No more snow days? Here’s how else school in Fort Worth might change after COVID-19.
Last year, anytime one of her students was out sick, Halie Poe had to fill out a list of everything that student had missed that day. Then, she had to walk the list to all of the student’s teachers so they could add the day’s assignments. Once that was done, Poe had to take the list, along with any supporting materials, to the office so the student’s parents could pick it up.
This year, that process is far simpler for Poe, who is a fifth grade math and science teacher at Ridglea Hills Elementary School in Fort Worth. It’s also simpler for students and their families.
With classes moved online, Poe can just point students who miss online class sessions to her Google Classroom page. All their assignments, class announcements and recorded class sessions are there in one place. That also means students can’t leave their homework at school when they go home for the day or forget to bring it back the following morning.
“The missing work drama that we’ve always dealt with is now magically solved,” Poe said.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in March, teachers across North Texas have had to rethink even the most basic things about the way they do their jobs. While there are many challenges to online learning, not all of those changes were bad, and, in fact, teachers say some of them were long overdue. Teachers and education experts predict some of the changes teachers have been forced to make during school shutdowns will reshape education in ways that last long after the pandemic ends.
Online learning offers flexibility
On the morning of Sept. 15, before the school day began, Poe sat down in her otherwise-empty classroom in front of a colorful bulletin board that showed multiples of the numbers 1 through 11. She opened a video recording program on her computer and clicked the button to start recording.
“Good morning, fifth-graders,” she said, smiling into her computer’s camera. “I hope your day is off to a good start. I just wanted to give you an update about today. We’ll go ahead and start with math.”
Poe outlined two assignments about addition and subtraction of whole numbers, then moved on to science, where the class was in the middle of a unit about classifying matter. For that day’s assignment, students would test whether five things they found around their homes were attracted to a magnet and whether they floated or sank in water. After outlining the assignments, Poe reminded students about how to turn them in and told them she’d be online in Google Meet to help them if they had questions.
Poe, who is in her seventh year of teaching, said all of her students have participated in distance learning in one way or another, which she’s quick to acknowledge is not the case for every teacher. But what the participation of her students looks like depends on the student.
Some students start their days on the Google Meet call, listen to her instructions and what’s expected of them that day, then work on their own. Others start out on their own, join the call for instructions and then only come back if they have questions. Others like to stay on the call as they’re doing their work, either to ask for help, collaborate with another student or just to have other faces in the room while they’re doing their work.
Still other students don’t participate in live instruction at all. Instead, those students start their school work when their parents get home from work. They watch Poe’s recorded lessons, do the assignments on their own and only contact her when they need help. That flexibility is one of the benefits of the model the district adopted for distance learning, Poe said. Students can pick the option that fits best not only with the way they work, but with their family’s schedule.
No more snow days?
Curby Alexander, a professor of professional practice at Texas Christian University’s College of Education, said he expects schools will find a way to keep that flexibility even after things return to normal. Months of distance learning have reshaped the idea of what it means to be “in school,” Alexander said. While the school day once began when students walked into their school buildings and ended when they left, districts have now found ways to bring school into students’ homes. Once the pandemic ends, Alexander said he expects schools will use the same methods to reach students when they can’t come to school in person.
For students, that might not always be good news.
“Snow days may be a thing of the past,” he said.
Another change that Alexander said is likely to outlive the pandemic is the way teachers manage assignments. The old model was that the teacher was “the keeper of the document,” Alexander said. Teachers handed out assignments on paper, and students who missed class had to get their assignments when they came back to school or have their parents pick them up for them.
Since school shutdowns began, teachers have begun digitizing most of the handouts and other documents they use in class. That’s a necessary change during school shutdowns, Alexander said, because there’s no other way for teachers to get those materials to students quickly. But Alexander said he expects teachers won’t want to go back to the old way of doing things, even when students are in class in person.
