Last week I wrote that I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep up with my weekly “teach” from home highlights that I’d started just before Spring Break. Listening to the latest episode of Analog(ue) has helped me decide to keep up with this focus...at least for now. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact (among other things) on my career as a teacher. I am about to embark on my 5th week “teaching” from home...an unprecedented moment in my 30 year career. Not writing about “this moment” would be a missed opportunity. I’d like to try a different set of lenses “on” for this coming week’s post. I still plan on posting only once this week as my attention needs to continue to be directed towards helping the families I serve. I do not see that changing in the near or distant future...the families I serve are my priority! Borrowing from another form of writing that I currently engage in, the Theme System Journal, I think I’m going to do the following...
1. Write about one thing that was good that happened during the day.
2. Write about one thing that made me happy during the day.
3. Write about something I am looking forward to.
4. Write about one thing that was unexpected about the day.
Now...my mileage may vary with each of these lenses meaning...for example...I may not have something unexpected happen. In these cases I will defer to whatever is on my mind. If I choose to borrow from the Theme System Journal model should I continue to write in my physical journal this week? Would doing so be redundant? Should I do the writing in the journal then take the highlights from it and place them here? That “flow” might serve as a nice pre-write for what ends up in the blog post. I could do the writing in the journal then “mine” it taking one “Good, Happy, Forward, and Unexpected” as a sort of cross section of what the week was like. That seems like a good idea. Or…I could pick one of these things and write about it here and save the “TSJ” for other things. That sounds even better. I plan on leaving all of this in the post so that readers can see how my though process led to what you see below.
Monday-This was our first day back from Spring Break…I anticipated that there would be a few issues with getting people back “on-line” and there were…nothing major though. I had a great morning Check-In meeting with a student and her mother. The mother was very complimentary of me…she told me that going through all of this with her daughter had raised her level of appreciation for me and the teaching profession. I was also a little concerned that the assignments I created in Canvas (the platform our district wants us using) were not going to work. Turns out…I created them correctly and students were able to access them and turn them in! 2 big wins for the day!
Tuesday-I spent some time Monday evening thinking about some of the issues a few of my students were having in their attempts to complete assignments remotely. This morning when I woke up...I went into one of the assignments and amended the directions...in an attempt to better clarify what was being asked. I also included some “scaffolding” for the students...text they could “lean on” if they were having difficulty thinking about how to get the assignment started after our “live” Zoom sessions. I asked for feedback on my attempts to clarify through the additional directions and the students told me that it was helpful. I knew it made sense, later in the day, when some of them started to submit their work and I saw evidence of the “scaffolding” being used.
Wednesday-Today’s “remote” learning is not yet complete but I have already decided what to write about. A student whose family I have not heard from since March 13th reached out to me last night requesting assistance with getting their child up and going to start learning “remotely.” I did not see this until this morning when I logged in but got right to...providing the family with all of the information they needed to get their child on line. It did not take long before I saw the student “active” in my Canvas course and both the child and mother will be attending my afternoon Zoom Math session. MASSIVE WIN FOR THE DAY!
Thursday-I’m choosing to write this portion of the blog post early in the morning. Being so ahead of the game has afforded me the time to just relax a bit before my first Zoom session with my students today. I’m really pleased with the way things have gone this week...on every level. Monday went exactly the way I thought it would and since then things have just continued to improve! With the momentum of 5 straight days of “remote” learning (I’m counting tomorrow here) behind us, routines soundly in place, next week can only get better!