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eSchool News
A teacher’s remote learning reality
Shadowing a third-grade teacher for one day of remote learning illuminates the reality of educating students during a pandemic
By Britten Follett, Executive V.P., Follett School Solutions
February 5th, 2021
Deep
understanding comes from first-hand experience and stepping out from
behind our desks. That includes me, as I lead Follett School Solutions
and strive to always understand our customers’ needs. Since the
pandemic began, I’ve been talking to district leaders, librarians, and
teachers about the challenges and opportunities they face. On a recent
Illinois morning, third-grade teacher Julie Scroggins invited me to
shadow her as she lives what we read and hear about: the reality of a
teacher’s day during remote learning in a pandemic.
Each morning at 8 a.m., on the West side of Rockford, Illinois, Julie
hopes to see all 26 of her third-grade students’ faces. On a good day,
22 of them boot up their Google Chromebooks and log on to Zoom for the
first lesson of the day. About half of her 9- and 10-year-old students
woke themselves up this morning for a day of remote learning.
Julie teaches from her empty classroom in the second-largest city in
Illinois, known for its blue-collar, manufacturing economy that has
struggled for decades. While the neighborhood school is open for
in-person learning, the decision for in-person or remote is up to each
family. All of Julie’s students are remote and have been since last
March, when the pandemic shut down every school in the country.
Julie’s students join class from whatever semi-private, quiet space
they can find. It may be their bedroom, the kitchen table, even a
closet. She greets each one as their faces pop up on the Brady
Bunch-style screen, asks them how their morning is going, and whether
mom or dad is home today. The answers vary.
On any given day, chatter among these students includes how they are
going to get to the convenience store down the road to buy milk because
they don’t want to walk through the snow and their bike tire is flat.
One student typically joins Zoom class wrapped in a blanket on Fridays
because it’s laundry day and he doesn’t have enough shirts to get
through the week. On this particular Friday, Julie was especially
concerned about the health and safety of her students going into a
three-day weekend.
This morning began with a game of “Would you rather…” to get them
talking, thinking, and smiling. In case you were wondering, nearly all
22 would rather build a snow fort than a snow man. Next, she reminds
each student how to access their Bitmoji classrooms, which she designed
and loaded with videos and eBooks to help explain Illinois third grade
curriculum topics, like migration. Between group instruction time,
students can go to the Bitmoji classrooms before doing their
assignments they find in Google Classroom.
Before sending the class off to independent learning time, Julie asked
one student to stay on the Zoom “after class.” She reminded this little
boy that her Zoom is open all day and if he needs her for anything, at
any time, he can join. He waved goodbye to the camera and told her he
would see her later. Julie says students take her up on that offer
every day to pop on to Zoom, often as a distraction from something
going on in the background at home. Sometimes they want to talk. Other
times, they just want to see a safe, comforting face.
Because many of Julie’s 22 students are at different reading levels,
she teaches several virtual reading groups. She selects a book for each
group and uses a document camera to project the pages of the book to
the students’ screens for them to read out loud. When one student is
reading, the other students have their microphones on mute. They wait
patiently as Julie helps each one of them sound out new words like
“acorn.” Occasionally, the reader mutes his or her microphone in the
middle of the page if someone in the house begins making noise in the
background. Julie gives them some time for things to quiet down or has
another student start where their classmate left off. The students in
Julie’s smallest reading group are still trying to master sight words.
While the students are reading out loud to each other, on one of
Julie’s three monitors, she’s watching the screens of her other
students. At any point in the day, Julie can see exactly what the
student is doing on his or her laptop. If a student is struggling to
find a resource, Julie can invite them to join the Zoom and help
navigate. If a student is watching YouTube instead of learning, Julie
will send them a chat to stop and pay attention. If they don’t oblige,
she can turn off access to YouTube. She’s had to immediately intervene
when older siblings or parents began using a student’s Chromebook to
access inappropriate websites.
Those are the long days. But Julie says most go by quickly. While she’s
spent her career teaching, this school year is Julie’s first at this
school. When she applied for the job, she thought she would be teaching
in-person, and she even decorated her classroom. But days before
students were scheduled to start, she found out her class would be
fully remote. While she’s never met her students in person, Julie
believes she knows them better than she would if it was a traditional
school year, because she is able to see them in their environment. If
they don’t join Zoom class, she calls or texts a parent to check on
them. So, she knows the intimate details of their home life—the good
and the not so good.
Unlike some districts, Julie issues grades to her students. Overall,
they are better at math than reading, Julie shared, because some don’t
have many books at home (although she was able to share three books
with each student). As state testing wrapped up during the week I
shadowed her, preliminary results indicate that every student in
Julie’s class “showed progress.” Despite the many challenges posed by
remote learning, Julie believes her students are progressing thanks to
the independent learning time during which she is able to connect with
each student individually—which likely wouldn’t happen in an in-person
class of 26.
At the moment, this dedicated teacher has no idea what the next school
year will bring for in-person or remote learning. Her students don’t
know what the next hour will bring. In a world filled with instability,
Julie’s smiling face, encouraging words. and a structured schedule is
enough to get at least 22 of them to log on to learn each morning. Now
she can only hope they remember to join class after lunch.
Shadowing
Julie gave me valuable insight I may not have otherwise gained. I
learned firsthand about the challenges teachers face in a remote
teaching and learning environment, and I also saw how the relationship
between students and teachers are taking on new depth, with more
personal knowledge of a child’s environment and what that child may be
experiencing that informs their learning experience. As educational
partners with districts across the country, Follett strives to help
teachers and students create better teaching and learning experiences
through our Follett Cares program, through which we donate 70,000 books
each year. We are also expanding our Follett Foundation to offer Free
Follett Book Fairs to underserved communities.
It’s our hope that together, with teachers like Julie, we can all continue to help each child reach their potential.
Read this and other stories at eSchool News
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