A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A TEACHER
First, teachers became magicians. Now, they are master jugglers.
In March, teachers magically transformed from living human beings into faces on computer screens. Now they are learning to juggle computers, cameras, charging devices, new software, new hardware, new schedules, kids in front of them and kids at home. So many balls in the air at one time, it’s a wonder they keep track of everything.
But Paula Fortuna, an English teacher in the Center of Global
Studies at Brien McMahon High School, calls it a “mostly zen, calm teaching experience.”
Students are divided into two shifts. Half the kids are in school and the rest are at home; two days later, the kids switch — the virtual kids become the in-person kids, and the in-person learners go virtual.
How can she possible juggle all this and call it zen-like? After sitting on her deck while she showed me her two computers and piles of paper, viewing some one-minute videos she recorded and narrated from school, and then (via FaceTime) virtually observing one of her classes, I learned her secret.
She thinks like a quarterback. “I am always asking myself, ‘How can I move this forward?’” she said. If there are obstacles, she must work around them.
With half the class at home and half in her classroom, making technology work is crucial.
Classroom routine
When she enters her classroom each morning, she has a routine: Open the doors that face the adjacent garden to let in fresh air; turn on her two computers (one is
her own); turn on the two Smartboards; turn on the 360 degree camera with its built-in microphone and place it in the front of the room; turn on the charger that is strong enough to charge a car battery; check to make sure the air filter is working.
Her elaborate setup allows her to teach both sets of kids — at home and in school — at the same time. One computer attached to a Smartboard displays the lesson, and the other computer attached to the second Smartboard displays the kids at home. With the camera placed in the right spot, the kids at home can view the kids in class, and the kids in class can view the kids at home. Everyone can see and hear the lesson.
During the recent lesson I observed via FaceTime, she instructed her students to go to the Moth Radio Hour website. She turned to her second computer and asked if anyone at home had any questions. She saw that one student was missing. She called his name and asked, are you there?
In this public speaking class, students were viewing models of speeches, similar to those they would give later in the week. Students had to listen to a speech from the website and take notes. The kids in the classroom put on their earbuds and tuned in. The kids at home did the same.
Fortuna walked around the classroom making sure everyone was on-task and then turned to the kids at home. She asked each one how they were doing. When the missing student reappeared, Fortuna said, “Keep your camera on. I want to make sure no one is going down to the kitchen for some avocado toasts.”
At one point, Fortuna’s computer needed to be recharged. She plugged it into the big battery charger. When a student lost his Wi-Fi connection, she told him to use his phone.
“Phones are extremely useful right now,” she said
When that segment of the lesson was over, Fortuna asked the kids to hold up the notes they had taken; both the inclass and at-home kids held up their papers.
Planning and innovation
Fortuna said she has a great setup in the classroom, but it’s challenge to teach this way. It requires detailed planning and constant innovation.
“I have so much to figure out about the little details,” she said. “I can’t just be a talking head on the screen. I have to be teaching something, and they have to be doing something.”
In the 80-minute class I observed, the students were doing research before writing their own speeches. After they viewed the 10-minute speech of their choice and took notes, Fortuna directed them to Flipgrid.com to create a one-minute video analysis of the speech they just viewed. As soon as they finished recording, their videos popped up onto the Flipgrid screen. Students could watch each other’s videos.
The goal? The next day students were going to view and analyze another speech from the Moth Radio site. Where could they get suggestions about which video to watch? By watching a review on Flipgrid that a classmate made.
Fortuna said she is constantly looking for new ways to use technology to engage the students. She gets many suggestions from other teachers, where she learned about Flipgrid, OneNote, and
Nearpod, programs she now uses constantly.
Teachers stay in school until 5:15 p.m. on Mondays for training.
“We’ve had such good professional development because we are working on the stuff we need to do,” she said. “Teachers started sharing what they know. We just started sharing these different software programs.”
Combining the old with the new
But Fortuna also tries to combine some of the old ways that she knows work for the kids and for herself.
The students have to submit their writing online, but Fortuna said she prints out all the essays to read them more carefully. But the red-pen days are over: She cannot give papers back to the students. Instead, she verbally records her comments on Google Docs.
“It’s kind of like a writing conference,” she said.
She also wants kids to read things on paper and take notes with a pen. She created a packet that was sent to Central Office to be printed and put in a spiral binding. They were handed out once and never touched by the teacher again, but all the kids had them at their desks and were taking notes in them.
“You have to think about different ways that kids can access materials,” she said. “I don’t want them constantly on a screen.”
And group work? She tries to combine kids in class with kids at home, but it’s tricky. Her solution has been to have at least one in-class student in each group so she can walk around the class, look over the shoulder of the in-class student, and see and hear what’s going on in each group.
“I’ve always had to think about how to put kids into groups — who is sociable, who could overpower the group,” she said, “but now there’s the added component of how to make it work with both sets of kids.”
So she and all Norwalk teachers are becoming master jugglers. Sometimes the balls in the air are easily controlled. Sometimes that’s not true — the technology doesn’t work, the kids are shy with each other or the idea fell flat. Things can go wrong so easily.
But school is in session. The kids follow the arrows in the hall while walking between classes. Everyone is wearing masks. The students are patient and cooperative. Teachers are teaching and students are learning.
“It’s not perfect,” Fortuna said, “but it’s exactly what we need right now.”
“We’ve had such good professional development because we are working on the stuff we need to do. Teachers started sharing what they know. We just started sharing these different software programs.”
Paula Fortuna, an English teacher in the Center of Global Studies at Brien McMahon High School