Enhancing the Quality of Hybrid Learning

    

    As we know there a lot of debates about what schools should or should not do during these unprecedented times. Regardless of your own beliefs, teachers need to find a way to make every scenario work. Sometimes students need to transition to remote learning due to potential exposures. Sometimes classrooms of students need to change over to remote learning. Hybrid teaching involves teaching students within a physical classroom as you teach students online at the same time. Essentially, you are doing two jobs at once. You are an online teacher and a physical classroom teacher. 

    Throughout my experience teaching during these difficult times, I have found that one of the most important thing that I can do as an educator is to prepare my students for whatever might happen.  I do not want to set a student into a tailspin because they are overwhelmed with what they need to do if they have to suddenly change to remote learning. 

    When students are physically with us then this is the best time to practice what to do if we change to remote learning. I took my class and divided my class into two groups. I told the one group that they would be in the physical classroom next door to me, but they would be trying out remote learning. I did this with college students, but if you do this with younger students then you will need to have another adult stay with the other group. The groups switched for a different lesson so everyone had the opportunity to experience remote learning with support. 

    The students learned how to use our Learning Managment System to access our video conferencing link. Students were able to see where the resources are stored and organized for every class. I was able to troubleshoot with students, receive their feedback, and adjust what I was doing. The students were increasing their level of comfort if they have to use these types of resources again. 

    I often hear teachers explain how unhappy they are with the behaviors of students when learning remotely. When we have the students in person we can explicitly teach the students about our expectations for online learning. I would highly recommend that you take time to teach your students about remote learning expectations and procedures now while you are in person because we never know what will happen in the future. 

    Additionally, this test drive helps the teacher try out new technology with students. I have tried different things during hybrid instruction. One thing that I am excited about using is the Meeting Owl. It is easy to use. I plugged it into the computer, and I selected the Owl for the microphone and camera. Then video and sound quality of the experience increased for my students. Students were able to experience a 360 degree view, fully immersive experience of me teaching. The Owl turns and follows me as a I am teaching, and it will change over to different students when they are talking as well. 

    Another tool that I enjoy using with students in this type of classroom is Nearpod. There are various interactive features within Nearpod to keep students engaged, and I collect information about the thinking of my students throughout the lesson. Once my students have the join code then the students can see the presentation on their own device. This has helped students with being able to see the presentation better. Sometimes masks make it difficult for us to hear one another in physical and virtual settings so I like to use my Q-ball, but I will share about that later in another post. 

    Simply put, as educators, we spend a lot of time preparing our students for the expectations for the upcoming school year. We need to ensure that we prepare our students for what to expect and what we expect in physical, virtual, and hybrid settings. Students will feel more at ease when they already know a little bit more about what to expect during these uncertain times. 
   

Helping Students Bloom During Remote Learning

PTAC Blog Post 

Thank you

@PTACVoice

for sharing my blog post "Helping Students Bloom During Remote Learning." My post aligns with PTAC's Recommendations.

https://ptacvoice.org/blog

@miss_tmcdaniel

Here are my #remotelearning resources: https://bit.ly/3ds7giN

Teaching and Parenting During COVID-19

International Panel Discussion

Today I was happy to connect with other educators from around the world to discuss Teaching and Parenting During COVID-19. Here is a link to some of the different remote learning resources that I referenced throughout the discussion. 

There were a lot of great things discussed throughout the session. It is important to remember to be intentional about what we are teaching, and we need to select technology that is appropriate for our lessons. We want students to activity participate throughout lessons. As educators, we need to differentiate our approach in how we instruct and communicate with families during remote learning. It can be challenging to find the right balance, but we need to embrace the time that we have with our own children right now. We need keep the lines of communication open between families and teachers. Our Personal Learning Network (PLN) is key right now. We are stronger together. We feel like there will be a lot of positive things that emerge from this unprecedented experience. 

