What could be or could have been...

 

 

In a Year What are Going to

 Remember from COVID?

What could be or could have been...

In a field like education it is easy to say change happens quickly because our technology changes, our students change, grading changes, tools change and so much more.  However what doesn't seem to change is...us.  The people running the classroom, working with the students daily, the ones who have the power to make any change work or not work. Yet in the era of Education during COVID, we have had to throw our fundamental thoughts of education out the window.  We had to change everything we do.  Finding new ways to meet the needs of children, modifying our content, eliminating topics that were not essential, allowing us to dig deeper not broader.  We grabbed onto every technology that could help us.  Searched out blogs, Twitter, Facebook, along with every other site or resource available.  We have collectively worked harder than we ever had before, and I couldn't be more proud to say I am an educator.

What should come as no surprise to those who have been in the field for a long time is that as announcements came and we could be returning to a 5-day in person schedule, we heard from all aspects of the COVID spectrum.  From those who would be nervous to those excited to get back to the normal life of school.  However, should it be asked what we are missing?  What did we learn?  What can we take with us that will lead to changes for the better of our students?  Has what we have been through been all bad?  Or, is returning to the 5-day schedule just more normal and we all need a breath of normal?  

Personally, I feel it's a combination of a lot of things more than any one thing.  However more than anything it is the fear of taking the positives of the last 11 months and mixing them with our past theories of instruction.  Fear of the work it will take to acknowledge those positives and what it may mean to what has been done in the past.  Isn't that what we really do?  We are educators but more than anything we are people who are willing to work hard to evolve and make the best learning opportunities possible for our students.  Or at least I hope we are.

Let's take a moment and review some of what we have learned:

• Students need more students around to help with social/emotional needs
• Having a day for reflection for students, with a proper amount of support can be powerful in retention and creating depth in learning.
• Yearly instructional goals can be achieved with a drastically reduced schedule
• Students without support, along with those with other needs, can be drastically disadvantaged without daily contact in school.
• Teachers have the ability to provide support at very high levels through the use of technology.
• The amount of work necessary to co-exist in a synchronous/asynchronous environment may not be sustainable for many educators over long periods of time.
• For the majority of students, current academic performance is comparable to the performance in a 5-day face to face environment.

I teach in an A/B schedule with Friday's serving as flex days to call in students who needed something additional in support or extensions.  I use an LMS at a high-level to assist students in organizing their learning embedded with videos and activities to expose and deepen instruction.  On the days I meet with my students in person we try to focus on either content instruction or activities to deepen learning.  Some personal reflections from my classroom:

• It took me a semester to refine my methods and figure out how to make this system work for almost all of my students.
• Structure for the students was vital with clear expectations including deadlines.
• Students, like always, want to learn but need a connection to the teacher to be successful.
• Students, like always, want to feel like they have some ownership of their learning.
• We can release content, focusing on depth, with greater results than in previous 5-day schedules.  
• Students, when they are not in class daily, are excited to come to class.
• There are still students who will make choices that prevent them from succeeding.
• Meeting with students every day is not necessary to have high achieving students.  It shocks me to consider the time spent in previous years to teach the same content as this year.  
• Students come to class eager because they know that class time is effective and important.
• Having a day to work with students in a 1:1 or small group scenario is priceless, especially when they can control when they come in and get support.

What we need to do is take these outcomes and determine what parts we can mix with the successes we have had in the past to make the future better.  To do that, we need to communicate openly with each other.  What follows are several ideas that may or may not be great but are worth discussing.  

1. Keep the flex day.  Having one day each week to meet with students in an RTI setting has been the largest win of all changes occurred this year.  I question if that is the same for all classrooms.  Did some teachers not meet with students or have much need to meet with students?  Isn't this more an administrative issue than one that should negatively affect students?  Eliminating the flex day would negatively affect all students ability to succeed.  An argument could be made that Wednesday would be a better day for the flex day.  We could even follow guidelines based on age and offer a later start/end time for school hours to accommodate the high school students preferences.
2. Given an hour, I wouldn't need to meet with my students daily.  It could be said that with time to reflect on the learning students have come to class with better questions, more engagement, and honestly more interest in the topics.  There seems to be a more relaxing atmosphere when given a change in a day-to-day schedule. 
3. In math, I still want the ability to have my students do something daily however, like I do now on their off days it should be limited to 10 minutes.  Just a touch point to keep them thinking, refine a skill, or expose a topic for future discussion.  Eventually, I would love to use these times to pose a "thinker" but I am just not quite there yet - give me a week or two.
4. I could foresee, with the limited number of quality teachers available, one teacher takes a double schedule.  Picture this, instead of having 5 classes of 30 students I have 5 classes of 60 students but only half come on a given day.  I see 5 classes of 30 students and repeat that every other day.  To do this there would need to be an aide to support record keeping and some day-to-day activities.  Scheduling could be interesting but in a school the size I currently teach in, this is possible to do for some classes.  One really strong teacher - with support can do this and the affect is your strong teacher reaches twice as many students.  That is a win!
5.  There are so many resources available that a teacher with only a few years of experience no longer needs a textbook.  I feel safe saying the web-based resources, with discretion are solid.  Especially if a teacher utilizes a mixture of them to meet the needs of all learners.
6. Some classrooms will want to meet daily.  I feel we could make that work alongside those that meet every other day.  Giving students the flexibility to leave campus or have an open study area has proven to be effective.  Let's treat our students like the young adults they are and not hamper the opportunities of many for the actions of a few.  Maybe this option can be earned?

There are many other ideas or thoughts to make education better.  It should be noted that none of these are curricular or instructional.  There was little mention of videos to support learning or giving students voice and choice.  Little mention of how we structure our communication or the specific expectations we hold our students up to.  What I unfortunately believe is that if in 2021-22 we start the year as we did in 2019-20 our opportunity to make a major move in the innovation of education could be missed.  

Let's not delay.  Let's begin the hard work of planning quality learning for all students!