What I Wish I’d Known Before Teaching Online by Hannah Lewis

    At this point, most Western PA teachers have been conducting at least a portion of this school year’s instruction online for a week or two, in addition to teaching online at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. This is the perfect time for me to provide the second installment of my discussion of remote learning for the brick-and-mortar teacher.

    When I first began teaching online in 2012, I had never even entertained the idea and really didn’t know what it was all about. Very early on, I felt overwhelmed, unprepared, and generally consumed with imposter syndrome. What was I doing? I didn’t know enough about web design to create high-quality instructional content. And I certainly couldn’t keep up with the high amount of prep time needed while still reading and honoring IEPs; grading papers with the high degree of feedback I felt was more necessary than ever online; and responding to the higher-than-ever volume of incoming emails and phone calls from parents who had objections to or questions about curriculum items, assignments, or students’ grades.

    I’ve been teaching online ever since, and if you’re feeling those same feelings--overwhelmed and unprepared--I want to send you a reassuring message: this does get easier.

    Preparing to write this, I asked a number of colleagues who teach online what they wish they’d known when they started teaching online. Here are the main points of intersection of our responses:

You Can’t Cyber-ize Brick and Mortar Teaching

    Trying to have a class discussion via Zoom the same way you do in a classroom will likely feel awkward, hollow, and even futile, but there are features of video conferencing platforms that afford new possibilities. Take advantage of them! Students who would never interrupt someone in person, let alone online, might become chatterboxes in the chat box. 

    This is just one example, but think about how enforcing dress codes, asking students to raise their hands, using bell-ringers or exit tickets, or upholding other standard parts of classroom teaching either don’t make sense in a virtual classroom or would benefit from adjustment.

Communication is Queen and Caregivers are Colleagues

    Without fail, everyone I talked to said they spent exponentially more time on communication with caregivers when teaching online compared to in a brick-and-mortar setting. We are on the phone, emailing, even using instant messaging tools or post cards in the mail to reach our families. If you can’t see what your students are doing, their caregivers at home may be able to. They can keep their children off of Fortnite and logged into Google Classroom if you just keep the lines of communication open. 

    As an English teacher, it’s been very important for me to be proactive and talk to caregivers. You may experience a higher rate of objections to stories, novels, or even writing assignments or discussion topics. The parents haven’t necessarily gotten pickier; the curriculum has just become more accessible to them. 

    I’ve started using Smore for family outreach and have started a monthly newsletter that fills caregivers in on thematic units and specific texts, but even just a plain old email will help you to keep caregivers informed. If they feel you’re being transparent with them, they’ll be less likely to object.

Set Healthy Boundaries

    Working from home, although a privilege from a public health point of view, is perhaps the most insidious component of remote teaching for many. It’s easy for work-life balance to become an afterthought when your work computer is casting its electric-blue glow on the wall in the room adjoining your bedroom.

    Teachers are notorious for our struggle with work-life balance. The problem is so widespread we often tire of the old cliche that “you can’t fill another’s cup if yours is empty.” 

    The fact of the matter is, though, that we are all living through a pandemic right now and many of us are teaching in new, unfamiliar, and exhausting ways. It is more important than ever to have a boundary between when you’re “on the clock” and when you’re off. Set a time every evening after which you do not work, forbid yourself from checking emails on the weekends, or make time to take walks during the day. 

    You’ll hear more about self-care in future WPCTE posts, but, especially if you’re working from home right now, find a way to keep work from creeping into every part of your life. 

    I started with the message that this will get easier, but it bears repeating. I invite you again to find someone who has taught online or in a blended fashion and leverage their expertise (you can find me on Twitter if you need a starting point). Trust, too, that, in time, you’ll develop this expertise yourself. 

Hold Your Breath! : Virtual PD by Casey Sirochman

 As a second year teacher returning to the classroom after a decade in public and academic libraries, I have been looking for new and different resources to enhance virtual instruction with my English 9, Research Skills, and Public Speaking classes at Frazier School District. Over the summer, I went swimming in the online deep end of free virtual professional development. While I was wading the waters of online videos, I came across a link in a chat window for an upcoming free experience with the Indiana Connected Educators. If you click on their Facebook page, some of the videos are still available on-demand. I found two workshops particularly valuable.

The first workshop, Remix that HyperDoc for Remote Learning- The HyperDocs Girls, highlighted a concise way to present information to students via hyperdocs. These experts curate, maintain, and encourage educators to use and embrace this format via their website. The presenters were looking at ways to revamp and make old hyperdocs more interactive and engaging. Meanwhile, being new to hyperdocs, I was simply impressed with the idea of creating a single access point via a document, slide presentation, or website of links focusing on one area of instruction. The idea seemed to spark in me a new vision of how students can engage with content in Google Classroom. I had a moment of clarity that I could create a streamlined way of presenting the neverending content stream under the Google Classroom classwork tab. Instead, via a hyperdoc, educators can link to the content in their Google Classrooms in addition to other resources like podcasts, youtube videos, non-fiction articles, and anything else with a link. After listening to this workshop, I signed up for the Facebook hyperdocs group, and created my first hyperdoc creation for the beginning of the school year using the modern teacher format.

The second presentation, “Creative and Meaningful Ways to Keep Students Connected to Learning, Reading, Opportunities, and Each Other,” with Shannon McClintock Miller, sent me down the path of how to make reading more authentic. Last school year, I implemented book groups or literature circles. I put students in small groups that meet each Friday to discuss the same book that they were reading. This school year, I wanted to make these activities more authentic and engaging for students. In addition to several other exciting ideas for engaging readers, Shannon mentioned a list of authors that were willing to speak with classes for free. First, I reviewed the list of authors and searched for copies of electronic or audiobooks online via the library Overdrive system. After about a half-hour of searching for the authors’ books to no avail, I decided to contact the authors of the books available via simultaneous user access on the library Overdrive system or via get epic. After several hours and numerous emails, I am excited to report that I have contacted 18 authors to engage with interviews this Fall. Finally, I have permission from all of the authors to record the interviews and I eventually will post these records on my website, creating a podcast for the class. 

Overall, while I am still wearing water wings when it comes to some online resources, I am thrilled with the ideas that I have discovered in these two virtual workshops. The students will begin online next week, August 31, and by the time you read this blog post, they will have heard about the author interview opportunity and the classroom podcast. If anyone is interested in submerging with me and these ideas or would like to see an example of hyperdocs that I create, please email me at csirochman@fraziersd.org. Let’s all try to keep each other afloat!

Author’s Bio: Mrs. Casey Sirochman’s  teaching experience spans over a decade working in public, academic, and special libraries across Pennsylvania. ​She has a Bachelor's of ​Science​ ​degree​ ​in​ ​English​/ Communications from​ ​The​ ​Pennsylvania State University, a Masters in Teaching English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters in Library Science from the University of Pittsburgh.​ ​She is in her second year as a ninth grade English teacher at Frazier School District.