We all know it. The struggle to teach to different groups of students in our current hybrid situation. The factor I’ve struggled most with since our return to school is maintaining equity for all students, but especially the students remaining at home full-time.

With that in mind, I reflected over break about the reading experience in my junior English classes last semester. EdPuzzle enabled me to expand student knowledge about racial issues tied to American history that The Underground Railroad touches on in a way I hadn’t before. The leverage of engaging videos also enabled me to cover many more ideas in the curriculum that I wasn’t able to last year. Still, my ability to promote and hold students accountable to an authentic reading of The Underground Railroad wasn’t what I could do in person. 

Strategies, including team-reading discussion boards were not as effective. Despite posting an agenda and calendar throughout the unit on Schoology, many students simply admitted forgetting to do the discussion board. Many said they forgot about it because it “didn’t show up as an assignment” on Schoology. 

I also noticed that team-reading, small Socratic seminars were hit-and-miss as some students consistently read and many others clearly didn’t. This did happen prior to the Pandemic in my classes, but on a much smaller scale. While I was able to police these strategies and provide daily reminders in the classroom pre-Pandemic, these strategies were largely ineffective in our current situation. I don’t have the same immediate access to students and the ability for check-ins and conversations that students can’t avoid.

So, in preparing for the second semester I wanted to promote authentic reading and also create a new way to hold my students accountable. That has led me to returning to a couple of old-school approaches I haven’t used in my classes in quite some time.

Every time I teach The Great Gatsby I find a new piece of language or concept to analyze, or a student has a brand-new insight. It is the beauty of teaching this masterpiece. However, it also comes with a struggle for how best to teach it as it entails a text that can be difficult and ambiguous at times, especially for teenagers. 

The writer craft choices that F. Scott Fitzgerald makes are subtle.  It is this fact that enables him to characterize not only an infamous time in American history, but also the excess and decadence that an exclusive group had access to from family money or though the free market exploding with the Industrial Revolution.

I have always found that the “aha moments” for students require early modeling of characterization, for example, from the teacher with any novel, let alone The Great Gatsby. So, I focused many class sessions early in the unit on live reading of passages and my modeling and class discussion of characterization. Each class section authentically-genuine in its own way. Fitzgerald’s language, like that of plays, is best heard aloud.

However, I do not have all of my students in class at one time. So, I have decided to employ an audiobook of The Great Gatsby through EdPuzzle, with reading comprehension and thematic questions and historical information built into the audio. The goal is for students to read along with the novel while the strategic questions help prepare them for the small-group discussions and class activities that reinforce the reading and skills of the unit. 

Another added bonus about EdPuzzle is that it tracks the time a student spends on it. For me that is an beyond a bonus as it tells me how much time they are spending answering questions (if any) or if they are just listening to the audio to complete it. Not to mention it shows up as an assignment in Schoology, so no more it “didn’t show up as an assignment” excuses from students. 

The other reality is that kids can find plenty of sources online to cheat their way through the reading, whether in person or in our current hybrid model. So, I have also decided to give short reading quizzes in my classes for the first time in three years. The goal again is to hold students accountable to authentic reading and guidance I have set up through the audio and questions on EdPuzzle. 

Just before posting this blog, I received the following email from a student:

    I was wondering if the second chapter Edpuzzle would be available to be released this weekend if we are going to continue reading like that? I really enjoyed reading along with the audio. I think hearing the voice brings the characters to life and, in return, makes me more invested in the story. The questions were also helpful in making me think deeper about the text. I am excited to continue with the book.

I can only hope that this is the common experience in my classes, for now. I will report back at the end of the unit if this approach was effective overall.

Student Choice 

To help encourage engagement in the classroom and allow students to have options with assignments. This also provides a choice for the student to attend in person or not. 

Giving students meaningful choices with what they are working on can boost engagement and motivation. This allows students to choose something in their area of interest or strength and meet each individuals learning needs. 

In math it is sometimes hard to get students to connect with the material and relate it to themselves. I believe that if you bring creativity into the classroom students can bring in their own interests and connect it to the content. Over the semester we learned many different functions and how to graph them. In order to provide a learning environment where the students would have a more meaningful assignment I created an over arching project to bring in all the chapters we have learned so far. In the assignment students were to represent the parent graph of each function we discussed throughout the semester in some visual representation. I wanted to see that students could clearly graph and state each parent function. They could choose any way they wanted to demonstrate their understanding. I showed and example of my expectations of creativity and listed a few ways they could make something. From there it was up to them and I just awaited the results. I got an overwhelming amount of excitement and variability from the students, including drawings, videos, sketches, etc. Below you can find a couple examples.

There are many ways you can provide your students choice in the classroom. This can be; seating arrangements, group members, ways of being assessed, the problems they do on tests or homework, and more. However you are able to provide choice effectively it is such a powerful tool to foster student engagement.

