or being inaudible). I wonder what might be a better alternative, or if implementing discussion forums or blog posts might be a better way of temporarily navigating distance learning.

    Personally, this situation is causing great distress, and I am always seeking ways in which to alleviate the perpetual anxiety I feel. I share the same sentiments with my classmates – we need hope, some kind of offering that things will get better soon for everyone. There is an end to be had at some point, but exactly when, we really can’t know. We can only rely on and support our government’s medical practitioners while doing our best to follow protocol and keep ourselves, and our communities, safe. I wish the best of luck to everyone as you continue to do your best at teaching your students any way that you can.

    This is slightly off-topic, but for those experiencing anxiety and stress, and as posed in some of the resources provided by Karen, I recommend practicing yoga (my partner and I do this via video chat since we can’t be together right now), and mindfulness. It sounds like a cliché, but I really do find it helpful in at least situating myself, if only a little bit, especially if I don’t want to go outside to run.

    Stay well everyone.

  8. Hi everyone!
    The past week or so has been chaotic and overwhelming. I feel that my school was trying their best but was very unprepared for this and thus, most of us have been in a frenzy. I am fine but I feel bad for my students especially my self-contained class because this is very different for all of them. I have been contacting parents for the past week just to get the students onto the Google classroom platform and some of them are still not on it. Also, most of my students will be fine in terms of handing in assignments or reaching out if they have questions but I feel that it will really affect my students with special needs (ICT) and students in my self-contained class. There is much less guidance and prompting when you are not with them. Regardless, I know that it’s only the first week and it will get easier and run more smoothly.

  9. This is such a sad tragedy, and worse I don’t believe we have seen even a small glimpse into how this is going to affect our schools, community, country and the world. I am immediately fearful of persons at risk who could end up hospitalized or worse. Down the road, I am so afraid for how many people will lose their jobs and the overall economic downturn this will result in.

    Watching both sides of the news, I expected far more political mud slinging that has been out there. I am so glad at how our governor and our president have been able to put personal politics aside to move forward and help our communities. I cringe at every time I see a divided country down party lines and now would be the absolute worst time for it. Now is our time to stand together.

    I have taken a personal hit as I and many of my tenants are out of work. Making rent is not going to happen for several of them and for the foreseeable future my wife and I are going to take the financial hit. Luckily, we have our rainy-day resources so as long as this doesn’t continue into 2021, we will be fine.

    For me, teaching online is nothing like being in a classroom with students. I smile a bit to myself every time one of our professors reminds us to put our cell phones away and focus on class because of how often I find myself doing the same thing. The distractions are real, I love learning all kinds of things from Youtube, it has some invaluable resources, but what about those students who are lacking in intrinsic motivation? How do you combat the distractions and instant gratifications that our students are now subjected to during our lessons? For this reason, I feel that having a strong lesson is more important now than ever, and I believe that making lessons relevant and real for our students is essential.

    I hope everyone out there and their families are staying safe. I don’t think our communities will be back up and running until May from what I am seeing. We will have to keep an eye on second wave infections in South Korea, China and Italy to get an idea of what we can expect for ourselves.

  10. At the end of last school year, I said I was going to launch myself into google classroom next year and make it a part of my everyday use….Then I signed up for some grad courses and that plan quickly turned into a “next year” goal. Well, until it was announced last week that we were moving to remote learning. Our principal notified us of google classroom and how to set it up—along with google meets. We have been fortunate that our administration supports us in a way that we are not being micromanaged with assignments and grading. Our supervisor tells us everyday to be lenient with assignments, check in with our students first, ask about assignments second. To push for a rigorous instruction is not the move right now, we are only in week one. While we are still reading our unit 3 novel, I am also incorporating journal entries—It is most important students have an avenue to express themselves in these times.

    Journal entry #1: No School!(Well, sort of).
    1. What was your reaction when you learned that you would not return to school until at least April 20? Write about your thoughts and feelings.
    2. Write about the first conversation you had with a friend, family member about this situation..….Write about their reaction when you learned you would not return to school. How did it make you feel?
    MAKE IT AWESOME: Give this journal entry a creative title!

    While April 20th is the goal date to return to school, realistically, a lot of my administrators, co workers and myself believe remote learning will be the rest of the school year. Sadly, I’ve been a bit of a grouch this school year; I’ve always been the teacher to allow kids to come up during lunch, to give students the opportunity to put their head down when they’re having a bad day, the teacher who builds rapport with all students, not just the select few, and while I felt I did that in some ways, I was hoping to have the rest of the school year to fulfill that rapport building with ALL of my students. I think if I had to describe it, I would describe feeling a little burnt out this year: I’m new to co-teaching (which has had ups and downs but has come with many frustrations), my school has asked me to take on a teacher lead role for new teachers and I attend multiple meetings a week to build the school community, and getting back into taking grad school courses, this year has felt a little overwhelming, however, last Thursday I sat in my empty classroom (potentially for the last time) and I looked at poems students recreated from Eli Wiesel’s “Never Shall I forget,” I looked at my classroom library that was all disheveled, 25 book reading campaigns that I haven’t been keeping up with for the kids, and the idea of walking out of my classroom in March for the last time this school year left me feeling morose. Remote learning is not ideal, but it might have come at a good time in my third year of teaching because things were getting a little crazy. It will have it’s challenges, I think it will be a refresher and a reminder when I start missing the students of why I decided to teach in the first place.

    Finally, I just wanted to share with everyone I am using this time to personally grow outside of my profession as well. For a year now, I’ve wanted to learn the ukulele…..and it just arrived today!

    Any song requests for our video conferences?
    Hope you are all well

  11. Last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday my two coteachers and I set up a curriculum road map for remote learning that included video meets, reading and my favorite “Living History: Living through COVID 19 Journal”, which we use in place as the morning meeting and starter. Today we met as a whole class via Google Meet Video. It was so nice to hear and see everyone. Even though it was remote it felt good to check in. My school and students have been online and have 1 to 1 computers for two years, the transition to remote was seamless because all students were able to take their laptops home if they didn’t have technology available to them. Students were joking and in good spirits about what they were going to do for lunch and when they could use the bathroom. It was a lot of fun to be able to tell them they could come into the google meet and go as they please. Most of them got the work done. Others needed extra time, which is fine by me.
    Resources that my students need: streaming ACTIVITIES; many of them were explaining how much they missed gym and physical activity. Many of their parents refuse to let them leave (I don’t blame them) but cannot figure out how to get them active and moving. I am considering hosting a zumba class because I think it would be fun. I need a break from computers and screens!
    Hope everyone is well and staying healthy!

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