By Dr. Rosse Reissman
Positives? Yes, there are positives for teachers to take away from their mandated sudden immersion in remote learning.
Once the shock of schools suddenly being closed for what may
be weeks or months settled in for families, students, and school staff, they
struggled to transition to remote learning. Even the terms “remote” or
“distance” brought with them negative overtones for students and teachers
accustomed to the dynamics of on-site interactions rich in gestures, smiles,
vocal nuances, and the nourishment of communicating with friends and
colleagues.
But, as the weeks since the close of school have gone by,
this crisis has revealed in its sudden transition, an important undercurrent of
closeness and connection. While teachers remain at their various homes,
“remote” from their students and colleagues, remote learning is accomplished
through an online connection of uploaded assignments and student responses,
along with colleague to colleague messaging brings: all of it reestablishing closeness.
If a school has a dynamic student newsfeed of shared events
and projects as does my school, Ditmas IS 62 K (a Brooklyn middle school), it
can use this central site as the showcase network for students and teachers
from various classes. It becomes a ‘go to’ hub where student work may be
published and displayed, a virtual place in which members of the school
community connect in ways that go beyond the general understanding of
COVIC-19’s social distancing required remote learning.
How can that be when teachers can no longer “see” their
students onsite, face-to-face? The connection is achieved through “seeing” the students at home using Zoom or other web-conferencing
resources, or even reading what the students have written and submitted online
through Google docs and giving my reactions and feedback quickly. In our
school, student work may be uploaded to our Ditmas Life website where it
may elicit reactions from many members of the community and students may see
one another’s responses to the same prompt, as well as the reactions of
community members to those.
While perhaps not as satisfying to either the teachers or
the students as personal, onsite interactions, these words and images
(sometimes students post photographs of their art) certainly maintain a rich
ongoing connectedness.
The key to the closeness that is inherent in remote learning
lies in the teacher to student exchanges; exchanges that
yes, functionally provide instructional communication, but that also establish
relationship, something that all of a sudden in this time of social distancing
stands out as crucial
The teacher, for each student, even if a
teacher works with 120 of them (a typical assignment in NYC), through back and
forth, uploaded Google docs or email reads each “voice”- or perhaps views an
uploaded drawing and without the distraction of
classroom management or whole class scheduling, reacts to
it.
As was the case previously, in every on-site classroom and
now in the virtual space established for remote learning, an emphasis is
rightly placed on class participation in order to foster learning that
addresses the speaking and discussion standard of CCSS and also to help
students who are not able to demonstrate their knowledge on tests.
Unfortunately, while this participation certainly enhanced
all students’ learning as they all listened to conversations, for many shyer
students or those for whom English is a second language, or those who are
simply quieter, their personal challenges in participating in typical classroom
conversations barred them from connecting in person with the teacher or with
other students. True, “in their heads-internally” they might have recognized
similar ideas and connections to themes studied; but they were ultimately too
shy or self conscious to raise their hands to participate.
Ironically, our new “distance” or “remote” learning
opportunity equalizes for, and provides such students with equitable access and
opportunity in class discussion ‘in a way few educators would anticipate!.
Suddenly everyone’s ideas can be received and reacted to by the teacher. No
student has to worry about what peers might say or how they might react to the
students’ comment. Now, in remote learning, when a reading task or prompt to
which the entire class is invited to respond is assigned, competition for
attention is a far lesser factor. And unlike in a real world classroom
where another student may quickly, if called on first, utter a response very
similar to what a student wanted to say or one that takes up a lengthy time of
the allotted discussion preventing the student from being called on, in the
remote classroom every student has time to think about the prompt, formulate a
response as well as equitable access to the teacher’s attention.
This opens participation floodgates for many students who
teachers in the face-to-face classroom may have known were filled with original
ideas and the need to communicate them, but simply could not cross their
personal social barrier to do so, except, on occasion, through extended written
responses, something not often called for in the typical day in, day out format
of teaching and learning.
In a typical class lesson, there is at best sufficient time
for 6-8 student responses to which the teacher can respond with a comment
before moving on to the next segment or class. However, remote learning allows
the teacher to comment on all the responses and to take time to react
personally to all of them if the teacher deems that important.
Even better, the teacher is not constricted in remote
learning to a five or six period schedule, something that’s very difficult to
alter. This being said, the teacher can develop a rhythm of grading and
reacting to individual student assignments which allows for individual comments
through online back and forth in order to emotionally and academically enhance
students self concept and knowledge. In remote learning teachers can set aside
time to respond to all students with messages and personalization and definitely
to nurture the new voices they never accessed previously during onsite
teaching.