 This year has been a year for new, big ideas – not because we have a lot of mental space, because we don’t, or a lot of extra time on our hands, because we definitely don’t, but rather because teaching has been SO different that we had to break all of our visions of what standard teaching is/should be in order to meet the new challenges.  I think this is something that, as a school, we’ve done creatively and admirably.  

In chemistry, we completely rearranged our curriculum path and started implementing new methods of communicating expectations to students.  We’ve been switching to a mix of projects and tests to work around potential issues of academic integrity and to create student choice and voice, have students start to make connections between our seemingly esoteric topics and real-world phenomena – all of which are great things, and nothing that we ever would have tried in the Beforetimes.  

But here’s where I echo something that Mitch commented on elsewhere – in redesigning our curriculum flow and creating all of these outlets for potential self-learning, what has to get cut?  How do we fit everything in?  And how do we make authentic learning connections in a time when it’s not feasible to do labs, due to the sheer fact that they can’t be within 6 feet of a lab partner?

As someone who lives through sheer curiosity about the world, it saddens me to think that I am potentially losing an entire year of students who might have loved chemistry if they had been able to experience the experimental side of things, which is where the science truly comes to life, transforming opaque, tedious concepts into windows into the magnificence of the construction of creation. Yes, we are doing virtual versions of the labs, we are doing self-guided exploration to engage student interest, but I can’t help but feel that there is something missing.

Here’s where I start wondering- are there enough students who are not necessarily ‘good at’ science, but who are consumed with curiosity about the world to create a club?  One where they can pursue their own scientific explorations (within reason), maybe work on community science to find their passion before it gets stultified by massive college lecture halls and terrifying college exams? I have this beautiful vision of some of my former chemistry students, especially the ones who didn’t think they were any good at science because they struggled with testing, discovering something that *did* excite them and made them realize that they could be a scientist if they wanted to. It also brings up ideas about sidestepping potential systemic issues that lead to minority students dropping out of science early, because this sort of exploration doesn’t have anything to do with testing or assignments, but is instead driven by passion and curiosity.  There are so many amazing possibilities that could come out of this…and yet.

Would we simply find the same issue there – the issue of time? Students are already massively overscheduled, even in this time, and between 3-4 clubs, 7 classes, leadership, Company, etc etc…where is there time to allow exploration and curiosity, even in a potential cohort situation? Just like we are crunched for time in the classroom, and we have to decide between more but shallower content or less but deeper or self-driven content, students must choose the smartest options for their limited free time…and is a freewheeling exploration of science going to make the cut?

As many of you know, I love podcasts.  I subscribe to a lot of them.  The podcast, 99% Invisible with Roman Mars is one that I’ve listened to and loved for a few years now.  The podcast is one that explores design.  I’ve learned so much about design ofavariety of things, the history of design, and how so much of our world is actually designed.  The latest episode is especially interesting from a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens.  Episode 414, “The Address Book” is a conversation with the author Deirdre Mask about her book, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power.  I found it fascinating.  I don’t want to give too much away, but I especially found the discussion about the address as an equity engine super interesting.  

I’m going to keep this short, because I really want you all to check it out.  If you enjoy this episode, check out other episodes.  Roman Mars also has a book coming out (that I have already pre ordered) called The 99% Invisible City.  

Have you ever been waiting for your participants to join your zoom session and felt the awkward silence? Have you ever been joining a zoom session in the silence and wondering if you should spark a conversation? Well here is a fun way to eliminate any awkward or uncomfortable moments. At the start of the school year I posted a survey for my students to complete. On the survey I included a question asking their favorite song. I took these songs and created a Spotify playlist. Which fun fact Spotify is free to sign up for!

Each class when girls are entering my zoom session I play one song from the playlist. I personally love watching the girls dance along or bring out the hairbrush microphone. This is not only a great filler to start class but it sets the tone. We start class all on the same positive note. This activity builds on our classroom community as we are sharing our favorite songs. You can see that each student has their own identity through the playlist created. I got a mix of pop, rock, country, reggae, and more. We have our differences and we are celebrating and sharing those each class. You can grab the link to the playlist to share with your students. Maybe they found a new favorite song or love the mood of the playlist and want to listen more. I will be accepting songs through the year to add on the playlist. As we know a favorite song can change!

An extension you can add is have students share why they chose this as their favorite song. You can also ask instead of their favorite song what their walk up song would be if they had one. This is their pump up song that can be easy for students to share and explain. Here is the link to my playlist if you would like to check out what some students picked out! You may even see your favorite song.

Reflection Video

I attended many webinars pertaining to teaching remotely, in addition to webinars that addressed language instruction and providing Comprehensible Input via online classes. Some of the webinars were pretty informative, and it’s a blessing to be able to get some professional development for free, and from the comfort of my own home. Other webinars left a lot to be desired, but this also helped me realize that many teachers are in the same boat as I, trying to navigate these choppy waters of online instruction.