Digital Student Teacher Week #6

Final Reflections of Digital Student Teaching

Vlog #6: https://youtu.be/bDYiWE5IR6I

This is Miss Tina McDaniel's final week.  She had a dual placement so her entire experience working with me involved remote learning. Every week we recorded a vlog describing the experience.  In this Vlog, Miss McDaniel shared about how she was able to connect with students during remote learning. She highlighted some of her key takeaways. She described how she is working on creating a digital portfolio.  She is planning on creating a QR code link that she will include on her business cards. I had recommended to Miss McDaniel that Dr. Sam Fecich has great resources on her website about developing digital portfolios: https://www.sfecich.com/ 

Digital Student Teaching Week #5

Interactive Lessons and Feedback

Vlog Week #5: https://youtu.be/Kkr6ORnjOT0

As we reflected upon the week, we found that two themes emerged: Interactive Lessons and Feedback.  This week we focused-on finding the best ways to create interactive lessons during remote learning. In our Vlog, we shared about how we used Nearpod.  We created self-paced Nearpod lessons.  We embedded different voice recordings to provide students with the recorded instructions.  Also, we were able to use interactive tools like DrawIt, Polls, Open Ended Responses, etc. It is easy to embed FlipGrids and YouTube videos within Nearpod. Since students do not have materials at home it can be difficult for students to take part in science experiments that require resources. So Miss McDaniel created YouTube Videos with the different experiments. Then she gave students the option to share their experiments at home via FlipGrid. This past week we used Learning A-Z, specifically Reading A-Z or RAZ, to provide students with leveled texts. The students were able to record their own reading. I love listening to my students reading. Then I can record my own feedback. I even pressed our Staple's "That was easy" button that we use in our classroom to celebrate excellent reading. Kahoot is a great tool to use with students too. The students answered questions in a trivia format at the end of our science unit.  This is a fun way to gather information about what students' know. I created a grid to provide students with feedback during remote learning. If students completed an assignment then I provided students with a digital sticker. If students missed an assignment then I provided students with feedback in the box about what they missed. Here is a copy of the grid if you would like to use it with your students: https://bit.ly/remotelearninggrid 

Please reach out to use if you have any questions or ideas for us for our upcoming Vlog about Digital Student Teaching. 

Digital Student Teaching Week #4

Strengthening Communication 

Vlog: https://youtu.be/UI-7TNkrFgk

During Remote Learning Week #4, my student teacher Miss McDaniel @miss_tmcdaniel and I explored different ways to strengthen our communication.  As teachers we need to differentiate our communication based-on the different family circumstances.  Some parents are working in the medical field or different emergency capacities. We need to find a way to help these families so students can be more independent online as parents work long hours. We provide a one-stop schedule with the different embedded hyperlinks in a Google Template every week. We organize our schedule in the Schoology Calendar.  At the beginning of every week, we provide a recording with an overview of the different assignments. Also,  we provide two options for directions. We provide a visual description, and we provide a recording that we create using Screencastify. I love using the grading features that Schoology has in place on the ipad. I am able to write on the students documents to provide direct feedback. We do not want to ask students to complete assignments without providing feedback.  We are continuing to recognize the work of our students. We give shout-outs through the week on Schoology, and we recognize students during our weekly Google Meets. If you have additional ideas about how we can further strengthen communication then please reach out to us. If you have questions about different tools that we are using then please connect with us too. We are stronger to together. Our purpose for sharing our vlog is share our story in case it helps others. 

Bring a Spark of Creativity and Fun to Remote Learning

Check-out Our Vlog: https://youtu.be/uuSsPgczGbg 

My student teacher and I shared our digital student teaching vlog #3. This is a vlog that will help all teachers who are looking for ways to bring a spark of creativity and fun to remote learning. We know that these are tough times so we wanted to share some of the things that we found that engage our students. Specifically, we focused-on how to use digital breakouts, VR writing prompts, and Flip-hunts. Please reach out to us if we can support in any ways. We are all in this together.