Tips for Starting the School Year in the Midst of a Pandemic
Well, here we are...teaching virtually- really teaching virtually. Last spring when the shutdown happened, I think very few of us imagined that we would move from "crisis teaching" to "this is how we teach now" when we entered the virtual world. But we are here and we are going to make the best out of it, just like we have always done when we get a wrench thrown in our plans! Hopefully the tips below will either confirm the work you are already doing or give you a few new ideas.
Put Community First
This is always the very first thing we do as teachers when we are given a new class of students. We work hard to make our classroom a place where students feel safe, seen, and heard. But in a virtual world, they are not in our physical presence, so community building takes a bit more purposeful planning to make it truly bring our class together.
- Make time for kids to get together in small groups and partnerships by utilizing break out rooms. Switch up the groups frequently so students start getting to know their peers.
- Provide safety net questions for small groups and partnerships if the conversation goes flat. These are questions they could turn to if they are not sure what to say next.
- Reflection should be a regular part of the work. If you have zoom you could add in a poll, have kids type in the chat box, or even give you a signal (thumbs up, sideways, or down) to know how well an activity went.
- Consider creating a time to meet with each student one on one. Have a few questions in mind to ask them to learn about their interests. Then as you head into small groups in future week, you can start being purposeful with how you place kids together by interests.
Fall Back on Best Practices
Sure the virtual world is not our classroom, but all of the best practices we leaned on in our "regular" teaching lives can translate to our new normal. They may just need a little tweaking. Some best practices to be sure to incorporate include:
- Read aloud- a great way to have a shared experience with our class
- Small groups- make the day more dialogic rather than all teacher driven and monologic (check out this chart from Kylene Beers and Bob Probst that tells more about this idea)
- Conferring- make connections, informally assess, and be responsive in your instruction
- Reflection- push ourselves and our students to make revisions to habits, routines, strategies, and structures to strengthen the environment and the learning
- Goals setting- for us and our students, keep these questions in mind, What is my desired outcome? How will this benefit me or my students from here on out?
Have a Growth Mindset
Out of all years, this is the one to truly embrace an inquiry mindset. We have been encouraging kids to tap into the power of "yet" for a long time now, but have we truly given ourselves permission to do the same thing? For some of us, the answer may be yes, but for many of us, we were so proficient at our in-person instruction that a growth mindset was not as important for us to adopt. But...2020 has put us all back at square one in our teaching. So let's take on the feeling of productive struggle and tell ourselves that it is going to get better (it can only go up from here!). The best way to do this is:
- Think about the big goals or objectives of a lesson or activity you want to do with your class
- As yourself:
- What has worked in the past?
- What might I try this time?
- What adjustments will need to be made to have this work virtually?
- Then TRY IT. Give it a go, jump off the cliff, see what will happen.
- Reflect- What worked? What didn't? What could be made better?
- Adjust
- Try it AGAIN (and it WILL be better).
- Continue this cycle until you try something new or perfect what you've been trying
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