Teaching in the Fall of 2020

A math teacher colleague and friend of mine, Jessica Strom (Twitter: @strom_win), recently blogged about teaching at a distance this past spring and how moving forward in a hybrid model is going to look for her classroom.

Inspired by this post, I decided that I would like to do the same and discuss what a hybrid model will ideally look like in my English classroom. As a math teacher, her post was relatively short. As an English teacher, mine will undoubtedly be longer. You have been sufficiently warned.

Day One: Updated Policies

On the first day of school with students, I always go through my classroom guidelines. However, my rules have gotten shorter and shorter every year since I started teaching. This year, I plan to eliminate my late policy. (Technically, I trashed it during distance learning in the spring, and I am not reinstating it.) I also plan to allow students to retake tests and redo assignments as much as they want to. My rationale for this is simple: when students go into the work force, bosses have deadlines for work and they want work to be done well. However, if it isn't done on time or isn't done well, bosses don't just slap a grade on mediocre or incomplete work and move on. They give their workers more time to finish, or ask them to redo it until it meets standards. (Ultimately, if this were to happen repeatedly, bosses would consider firing those workers who aren't meeting standards. I don't, however, have power to "fire" students.)

Why is English Important?

Also on the first day, I want my students to think about why English class is important. I get the feeling that a lot of students think it isn't. They think it's a place where we read a lot of "fluffy" books and watch movies based on those books. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I plan to create a word web (using Jamboard so that the students at home can see it in our hybrid model) and ask students what they expect to learn this year. I am interested to see what they come up with without my telling them. Here's what I hope to see on the Jamboard by the end of discussion:

Basic Skills: spelling, vocabulary, grammar, writing, reading, comprehension, media literacy

Life Lessons: empathy, cultural competence, forgiveness, tolerance, being better people, etc

I have no doubt that students will (mostly) cover the skills portion, as those skills are vital when it comes to applying for and keeping a job, or just being a good citizen and contributing to society. I don't know whether students will jump on the idea that themes from stories are important to teach them life lessons. This is just as vital.

We live in very trying times right now. Everywhere in the news, on Facebook, and in other media, I see people who have either forgotten how to have empathy, or they just never learned that character trait. As it says in the header of my blog, "We are made of stories. Stories teach us empathy. Stories teach us to wonder and lead to a better life." The more you read, the more you learn to empathize with the characters who are different from you.

With this in mind, I plan to make a point of buying more diverse books by more diverse authors the next time that the Language Arts department is up for curriculum review. The last time we were up for review, we chose to invest in an e-textbook series from Pearson that we ultimately decided we don't really like. Instead, we plan to utilize CommonLit for our anthology needs. I taught about this amazing service at a MLK Day workshop last January (and would have taught about it at an MCTE conference had it not been cancelled due to COVID-19). Here are my Google Slides:

sites.google.com/view/wemhanson/workshops

Learning Platforms for English Class

In addition to CommonLit and Quill (for grammar - also shown in my Google Slides), I plan to use the following platforms with my students:

• Google Classroom
• Google Meet Zoom*
• SpellingCity (7th grade)
• GrammarFlip (10th grade)

*Last spring, I used Google Meet. I was the only high school teacher in my district to use it. All the other teachers used Zoom. Why did I go against the grain? Why am I switching to Zoom now? I hope to answer these questions below.

It's no secret to my students and to my colleagues that I love Google. I recently wrote more about my love for Google in a previous blog post.

Anyway, when distance learning began in the spring, Google Meet was still called "Google Hangouts Meet", which was a very confusing title, and it was a far less popular video conferencing solution than Zoom was at the time, not to mention that it wasn't as fully featured. I fully understand why the other teachers chose to use Zoom.

The Pros of Using Google Meet

I used Google Meet in the spring despite the other teachers using Zoom for a few reasons:

1. Google Meet lives in the browser. I don't need to download another app to run it.
2. I can run multiple Meets at once. This was useful when I wanted to show a movie to one group while I taught another group.
3. Google Meet is fully integrated into Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Classroom, making it really easy to find and use.
4. Google Meet is simpler than Zoom. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, which I don't need. I find it easier to use.
5. I can easily share a tab in Chrome without showing my entire window. (Zoom may be able to do this, but I haven't found it yet.)

The Cons of Using Google Meet

Despite all of these reasons, I'm switching to Zoom for at least the fall semester. Here's why:

After polling the parents in my district, it was determined that, for them, the biggest difficulties with distance learning came from using different platforms for delivering learning, and when the same platforms were used, they weren't always used in the same way. To me, it didn't seem that students were confused about using Meet vs Zoom, but if it helps, I will gladly switch.

Google is trying to make Meet a competitor to Zoom by adding Zoom's most popular features, but they unfortunately won't be ready for the first day of school. Those features include:

• Breakout rooms (a workaround is possible through setting up multiple Meets, but it isn't as simple as pushing a button)
• A white board (a workaround is possible by opening Jamboard in a new tab and then sharing that tab, but it's not built in)
• Hand raising
• Attendance

I've spoken with Jessica and others in the Leadership Team, and ultimately we decided to move forward as a whole staff using Zoom, but if Google Meet eventually becomes the better option, we can switch to using that instead.

Using Google Classroom in the Same Way

As for Google Classroom, I will be presenting to the high school teachers this week about using it in the same way, so it's easier for students to find whatever they're looking for in each class.

I've been using Google Classroom longer than anyone else in my building. (I started using it while it was still in beta.) When the "Topics" feature was added, I took it to mean "Units". That's how I've used it all along. A topic for grammar lessons and a topic for short stories, a topic for spelling and a topic for novels. It made sense to me, but a special education teacher pointed out to me that it wasn't always intuitive for her students. Instead, she recommended I organize by days or weeks instead. At first, I dismissed the idea, but it has grown on me.

Here's what I'm presenting to the other teachers:

• Use "Topics" to organize by day or week
• Posting assignments to the stream should be turned off (announcements only)
• Assignments in Google Classroom should have the same titles as those in Synergy grade book (for clarity)
• Likewise, if two assignments are graded and posted separately in Synergy, they should be separated in Classroom
• Use a "Material" to add your daily Zoom link to the top of the Classwork tab (since Zoom doesn't have a built-in link)
• Assignments should be graded in Google Classroom (which is synced with Synergy) and returned to students, who should be taught to use the To-Do page to track incomplete work they have yet to finish

Tomorrow, I will be working on my presentation. It will include this basic list, as well as step-by-step how to do all the things on this list. I hope that our efforts to get on the same page, using the same platforms in the same way, don't go unnoticed or unappreciated by the students or parents as we start hybrid learning this fall.

Google Currents Has Great Potential

Lastly, one new platform that I think could help keep us on the same page (if enough of us were to use it) is Google Currents. It's like Facebook for organizations. Slack seems to be its closest rival. It was rebuilt from the ashes of Google+. I've created a Community for the Leadership Team to keep track of our many discussions about learning models and health department protocols. One problem: we're not using it!

If you want to follow me on Twitter, click here. If you're one of my colleagues, find and follow me on Google Currents: currents.google.com!