Teachers forced to improvise
Remote online learning, video meetings the new normal for local schools amid coronavirus pandemic
Monday was the first day of online- only instruction throughout Butte County, and Chico’s schools are facing different reactions to the new normal among children and families trying to adjust.
Some schools are off and running online in their first video meetings of the week. At Inspire School of the Arts and Sciences, high school kids can pursue their passions through creative classes online, with the help of teachers reinventing their classes.
Art teacher Linnea Smith said “Right away I found that kids were panicky, as I’m sure the world is. I got reached out to by so many kids … with sad, trapped feelings. We needed some kind of morale boost.”
So Smith used the Schoology app, a private social media platform for schools, to create an art “meme” challenge for her students to contribute to that got submissions from other students as well. Many referenced the
coronavirus in their humorous creations, she said.
Smith said although she teaches 10 classes, the transition to online education has been relatively simple for her “because it’s art — it’s been a pretty easy transition on the classroom front.”
“Scheduling is the big problem,” she said, because “some kids aren’t getting up until one in the afternoon. It’s pretty difficult to get 100% participation from them.”
Smith said she feels encouraged to use tools like Schoology for more creative projects to get kids engaged —” It’s definitely teaching me things that I’ll take with me.”
Others found tools like SeeSaw combined with Google Classroom helpful.
“Almost all of our students are present in our online classrooms, engaging in the activities teachers have set up,” Emma Wilson Elementary Principal Mele Benz said. “Our teachers at Emma Wilson are using Google Classroom and SeeSaw. It’s neat to see how their personalities shine through already with what they have crafted for their students’ digital learning.”
Socioeconomic struggles
For some kids, it isn’t as simple to begin doing assignments, let alone connect to Google Classroom, just yet. Multiple factors can affect how children adapt to online learning, including the location of each school’s students within the city, Internet availability and access and what the student might be facing at home.
Bidwell Junior High School Principal David McKay said, “It’s a terrible situation for a lot of reasons.”
“Butte County’s experienced more than our fair share of crises. Teachers without hesitation really jumped in to make it work for kids and families, frankly without a ton of direction from anybody on high.”
“It’s been a challenge getting devices into parents’ and guardians’ hands so they can get their students logged on,” Benz said. “We’ve reached almost all of our families who need devices as of today. And yes, there is a learning curve for the adults helping their kids with a Chromebook or Common Core math. Luckily we see that students as young as first grade can be fairly independent on their Chromebooks because they’ve been using them at school.”
Chapman Elementary Principal Mike Allen said, “We try to make things as simple as possible for students and parents.” He said he thinks the school’s location and other socioeconomic factors are part of why some students haven’t logged on as quickly as students at other schools.
Google Classroom and onl ine teleconferencing helps create more of a “class-like setting,” he said. “Trying to do it from home without that motivation of seeing the teachers and friends is very difficult.”
“Right now we’re in phase one, which is making sure kids are connected and have access to lessons, identifying kids that we can’t get ahold of, that aren’t logging on. Phase two is ramping up the resources and instruction.”
All teachers at Chapman Elementary and other schools in Chico Unified School District are available 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. daily. The idea is to help parents as well, particularly those with multiple students in their household.
“At first we identified students that didn’t have a device in the household that would work, then got them out on Chromebooks last week,” Allen said. “Now we’re pushing out devices to any student that wants them even if it’s more than one per household.”
The district is working on educating parents on how to monitor Google Classroom. “That way if you’re trying to sit down with your kids to do school work, you don’t have to stagger your kids’ work,” he said.
Internet issues
The district is still “coming up with more ways to get internet to students and teachers who don’t have it, as well as issues with bandwidth needed to access video content,” Allen said.
Some are forced to watch video content after meetings are complete if their internet speed is too slow.
“A lot of kids have internet, but it’s not fast enough to do the video,” Smith said. “A lot of kids are still trying to get laptops and I’m assuming the free WiFi they’re getting isn’t the best.”
Multiple teachers mentioned students needing more bandwidth to join Zoom meetings or watch videos.
