Covid has turned the teaching profession upside down. However, with all situations in our profession, it is a good idea to take a moment and reflect on what we have done over the last year. As teachers, we have scrambled, cried, succeeded, and failed then cried some more. All of this has taught us that teaching remotely or concurrently is TOUGH.
But let’s also think positively. We have got a lot of new ideas. We have been forced to try new things out of our comfort zone. And a lot of the lesson creations we have come up with will also work in a face-to-face, traditional model. The benefit of being pushed out of our comfort zone is that we are forced to try things we would not have tried if we were not forced into it.
Let’s look at a few teaching practices we have learned that will work amazingly in our classrooms.
#1 Zoom Calls
It doesn’t matter if you use Zoom, Google Meet, or another platform to hold your digital classes, these conference call resources are beneficial to your face-to-face classroom. Use them to connect with other ASL classes. You can set up a pen-pal exchange or have music video competitions with students all over the country or the world.
You can also use these tools to bring in a guest speaker. You may not have the money to bring in someone from across the states, but you can have them in your classroom virtually.
#2 Digital Activities
Let’s think about how many digital activities you have made over the last year. I am sure it is a TON. All those hours of recording, editing and making videos and Gifs have been exhausting. The great news is that these resources are now ready for you to use as homework, sub-day lesson plans, and in-classroom work. The best news is, you can now easily plan out the work with little to no time taken from your day. If you wake up sick? No problem. You have a plan ready for you.
#3 Communication
How many of you tried a new communication app like Remind or a backchanneling tool like Jamboard, Mentimeter, or the comment feature in your LMS? These tools have allowed for the quietest of students to speak up and have a voice that may not be heard in the traditional classroom. Shy students sometimes won’t speak up in the classroom or share ides. However through digital communication, they can share their brilliant ideas, concerns, or help others with a difficult concept using these tools.
#4 Social-Emotional Learning
SEL lessons and check-ins have been a must throughout the pandemic. They have been a top priority of teachers and counselors while helping students navigate shifting to remote learning and managing a world-wide crisis.
Continuing these check-ins will help students feel comfortable and cared for in the learning environment. In turn, this will improve learning in the classroom. Checking in can come in many forms but my favorite is the use of a Google Form.
In my face-to-face classroom, I check in with students using a daily how do I feel poster so they can silently communicate what state of mind they are in when entering the room. If I notice a lot of down in the dumps responses, I can easily pull out and recycle a Form created during remote teaching.
#5 Organization
I don’t know about you but my LMS has never been so organized. I went from a million individual assignments to daily agendas in Google Classroom. I learned to record using Screencastify to explain the asynchronous work that students would often not remember what to do once they were on their own. I created a weekly agenda to keep myself and the students organized.
Being organized reduces stress for everyone.
#6 Testing
Cheating on tests has always been an issue for teachers. The stress is real. During online teaching, we had to come up with performance-based tests that showed what students really knew and could do. These tests will continue to be useful in face-to-face classrooms.
It is always wise to remember, if an answer can be Googled, it is not a good test. Students at home had unlimited access to devices and the internet. They could Google any answer we gave them on a test if it wasn’t written correctly. There was a need to create tests that showed the skills students could actually perform and understand. Presto, we now have better-written tests.
What ideas from remote teaching will you keep?
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