My classroom runs on student protocols and classroom routines. Since we went hybrid they had to change dramatically! Even more so, I had to change my own protocols for myself as the teacher and today I want to share them with you!
The Start of Class
In prior years my students knew as they walked into class to immediately pick up the daily notes and bring them to their seats. Our warm-up task was already posted at the front screen and students would get started right away. Normally they'd be standing up at the whiteboards on the walls around the room and working together to complete the task. This year that has to look very different.
As class starts I always some kind of warm-up activity to get students in the right headspace. But instead of jumping right into it I start by asking students to tell me how their day is going by giving me a number from 1 to 5. The number 1 means it has been a bad day and five is a great day. In these times it is more important than ever to engage with students socially and emotionally, so I take the beginning of class to make sure that I do that. We have fun with it and students will often give me decimal answers and then we can start some good conversation about their day.
How I Organize Materials
It is April and I went to the copy room for the first time since March 2020. This year I have
pushed out all of our materials digitally using on our Google Classroom. My notes have been predominately on Google Slides, like this interactive notebook that I used in my first unit of the year. Inside the notebook I have embedded links to outside materials like Desmos activities, Jamboards, Google Slides activities, Flipgrid, IXL, Pear Deck and more. I will also push these items out on our Google Classroom if I didn't have it ready when I first pushed the notebook slides out to my students. You can read more about my interactive notebooks here, and more about my favorite activities in the last blog post of this series.
As I've mentioned, we use Google Classroom at my school. Below is a view of how I organize these posts. I like to start with the date and I separate everything by unit.
Model Everything for Everyone
As Math teachers we know that modeling is a effective strategy to help students learn. In the hybrid setting it's important to model everything... And I mean everything. Each group of students is getting a very dramatically different experience due to the environment that they are participating in and I've made a conscious effort to be mindful of what modeling I am doing to make it an equitable experience for both the in-person and virtual students.
For example, I will often review a solution process with hand gestures as we verbally discuss what we did to solve the problem. The students that are in class may see these gestures, but the students that are at home may have a more difficult time following along. Or they may not see these gestures at all. For this reason I've been mindful of annotating my gestures on the board using the ink tool on my SmartBoard. If you do not have a smart board you can use a Chrome extension, like Web Paint, to do the same thing. I will highlight sections, draw arrows or circle as I'm talking about sections of the problem so that my virtual students do not miss these gestures and cues.
As I continue to model content I have learned that I also need to model how to use the technology for my students. I am mindful of showing the processes explicitly whenever I can. I show students explicitly how to get to different assignments or how to submit their work in tasks that are competed online. I model how to get logged in to whatever resource we are using that day. I then have my students give me a cue that they have successfully done these actions by either giving me a thumbs up or typing something like "woohoo!" or "ready!" in the chat.
Lastly I will mindfully share verbal cues to remind my virtual students where they should be looking on their computer. Verbal cues have been a staple practice of mine over done the last few years and I have found that they have helped my students a lot. I find that doing the same for my virtual students is incredibly helpful. With so many tabs open and so many more opportunities for distraction, any effort to keep them on task has been helpful. For example I will tell my students explicitly to switch tabs and "find the Meet tab" to ensure that they are viewing the screen that I am presenting on so they can see what I am doing, instead of listening to me and looking at a different tab such as their notebook tab. It takes mindfulness on my part to constantly think about the experience that the virtual student is having but it is worth it.
Equitable Engagement
As more of my students are back in the classroom each day, I have concerns over equity of engagement opportunities. To ensure that I am providing both sets of students with an equal chance at engaging, at getting assistance, and at learning, I have a few strategies that I am implementing.
First, I am mindful about how I present the material and how I collect responses. Although about 75% of my students are in-person now, I am still using tools like Desmos, Pear Deck, Padlet, etc. every day to ensure that all voices are heard and presented. I used these tools prior to Covid, but I use them daily because they allow for ALL students' voices to be heard and that is incredibly important.
I am also explicit when speaking to the sets of students. I will be sure to say things like "Let's hear from someone who is virtual" or "Students who are in-person give me a thumbs up and students who are virtual, let me know if the chat if...[insert probing question here]"
I also pair students in-person and virtual students using Google Meet to ensure that all students are collaborating and able to engage equitably. You can read more about how I use breakout rooms with tools like Jamboard, Padlet, Slides, etc. in this previous blog post.
Share your questions, comments and experiences in the comments below!
Share you wins and challenges of hybrid teaching!
What is your go-to tool for engagement?
What questions do you have about hybrid teaching?
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