May 4: Learnings from Remote Learning

Happy Janus Day!
     Actually Janus Day was last Friday, but as I've been learning, finding time to blog is harder that I had expected (as so many have learned, the idea of having loads of free time just hasn't really materialized since the shutdown). 
    Anyway, for those not familiar with this, Janus is a Roman god of looking back and looking forward. Our Janus Day celebration is a somewhat goofy ritual to reflect back on our personal growth and successes this year and to look ahead to our hopes and commitments for this last stretch of school. At Compass, the end of April-beginning of May involves a shift from our regular academic classes to a set of learning adventures that engage students in different experiences that culminate the year.
     In a normal year, this involves the 11th grade Global Connections international travel, Spring Trips for other grades, Senior Projects, Portfolio Week, Project Week and some other culminating activities in regular classes. This year, our regular (remote) academic classes ended May 1, and we are now moving into 2 weeks of Project Week (with those needing to make up work still doing that for this first Project Week) followed by two weeks for Portfolio Week (and Portfolio roundtables, now being done remotely). 
     Our Janus Day celebration, done through a Google Meets, started us off with the rousing Janus Day anthem, followed by two teachers reciting the Janus Day script about "beginnings and endings, transitions and passages, gates and doorways" and inspiring us "to soar in these final weeks: we strive to do our best, to take pride in ourselves and all we can accomplish, and to share the light we each bring to the world."
 This is followed by individual reflections where we ask students to look back on the year and note one area of growth or success and to share one hope or goal for the last month of school. These are shared on our virtual Janus Tree. Here it is:  https://padlet.com/alexandrinzuser/h0lla5nebzs0w7jn.
     It was so encouraging for me to hear the many students who were looking forward with positive energy to these last weeks of school and hoping to be more disciplined and productive and also to find joy and fun even in these challenging times. And I think it was encouraging for students to learn their peers positive energy that can carry us all through these last several weeks of school to end with a flourish.
     Our Janus Day celebration followed a morning of Professional Development time. This May PD day is always our "plan the rest of the year" day. We used our time this year to reflect on our remote learning academic classes, especially important if we need to do this again in the fall or some other time. 
      We covered a lot of ground, and much of the reflection was about personal adjustments and impact on teachers and their lives (not the least of which is how much harder teaching remotely is for those with young kids at home). Here are the bigger take-aways from our teachers:
Key Takeaways Group 1:
  • Students who step forward step forward more...less engaged kids are more disengaged
  • Communication is the biggest challenge. It helps to know what platform/medium kids use (instagram, text, facebook messenger may work better than email)
  • Students are not getting heterogenous social interactions...more in their lil bubbles
  • It's great to have time to do one-on-one check-ins with kids--flexibility of time
  • Perfectionism / how to decide what is “good enough”...for both teachers & students, collectively & individually...how much are we chasing them vs. how much they’re putting in...BOUNDARIES (when is it okay to not be available?)
Key Takeaways Group 2:
  • Doing active and proactive support for parents-- their supervision and interaction with their home-bound student is crucial for success of many kids
  • There is great benefit to 1-on-1 sessions-- how to do more of that in “regular” school
  • Remote learning helped certain kids-- eg. kids with processing speed challenges now has more time to process
  • Value of activating kids to help other kids-- collaborative work, and even just helping to get kids to show up for class
  • Increased intimacy-- we are “entering” each other’s homes, communicating at night, removing some barriers

Key Questions:
  • Are there scheduling changes we want to implement that have come into light during this time?
  • How do we foster more small-group work sessions?
  • What is the best way to communicate remotely with students?

Things to get better at:
  • Enlisting parents support
  • Using platforms kids use (ie Instagram)
  • More small group classes (3-5) that may focus in a particular way
  • “Discussions”--using discussion threads
  • Kids helping kids--more group work?
  • Using opportunity to connect more broadly with each other and those distant (grandparents at Roundtables, students from other schools/countries learn with us, experts as part of our classes)

     One of the big takeaways for me is how much is lost in remote learning about kids developing valuing of others and embracing difference. If school was only about transmitting knowledge and skills, remote learning may be able to work for some or even many kids (this depends, of course, on personal discipline and motivation, organizational skills, and significantly, home environment and parent support). But for breaking down barriers among kids, helping kids broaden horizons, and opening to acceptance, respect, and appreciation of the diversity of their peers (and adults), remote learning is really problematic and even detrimental. With our limited personal bandwidth, who we reach out to is limited and probably confined to our little gang of probably fairly like minded individuals. And even if we force kids to interact electronically, the interactions in the virtual world are unlikely to develop the connections that build relationships and appreciation of difference. This seems a huge loss to me and not easily addressed simply by some modifications of our remote learning approach. 
     One last, more logistical takeaway is the value of having much more contact information for kids and parents, especially for the modality the individual uses. Having instagram accounts, text phone numbers, or whatever they use beyond phone and email, is imperative. Likewise, it would be great to have an app that allows us to put any address format in one big list where we can send school information out in one click and it goes to folk no matter what their address/platform. Maybe that already exists? If not, good app to develop (and maybe get rich:)!
     Day 1 of Project Week for us. Started Comedy Class today. I need to go off and "work" watching funny stuff. Enjoy! Find reasons to smile:).  
 
     

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