But this all sounds abstract. How does this play out in
middle school English Language Arts teachers’ remote teaching of writing - in
my case, working with Title 1, inner city students from diverse ethnic
backgrounds whose families have been economically and socially challenged way
since before the public health challenge of Corona Virus kicked in?
At Ditmas IS 62, in Ms. Xavier’s remote learning program
(shared with Dr. Reissman- the literacy support person) the same class
discussion questions that targeted readings of literature or news articles and
were introduced and then debriefed after readings (or other activities such as
viewing Youtube videos or websites) can be asked remotely.
But suddenly, it is not just only six or eight, at the max, students who can answer and get responses from their peers: it’s every student in the class. Previously, even the students who enjoy responding and hearing the sounds of their own voices in class, the born talkers and extroverts, were stopped from answering because the lesson may have timed out or they already heard a form of their idea expressed by another student. Now they’re able to fully write and express their idea in answer to the written prompt.
A simple prompt such as: “What personal strength have you
identified in yourself which you are proud to have?” suddenly elicited (see
school website section for Ms. Xavier’s classes) very detailed responses
from students who never or rarely contributed to any class discussion.
It was obvious as the students shared extensive details about personal strengths ranging from an ability to memorize to being able to make jokes to developing quotes about life experiences- that the students were relishing sharing their “voices” with their suddenly “accessible” teacher beyond the 20 minute teacher programmed discussion period. Even better, getting these responses remotely allowed the teacher to react to the student, comment in some detail personally for each student, and with the student’s permission share the student’s reaction on a school or class website.
It was obvious as the students shared extensive details about personal strengths ranging from an ability to memorize to being able to make jokes to developing quotes about life experiences- that the students were relishing sharing their “voices” with their suddenly “accessible” teacher beyond the 20 minute teacher programmed discussion period. Even better, getting these responses remotely allowed the teacher to react to the student, comment in some detail personally for each student, and with the student’s permission share the student’s reaction on a school or class website.
Suddenly, thanks to remote learning, the barriers and gaps
between the student extravert speakers and everyone else in the class who also
has a reaction or a response to a prompt, have been leveled. This leveling not
only enhances student sharing via a school website or a teacher curated site,
but also facilitates students’ ability to function as digital citizens
connected to one another,even though the class is not meeting in person at itslocal school site. Sadly, the students have already developed
and are developing their capacities as Digital Citizens by doing remote
learning beyond school control and innovating activities and schedules often
with little adult input. They are then sharing these ideas in their school
community - digital citizens brainstorming ideas. However, the new remote
learning reality is an opportunity for school staff to model and inculcate
proper Digital Citizenship, another unanticipated remote learning
benefit.
Rather than ponder the challenges and difficulties this
crisis-driven, immediate plunge into the fresh waters of remote teaching has
created for educators and students, why not step back to savor the students
swimming alongside us? Many of these students have been brought closer to their
peers and to their teachers through this new way of teaching and learning.
The goal of all teachers is to differentiate instruction and
to access
every student to excellence and equity in content. How
wonderful and ironic that “distance” learning makes this “close” connecting
possible and achievable every time the teacher and ALL the students log in.
…………………………………………………………….
This
article is the outcome of the Remote Learning Ditmas School initiative as
realized by Writing Institute ELA Ditmas Site director, Amanda Xavier and
Writing Institute ELA educator, Dina Francis. Mr. Carideo, technology
educator, has developed and updates the Ditmas Life www.ditmas.life page . Mr.
Downes is the faculty advisor for Ditmas Buzz Newsletter and Ms. Xavier is the
English Language Arts editor.
Ditmas
IS 62 is a District 20, Brooklyn school under the leadership of Marielena
Santiago, Principal and Michelle Buitrago, AP.
…………………………………………………………………
The Ditmas IS 62
website mentioned in the article was developed and curated by Angelo Carideo,
the school’s Software Engineering and Technology Talent program teacher. www.Ditmas.life is a web site used for
chronicling Ditmas student events and stories and art.
More
links to student activity samples:
Index
or Ditmas Proud Home Page:
Mrs.
Fancis:
Xavier
Page 1
Xavier
Page 2
Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute, now replicated in 200 schools including PS 191 in Manhattan, New York City. She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. Ditmas IS 62 is under the leadership of Marielena Santiago Principal and Michelle Buitrago AP. The Writing Institute Team are: Michael Downes, Angelo Carideo, and Amanda Xavier.
Contact: roshchaya@gmail.com