I know so many of us as teachers were not prepared to move our entire face-to-face curriculum to an online one immediately. I was so shocked by how quickly things escalated that it took me 3 full days to remember that I had even completed the necessary requirements for our state to be a licensed online teacher (in my defense, I did this work 5 years ago through a local college and haven’t been lucky enough to use my skills at all yet!). I went back and reviewed my class notes, texts, and projects and have come up with these 5 things that will help as teachers work to modify their curriculum for online learning.
- Keep your original learning objectives in place. When you were teaching your students face-to-face, you had a pretty good idea of what you wanted your students to be able to do for the rest of this week, month, quarter, school year, etc. Don’t let all of the overwhelming quantity of free online resources distract you from what it was you planned to do. Make your goals and objectives FIRST and then search for the appropriate resources to assist your students with this. Not only will this give your newly-formed online curriculum direction, but it will make more sense for your overwhelmed students who are trying to make sense of everything as well.
2. Remember that the majority of your students are new to this as well, despite being “Digital Natives”. Yes, parents are always bragging about how their son or daughter knows more about their phone than the parent does. Yes, your students may have all the info on how to fix your classroom projector because they’ve seen other teachers in the building do something similar. However, the students only know the technology they have been shown or used themselves. They will still need clear instructions on how to submit a video using the platform you have chosen. They will need help navigating the time necessary for each task they are assigned. They will encounter technical difficulties along the way. Keep in mind we are all learning together. A great example of this all is my own classroom. We officially rolled out our online teaching yesterday. I am a band teacher, and I assigned one of my band classes 2 assignments – a music theory assignment involving the student going to musictheory.net and completing a note name quiz. They then had to take a screenshot of the page when they had accumulated 30 correct answers. For the second assignment, students had to make a video of themselves playing their instrument along with an audio clip I created of one of our concert band songs. I thought I was taking it easy on them as far as first assignments go. Boy, was I wrong! The school chrome books had apparently locked the students out of musictheory.net, and their cameras were also turned off by our watch dog company. How frustrating for all of us!
3. Some of our students have limited technology resources. It’s great if your school is 1:1 with technology all the way through. However, for the younger students who may not be, this is going to be more difficult than you may expect. Some families may only have one or two computers or devices that will enable work for school on them. If the parents are also trying to work from home, they will be using those devices to continue making a living. Additionally, siblings may have to share devices as well. In my online teaching classes, we were discouraged from making students check in with us all at a specific time. This can be very stressful for families who don’t have a way for that to happen due to the parents’ work schedules, or siblings’ online coursework. I’m not saying don’t try to check in with your students in person at all; I’m just saying that perhaps offering it as optional may be more manageable.
4. Most students’ favorite part of school is the social and emotional components. This was one of the most eye-opening moments for me in my online teaching coursework. It is important not to lose sight of the comaraderie that physically being in school entails. I use Google Classroom for my online teaching. In my stream, I posted a picture of my cat sitting above my head on the couch while I worked and said “Post a picture of your pet ‘helping’ you do your homework.” I also told my students it was “Crazy Hat Day,” and asked them to wear a crazy hat in their video recordings of the assignment for the day. Anything to give them a little release and enjoyment within their assignments will help! Also, think about their emotional health – I started off a little lighter on my assignments at first, and will build as we all get more comfortable. I made a video for my students reminding them that their online assignments might look intimidating at first. They should remember that they are normally in school for 8 hours a day. Their assignments are normally spread out over that time period. Now, they are logging in and seeing a full days’ worth of work waiting for them. Students who normally have a hard time focusing for an hour in your class are going to have to self-motivate to do a full days’ worth of work on their own timeline. I’m definitely not advising you to take a step back and demand less from your students – I’m just reminding you that they may need to ease into it at first.
5. Remember, you are doing your best in a tough situation! You did not ask for this. Your students did not ask for this. No one anticipated this at the beginning of this school year. You are doing the best that you can, and parents & students will see that. It is very much like when you took your first teaching job. You had grand ideas of how things would work in your classroom. As you got teaching, you realized you had to adapt your ideas/beliefs/methods, as you learned what your students needed and what your school expected. The same is happening now. Unfortunately, when you had your first job, you probably had more than a few days’ notice on what you would be doing. That may not have been the case for you in your jump to online teaching. Keep in mind what your big picture goals are for your students, take a deep breath, and don’t be afraid to experiment. You can adjust as you go. You do not have to be perfect. This is one of those moments where you get points for the effort you are putting in. Hang in there, everyone! With any luck, we will get to see our students in person again at some point! If not, at least we still can see them online.
Car Full of Harmony 
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