Teaching Digitally

    

   As this school year comes to an end, it's hard to think that my 1st grade class this year got gypped of all the fun things we do towards the end of 1st grade and instead had to virtually learn at home. When the decision came that we wouldn't be returning to school the rest of this year, I was devastated and scared, as I didn't know what to expect teaching virtually.

   I spent my entire Spring Break thinking of all possible avenues to teach virtually. I think I made at least 6 different learning avenues (choice boards, learning agendas- weekly & daily). I wanted some kind of direction as I knew I needed to be prepared for anything and everything. I had a rough behavior heavy class this year and I knew they would need structure and consistency. Luckily, through social media (Instagram & Facebook are my favorites) I was able to find a lot of AMAZING resources and ideas to help me & my team teach virtually. As a team, we decided to poll our student's parents and ask how they would like the at-home learning to look & they wanted a weekly agenda with assignments for each day.  Here's a sample of what we sent:

   One thing I struggled with during virtual learning was Class Participation at our Zoom meetings. We would meet 3 times a week and I was lucky if even half of my 16 students would show up and if they showed up they just wanted to show us things around their house or talk to their friends-which for 6 & 7 year olds, is totally expected and understandable. After all, they are very social and are missing their friends. However, it was expected that we teach lessons. Imagine trying to virtually teach how to tell time on an analog clock. Students struggled a lot with this concept. Most clocks at their homes are digital. We normally give students analog clocks to manipulate and move so they can see how the hour hand and minute hand work together. Very hard concept to learn when you don't have a physical representation. I think my students and their parents to this learning in stride though and my team and I were able to find online resources and online manipulatives for student's to learn about telling time on an analog clock. One thing I kept reminding myself of during this time, is to just roll with the punches and really just focus on the kids and their well-being during this pandemic. Yes, I exposed my students the academics I was suppose to, but I really focused on their well-being overall. 

  Parent respect was definitely earned from at-home learning. A lot of my student's parents realized how much went into teaching and that it's a lot more complicated than it seems. One parent told me she never realized how hard it was to get her child to read and that she owed me some bottles of wine because it took her about 2 bottles to get through reading with her child. Yikes! Of course, there are parents who really struggled during the pandemic juggling work and their children. It even came to the point where a parent asked if I knew anyone would want to come over and nanny during the pandemic because her and her husband were both working from home and were struggling to also keep their kids occupied. I think this struggle is the case for many families and parents are trying to find ways to juggle everything this pandemic has thrown at them. I was religiously taught throughout college that parent relationships are a huge part of teaching and I'm thankful I was able to build these relationships early in the school year so that communication was open throughout the pandemic. 

  We've started talking about next year and I have to say, I'm worried. How do we start the year with a brand new batch of students we don't know. I don't have a relationship with these students and relationships are EVERYTHING in teaching, especially primary education. I work in a district that is able to provide resources and is coming up with an alternative learning plan for next school year, but I know it will be hard to begin the school year through virtual learning. However, I think this next quote says it all.....

~Nicole~