Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1337485
I was happy to come back. I missed my students. But it's stressful when I get phone calls saying a student is being pulled from class to quarantine because someone in their family has COVID. Students and their families have been heavily impacted. I feel pretty safe. It's like going to the store with my mask on. We check stu- dents' temperatures when they arrive. We sanitize. But sometimes I worry. I thought a "whole class" approach might work, but instead it felt like I was teaching two separate classes. I had to make a shift. Now my online students have direct instruction on Microsoft Teams with students in class, then I release them for independent work and focus on students in front of me. My job is to follow up on independent work so that when students show up, their work at home is meaningful. It's hard to wrap my brain around teaching in person and online at the same time. Things I thought would work didn't. So I keep trying different things. These days, teachers have to rethink it all. " Things I thought would work didn't. So I keep trying different things." I T ' S A C H A L L E N G E to maintain student engagement in a normal class setting. But when you have two sets of students — one sitting in the classroom and another on Zoom at the same time — it's harder. There's a lot of back and forth with both groups checking for understanding. You have to see who is raising their hands to ask questions in two locations. Rather than focusing on what you are going to teach, it's mostly how. I convert all my documents into dig- ital format so I can screen-share with students on Zoom and allow them to see what's on the whiteboard in class. I consider myself tech-savvy, and it's still challenging. Sometimes I discover I'm not sharing the same thing with in-person and online students and double back. When you are doing distance learn- ing only, you can do breakout rooms and group activities. But when you are also teaching a live class, it's not possi- ble, so student collaboration is harder. It has increased my workload tremen- dously. I work nights and weekends. People on the outside don't understand how much work it is. This has pushed us into learning new ways of doing things. In a way, are all first-year teachers again. "It has increased my workload tremendously. People on the outside don't understand how much work it is." 27 F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 21 Jennifer Adolfson Michael Lee It pushed me to learn new ways of doing things MICHAEL LEE, Saddleback Valley Educators Association, a science teacher at El Toro High School in Lake Forest, teaches students online and in person simultaneously. Students alternate between Zoom days and in-person learning days, which keeps in-person classes smaller for social distancing.