April-2020-Advisor_2

INNOVATING

6 CEA ADVISOR APRIL 2020

TEACHERS INNOVATING, LEADING IN A TIME OF CONSTANT CHANGE

In the midst of the pandemic that has closed Connecticut’s public schools, teachers have moved quickly to ensure that students are safe, productive, and engaged. With households lacking phone or internet access, many children dependent upon their schools for meals, and little precedent for long-term distance learning at the K-12 level, this has been no easy feat. It has required teachers to quickly master virtual learning platforms, prepare to-go packets in the meantime, and deploy some of their best traits and skills—compassion, creativity, differentiation, and problem-solving—to keep their students and public education strong. Here are some thoughts, insights, and innovative ways of teaching shared by CEA members during this unusual time.

On March 18, veteran South Carolina English teacher Ken Buck posted the following to his Facebook page. Within days, it went viral—in the most positive sense of the word—with more than 84,000 likes, 9,300 comments, and 186,000 shares from teachers and schools across the country.

Thinking outside

the box

I miss my colleagues and students already! But we have been training and learning apps on the Google platform: Google classroom, Google Meet, and Google together, and those with better tech skills are helping the rest of us learn the basics. Sheila Delaney, special education teacher, Hale-Ray High School, East Haddam Our school has created a private Facebook group, and we’ve shared the link with all of our families via the Remind or Class Dojo texting apps. We go live daily and share resources to keep our students great experience, so it’s my hope that they entice their peers through texting/social media to join in next week! I went live in the FB group and also shared via my Google meeting a “First Day of Spring” scavenger hunt. I challenged them all to go outside or open a window and copy a bird’s tune by humming or whistling; to find a heart in nature, whether it be a rock or pebble, in the bark of a tree, or a cloud in the sky; and then I modeled a “senses” activity. They had to write or draw all of the things they could see, hear, smell, and feel. (We left taste out!) It’s definitely a learning curve. I am lucky that I use Google Classroom and another online reading program in school, so my students have been able to log in (if they have computer access at home) Hangouts. At our school, everyone is coming engaged and continuing the learning process. I had a Google Meet today and invited my students. The students who joined had a

Teaching from Home: Day 1 Middle school teachers are used to chaos, but this past week has been particularly interesting. I’m lucky enough to teach in a terrific Fairfield County public school system with the resources to provide students and staff with what we need during this challenging time. Still, my colleagues and I spent the weekend glued to our screens while juggling the creation of digital lessons with concerned emails from students and parents. Most of us had very little time to prepare ourselves, much less our students, before circumstances forced schools to close. We scrambled to create new, targeted content for our students even as we waited to find out whether the state would allow us to deliver it. Today was a “soft opening” meant to ease our students into the new learning vehicles we’ve created for their transition to distance learning. It took me two full days to plan things out, cull through all the new

Robert Walsh, a teacher at Eastern Middle School teacher in Greenwich, is writing a daily account about virtual learning. Here is his recap of Day 1.

procedures and resources, publish a working schedule for the week, and record my introduction for students and parents. What’s become clear in this “new

normal” is that it’s impossible to replicate online all we do in the classroom. We learn to adapt and distill our lessons in an effort not to overwhelm, grappling with ourselves not to let perfect be the enemy of good. Like our students, we’re doing the best we can until we can do even better. Done properly, we’re ducks on a pond, and no one can see how frantically we’re kicking underwater. That said, I already miss the kids.

and complete assignments. Alison Kirchberger, fifth-grade teacher, Hopeville Elementary School, Waterbury