The first webinar I attended was on March 19, led by Lance Piantaggini about avoiding burnout with online classes. I didn’t find this webinar to be particularly beneficial. He noted

having a lot repeated activities and check ins, which are important to online teaching, however I found his use of very long check ins to be tedious and a way to pass time. He did point out that being organized and recycling material is useful to avoid burnout however, and I found that with online teaching, there are so many resources and tools that it becomes overwhelming and unorganized,  so I have attempted to hone my focus on a few platforms that work for me, and keep the structure similar each day, so that students can find an expected routine, rather than constantly experimenting with different tools that can get cumbersome, confusing, and ultimately frustrating.

The next webinar that I attended was on April 21, led by Alicia Quintero. This webinar focused mostly on remote learning and techniques that this instructor had been using to teach her classes in Spanish. Her focus was on asking students check in questions to keep students engaged in a sense of community. She did mention that she has pretty long Zoom sessions to teach her classes, and I find this to be burdensome for some students. Again, this instructor emphasized reusing activities and structures to keep students familiar with activities, so that they could almost automatically know what to expect for the next class. This instructor also focused heavily on being meticulously organized with planning out lessons first in a physical binder, and having all of her resources and materials out in front of her physically, so that she could keep track of her lessons and instructions. I do believe that staying organized, and structured during online instruction is vital, to keep a level of cohesiveness and clarity for the instructor and students. This was the most valuable lesson that I took from this webinar.

Another webinar was on April 14, led by Bryan Kandel. I have attended many of his webinars in the past, and he has a lot of great tools and ideas that I have found useful and have implemented in my own teaching.

Bryan’s focus is on comprehensible input and how to achieve this in an online setting. He had some great stories (that he wrote himself) and he narrated the stories in Spanish and he included corresponding pictures and images to help with comprehension as he read along. He used tools such as Screencastify and slides to facilitate his instruction, and he kept activities simple, organized, and consistent. Again, he used familiar platforms repeatedly to avoid confusion. He used activities such as calendar talk, and he was directing instruction mostly himself. He suggested platforms such as EdPuzzle, FlipGrid, and video responses to illicit student response and student engagement. EdPuzzle is a way to ascertain that a student watched a video tutorial and answered the corresponding questions. I have found that in the past, if I scheduled a video tutorial for students to watch, many of them would skip the video and move on to the activity immediately, to finish faster without actually learning. EdPuzzle makes sure that a student watches the entire video and answers corresponding questions throughout the video to show that the student understands the material as they go along. Flip Grid allows students to show a video response, and record their answer and it allows other students to view their classmates’ videos and respond as well, which is also a great tool for comprehensible input. It was validating to see that I have also implemented these practices in my class and that I’m kind of on the same page as this other instructor.

I also attended a conference in UC Berkeley called the World Language Project. This was a 6 week course every weekend, and it was incredibly informative and helpful to professional growth. I learned many activities that facilitate comprehensible input, and gained access to authentic resources, which help move my instruction to more reality based for my students to understand the value and importance of language learning, rather than going through the motions in a vacuum for the sake of getting a grade. I have shown meals throughout the world, and students compared school lunches from around the world in the target language (Spanish). This was a very valuable course, and I hope to continue taking other levels in the future.

We have just found out that we will be sheltered outside of our school until the end of the school year.  That brings about feelings, and in my case, some pretty weird dreams.  When we transitioned to this four weeks ago, one big recurring thing I heard from teachers was the fear that there would be no way to properly evaluate learning as no tests could be given because there was no secure way to administer a test that excluded options to cheat.

Let me tell you: it’s BIG. This is a road map for language teachers who are teaching “comprehensible input”.  What is comprehensible input? It’s learning language and being exposed to a language without understanding every word and structures in it. It’s considered to be one level above what the learners understand. Teachers are teaching the class in the target language, and students are getting input that’s well…comprehensible. There are various tools and cool activities that are delineated in this book. It’s very comprehensive…not to be confused with comprehensible. (lulz) I liked a lot of what the author Ben Slavic suggests such as

•  speaking much, much slower while teaching in general. We teachers don’t realize how quickly we speak because we understand the material really well. This isn’t a thing that just applies to language teachers, this is across the board. He suggests that language teachers have about a 2-3 second pause between EACH WORD. I find that to be very tedious, however if the students are brand new to the language, I guess that makes sense. One of my biggest take aways from this book is that we all need to slow down the speech because I guarantee you, that many students are getting about half of what we’re saying. Which leads me to my next point:
• Slavic also suggests “circling” concepts. Again, it’s not just applicable to language teachers. The more students hear a certain word, or structure, the more input they are receiving and they won’t have to memorize all of the conjugations (I still like conjugations, but I guess I’m weird). Students will simply have the material ingrained in their consciousness and the structures will just sound right. This is what language learning is about. This can be applied to other classes as well. Perhaps the “structures” are being circled hundreds of times, like Slavic suggests, however I believe that reiterating material over and over again until the students are sick of hearing it, is important. When they’re sick of hearing it, that finally means that they got it and then it’s redundant, and it finally stuck. Maybe…that’s my theory anyway.