“We’re trying to cut down on bandwidth (use),” Allen said. “If there’s an issue within the class we have the staff cut off their video and mute themselves, it helps with the bandwidth.”
“There’s a lot of learning going on at all ends — student, teacher, parents,” he said. “As we move forward we will begin to see what’s working, what’s not working.
“A lot of our parents are wary of the technology.”
Creativity
Mar igold Elementary Principal Shawneese Heath said building an online community and “getting our groove back” is key. She mentioned creative approaches like that from music teacher Ethan Wolfe, who created a YouTube channel for his students.
Supplementary teaching for some other classes also gives students more options, she said. Students are getting attention from another “special education” teacher as well as their homeroom teacher.
Heath said she hopes to get past technology glitches as well, praising teachers who are “completely shifting how they teach. They’ve had to flip their classroom.”
David McKay said the vast majority of students at Bidwell Junior High are now connected with their teachers. For teachers who had a lot of assignments already on Google Classroom, “We really didn’t have to reinvent anything in those cases,” he said.
“Choices are key,” Mckay said. “My wife is an art teacher at ( Pleasant Valley High School) … and you can’t assume every kid has a room full of art supplies. What do you want kids to accomplish in this time? One, you don’t want to stress them out. Everybody has a lot of stuff going on right now.”
So teachers are finding ways to create “menus” of projects that can be accomplished with items found around the house, he said. “Some are discovering the power of giving students a choice.”
“There’s probably quite a few students who are like, cool I can do school on the couch in my PJs. Others are going to say, I don’t care, I want to see my friends. In the coming weeks there’s going to be more people, more kids feeling like I’m missing my friends, I’m missing my social connections.”
So he said the school hopes to proactively watch for those situations and set up more opportunities for connections — “it’s so important for junior high kids in particular.”
‘Get moving’
Dance teacher Jarrah Myles said most of her students are already reaching out and connecting. But other challenges for her active class have arisen.
“I am sick of sitting,” Myles said, and one of her main concerns is getting students to keep practicing at home.
“I explained I wasn’t going to try to do what we’ve been doing,” she said. “They are so talented and so involved with the art form that I wanted to keep that my mission, to expose them to what they could do with our current situation. They’re a very tight-knit group so trying to maintain that going forward is really important.”
Myles said she had to research and hold consultations with dance teachers across the country for help. Keeping students motivated is the big challenge.
“I think when you get to the more advanced students, they will dance no matter what, because they care so much and it’s part of them,” Myles said.
Beginning dancers are more likely to struggle.
“My first request was, ‘ get moving,’” she said. “I’m more concerned with their health and willingness to get out of bed and stretch their bodies — get out, walk down the street, just don’t go into a hole and not come out. A lot of them say ‘I want to sleep, I’m not getting out of bed’ or ‘ I’m not sleeping.’”
A long term change
Because staying home is ordered to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, principals are preparing for online learning continuing for longer than expected.
“We’re preparing for the long haul,” Allen said. “Prepare as if we’re not coming back is my message to my teachers. If we don’t we’re still prepared, we can still just keep rolling and we’ll be okay.”
If students haven’t logged on yet, “It could be that there are life circumstances, technology, things their family is going through, you just don’t know,” Myles said. “I want to encourage them that you can be scared and crying, but don’t let it overwhelm and consume you. Keep that future hope out there, that forward thinking.”
All principals are available 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in their offices and 1 to 5 p.m. remotely for support, Allen added. Another tool available to parents is the Principal’s Office website, live this week to help parents understand online classrooms and tools.
In addition, some school staffs are producing “We Miss You” videos, such as by Chico High School, as ways to help students feel appreciated.
“My greatest hope is that staff, students and families will feel cared for during this period,” Mele Benz said. “Emma Wilson Elementary’s staff provides a lot of TLC for one another and our students and I hope our school culture translates 100% via distance learning.”
“My biggest concern is keeping them connected, giving some kind of daily connection — even just a daily 30 minute Zoom to check in and see how they’re doing — making sure we can give them opportunities for joy, for love and for humor in these times of despair,” Linnea Smith said. “I rarely feel a lack of support.”