Practical Magic

So I am still intent on making this work, this whole teaching from home thing. I'm still running into issues (and I am psychologically dismayed that my homespace now requires that I adopt my work persona...I had hoped that never the twain shall meet) which I will catalog but I also want to keep track of what I am doing (other than feeling nauseated from looking at a screen for so long)

First, problems:

I still am using a single laptop for my Zoom meetings. I don't have 2 screens and I don't intend to install a second screen so that I can do what I should be able to do without any computer -- teach a class. That would be TOO much technology. I try not to have to use my phone at the same time, but I know that one of my teaching tools requires that students use their computers and their phones at the same time. This poses its own problems.

My internet connection is being strained. With me on Zoom (and other things), my wife on Zoom or the internet, my kids streaming TV shows (and sometimes, their school lectures) I am really pushing it and I get the messages on my computer telling me that this is a problem. My connection lags, and trying to RDP into work to get those files while also working on my own connection is not working so well. I know of students who have no camera on their computers, or their cameras are broken. This is not a made up excuse -- I know it to be true. Not everyone can afford a shareable high-speed internet connection. Some students need to turn off video to save bandwidth. Keeping their attention is getting tougher and tougher and they are getting better at setting up convincing virtual backgrounds to fool me into thinking that they are there and paying attention. This requires more energy from me, verbally. I can't walk around and use my body language to fill the gaps -- silence means nothing is happening. That demands a lot more from me, to fill the gaps.

I have my 12th grade class presenting videos and memes that they have found with certain topics -- this class is on humor so our sources are multifarious and all viable. They are 12th graders, though, and are already somewhat "checked out" of the high school experience. Those who are engaged normally are doing a great job. Some who are quiet continue to be, and many are just not in the game. They have too much fun with cross-conversations and I spend too much time chasing noise until I mute them all and show a video, with no way of knowing if they care at all.

My 10th grade is setting up Kahoots, short quizzes that they make and share with the others. I can't "grade" these quizzes as I would my own, so I need to keep track of who has done it and give credit for that. We (in order to be fair and ensure that all did the work) have to see each person's kahoot -- in a class of 25 that can take many class-hours and an be tedious and/or boring. The technology isn't so seamless so students still have to learn how to share screens, balance 2 screens (on to host or see the questions, and a phone to answer) recognize limitations of hardware (what you can do on a phone, you can't do on a computer and vice versa) and resolve error messages (all assuming the internet infrastructure in their neighborhood and home holds steady). They haven't gotten burned out on it yet, so we will keep on reviewing them and then getting to actual discussion about our text. But simply introducing new third party apps everyday requires that I achieve mastery quickly, and that I find a reason to use these in a pedagogically organic and responsible way and for the most part, I haven't.

This brings up a point about assessments. I have to replace my timed, structure summative assessments (in class essays, short answer timed reading quizzes, vocab quizzes based on memorization) with more frequent assignments. I wouldn't call these formative because they aren't being used during instruction to help build knowledge. My structure is still "teach, then test" and if that has to change to accommodate this new reality, then so be it, but I need to be shown how so I can build a new curriculum with a new paradigm in mind. These short assignments need to be read, responded to and "graded" (whatever that means). This takes more hours than my traditional modes of assessment, and increased assignments compounds this. The spontaneous "pulling a kid aside and pointing something out quickly and moving on" has to be replaced with a formal email, detailing in writing, not speech, what needs to be addressed. Exit tickets also require my review -- and what counts for a "good" vs. just a "done" assignment? The students are craving grades, asking if and how I will be grading anything they do. This brings up a question of student expectation.

I can learn to change. it takes me time, but, for myself, I can change how I do things and such. But asking students to change from an educational structure which has defined them for 10 years is difficult. They don't see a big picture -- they see their scores, grades and standard methods of measuring their success. And I don't just mean for the sake of college applications -- they have internalized the lesson we have been trying to get across to them -- that our grading can be used as a reflective tool to help them see how well they are advancing through the educational ranks. And now we have to ditch these measures and reassure them that they are getting smarter without some external device like a test? That demands more of them than of us!

Some students have handed things in late, claiming technical issues or emotional ones (a student is quarantined away from her family and is having a very hard time). Attendance is still almost impossible to take. With students shifting position on the screen, entering and exiting and not always having (being able to have) cameras running, it seems a waste of energy.

I am going to have to change the parameters for my research project, recognizing that students have not already, and will not be able to get to their local library. I will have to make all resources required digital (which I find abhorrent as students still don't have a sense of what online is trustworthy and what is not, nor do they understand that not everything is available in digital form). This will reinforce their false notion that online research is good enough, and this makes me sad. The hard part has always been convincing teenagers (who, clearly, already know everything) that there is more to find than just websites (and they don't know what a "website" is as opposed to anything else -- it isn't a discrete entity/object, so they don't know that they can assess it on its own merits.

I am using the AP Classroom to create short quizzes and assign them to the AP students but the test bank is limited, the explanations are scant and the students can't seem to care as much as if there is face to face accountability. That continues to be a problem -- they just don't care as much and would rather use class time to have any social interaction rather than be forced to focus on academics.

I try not to get frustrated with all of them, their technical naivete, their disinterest in schooling. I try to deal with having to sit and stare at a screen for hours on end, reading emails as homework instead of working with a pen and paper. I try to wrap my head around the concept of grading and testing as they (don't) apply to this new system. I end up really tired.