Teaching Before and After Covid: You Were Never Promised a Rose Garden.

Before Covid this math teacher had the interactive board and the whiteboard.

After Covid she has a mouse, microphone, webcam, speakers, graphics tablet and sits in front of her laptop for most of the period.  She also has a new cable hell.  Today in this class she has no remote students Zoomed in but in many of the classes there is at least one student on Zoom during class.  She says the graphics tablet, an XP-Pen Deco 3 for $110, has made a huge difference.  She can now write on a shared screen with ease.  It is her whiteboard when she is doing remote.  Not all our teachers have this setup.  

Math Room

This English teacher has a different approach.  She has the usual laptop, microphone and big screen TV.  Notice the webcam on the top of the TV.  She also uses a document camera.  If the whole school is remote this teacher teaches in her room.  She swings the TV around so the camera is pointed at the whiteboard and her.  She can see the remote students on the TV and the students see her and the board.  Almost no different from when the kids are in their seats.  The kids are just on the TV.

English Room

Big TV, webcam on top of the TV, graphics tablet, microphone, speakers and computer.  This chemistry room is pretty typical except for the graphics tablet.  To the right out of the frame is a portable whiteboard that can be moved in front of the camera.  The chemistry teacher has no issues with the setup.  His problem is finding a solution to homework and grading.  He says finding software that can grade chemical formulas is a time consuming problem he has given up on.  A single upper/lower case letter causes a problem with his present software solution.  Right now the students are emailing him photos of their home work.  He estimates this only takes 2-3 times as long to grade as his pre-Covid grading.  The software made it in the 5 times as long range.  He admits there is probably a good software solution out there, he just does not have time to research the solution.

Chemistry Room

All the teachers agree that the most difficult change has been the amount of time that post-Covid teaching requires.  Lesson plans need to be more detailed and more flexible.  Science teachers have to dream up whole new strategies for labs.  That fetal pig dissection lab is now out the window.  Time to look for a virtual lab.  It takes time to look for virtual labs and review them.  Can a digital math textbook be found that does what the math teacher wants?  For example our pre-calc curriculum uses parts of about 4 different old textbooks.  The textbooks are old because we cannot afford new ones and the old ones work great.  It takes a lot of time to look for and through digital textbooks.   Tech setup and Zoom setup can take time out of the start of a class.  The Internet is not always reliable.

We are adjusting.  The tech is getting simpler to manage and the teachers are getting better at troubleshooting issues on their own.  Forced familiarity helps.  I think the time issue with grading is always going to be a problem.  Unless the teachers move all their homework to multiple choice I do not think there is a real solution.  Reading digital homework simply takes more time than going through paper assignments.

Oh well.  No one ever said this job was going to be easy.  

What Has Covid Done to Teaching?

We had our usual Wednesday afternoon teachers meeting today.  We were discussing students that want to Zoom into classes without a viable excuse to be out of school.  (We are full time, 5 days a week, face-to-face school.)  They want to sleep in then Zoom into class.  This is an obvious no-go.  The discussion moved on to a student that will be in Las Vegas at a national tennis competition for a week.  How does her case fit into the new paradigm? She asked if she could Zoom into her classes while in Vegas.  (Yes, she is an exceptional student.)  But the case brought up the questions as to where we draw the line on Zooming into classes?  Covid issues only?  Kids with knee surgery and are not able to gimp around school yet?  When do we stop using/allowing Zoom?  Next year?  Never?  My comment was that the world of education has changed and will never be the same again.  The only reason a kid could not be attending class, Zoom or face-to-face, is sick to the point of not being operational or out of internet range.  No more snow days.  The technology is there and we have got it working.  The teachers are getting used to teaching hybrid classes.  It is not as easy as all face-to-face but we are reaching the point where it is not out of the range of possible.  Teachers are  realizing they can teach from their living room with a little preparation.  No more snow days for us either.  Bummer.

At the moment our school does not have a defined policy regarding Zooming into a class.  I doubt if many schools have figured out a policy or have looked down the road in regards to the future of Zoom and class participation.  When (if) Covid gets over do we go back to the old standard?  Do we rewrite the standard and accept the changes Covid has forced on us?  Do we have snow days?  (This is Montana, we have those fairly regularly.)

I think it is time for a policy meeting to make some decisions and write something for the future.  Zoom is here to stay.  How are we going to adjust to it?

Teaching in the Year of Covid

It has been a while since I posted.  I have either been too busy or too tired.  Busy because I am teaching full time and being the school techie full time.  Covid has increased the time I need to commit to helping teachers handle tech issues and it also increased the immediacy of those needs.  I am also teaching a couple of new to me courses that require prep time I do not have at school since my prep period is sucked up into tech chores.  I have to do a lot of prep at home.  No biggie, it just takes time.  By the time I am done the last thing I want to do is type on the computer some more.                               

We got through six weeks of full-time school before Covid intervened.  It finally hit the football team.  I personally thought it a bad idea to have a close contact sport during the time of Covid but cancelling the season would have caused an uprising among parents.  So be it.  So far we only have two kids positive but all the close contacts added to the issue.  So we have about thirty kids out of school.  In a school of 165 that is a major chunk.  We are now officially hybrid.  Live and Zoom at the same time.  It sort of works.  We discussed going totally remote but for many of the students their safest place from Covid is at school.  At school they are masked and distanced.  At home who knows what is happening.  Most likely they are not at home.  Some of the staff actually like the hybrid model.  Fewer kids in the classroom increases distancing and if the kids are on Zoom they are anchored to the screen and not hanging out with friends.  Friends do not want to hang out while they are doing school work.  Having been remote in the spring has pretty much prepared us for this.  We have a couple of first year teachers that were not here in the spring that are having a bit of a struggle but I think the rest of the staff can get them up to speed.  

The hybrid model for learning is not as good as all being in class but we have decided it is better than all remote.  There is still interaction between the homebound and the in school kids over the Zoom link.  The home kids are on a big screen so the class can see and talk to them.  A positive and surprising side effect has been that in some classes the home kids are asking the in-class kids for clarification of lectures.  The in-class kids are now expecting to have to repeat notes and discussion.  A big plus for them.  Not so much for the Zoomies.

Learning is taking place.  Maybe not to the sharp level we are used to for a private college prep school but I think there is nothing we could do to make what we are doing better.  Syllabi and presentation methods are being adjusted on the fly but the staff is up to it.  We have the flexibility to handle the needed changes.  I expect some of the home kids will tune out but we cannot control the home situation to a great extent. Parents and students have a responsibility in this somewhere.  During these trying and changing times students have to assume more responsibility for their education.  I hope they are up for it.