Although the methods teachers use today are relatively new, the concept of distance learning isn’t, Alexander said. Alexander said he spoke recently with a friend who taught in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, at a time when there were terrorist threats from time to time. When the risk was high, schools would switch to distance learning for a week or two at a time. The technology available to teachers at the time was far less sophisticated than it is today, but they found ways to make it work, Alexander said.
Teachers use tech’s strengths
As teachers look to incorporate the new digital techniques they’ve adopted into in-person classes, they’ll need to keep in mind how to make the best use of each tool, said Leslie Santee Siskin, a professor of sociology in New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Siskin, whose research focuses on how schools are organized, said she’s seen teachers during the pandemic try to repackage everything they do for in-person classes for online lessons. Some teachers require students to sit on Zoom calls for hours, dressed in their school uniforms and wearing shoes, as they would in classrooms. Others upload the worksheets that they would have passed out in person to a school server or email them to parents, then tell students to print them out, complete them and send them back. Siskin said it’s senseless and ineffective to insist that online classes look as much like in-person learning as possible.
What’s more effective, Siskin said, is embracing new digital tools and taking advantage of their strengths. For example, a Spanish teacher might set up regular video conversations between her class and a high school class in Mexico. A science teacher might access public NASA data or pull up live video of the migration of animals in the Serengeti. Those tools work just as well in person as they do online, she said.
For years, many teachers have moved toward an educational model called blended learning, which combines those digital tools and opportunities with in-person learning. But Siskin said she thinks what’s going on in classrooms today is something different. Blended learning is more intentional and controlled, she said. The new techniques teachers have adopted over the past six months — she calls them “pandemic pedagogy” — have been more of an ad hoc response to a crisis, she said.
But there are lessons the blended learning model can offer teachers as they move forward with distance learning, and even once they return to in-person classes, Siskin said, including the importance of collaborating with their colleagues. Doing lessons online allows teachers to trade materials. If one teacher has an effective online lesson for one unit, he or she could trade it to a colleague for a lesson covering another subject. It also allows teachers to use classroom resources from other groups like National Geographic and the National Science Foundation.
The blended learning model has shown teachers of all subjects the importance of giving students opportunities to do creative, meaningful work that they can show to a wider audience, Siskin said. That’s something fine arts teachers have known for years, she said — for art students, the chance to showcase their work can be a highlight of their high school careers, and orchestra, band and choir students often spend an entire semester rehearsing music for a single concert.
One of the biggest challenges the Fort Worth school district has faced since shutdowns began last March has been making sure all students have access to online learning. About 25% of students who live in Fort Worth ISD and are enrolled in public schools don’t have broadband internet at home, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
In July, the Fort Worth ISD Board of Trustees voted to spend $2.4 million to buy a combined 10,000 laptops and wifi hotspots to hand out to students who don’t have high-speed internet or a computer at home. Those devices are in addition to the combined 24,000 laptops and wifi hotspots the district distributed last spring.
As Fort Worth ISD teachers make heavier use of technology during in-person classes, the district will need to continue to make sure students have the technology they need, said Sherry Breed, the district’s chief of equity and excellence. The district already provides every student in middle and high school a Chromebook, and district officials have discussed expanding that program to lower grades as the need grows, she said.
Personal relationships
Every morning when she begins her Google Meet call with her students, Poe, the Ridglea Hills teacher, starts by asking them if anything important or exciting happened in their lives since the last time she talked to them. Those check-ins are especially important now, when students are spending more time alone and it takes more effort for Poe to get to know them.
That’s one change Poe hopes to see outlast the pandemic. Even after she has students back in person, she wants to carve out a bit of time each morning to check in on how students are doing, not just academically, but also emotionally.
Poe said she’s been excited to see many of the new tools teachers have adopted since the shutdowns began. She’s also enjoyed being able to offer advice and help to longer-tenured teachers to whom she’s turned for guidance and mentorship in the past. But she doesn’t think all of those new digital tools can ever replace in-person learning entirely. The personal bonds between teachers and their students are too important and too difficult to form from a distance, she said. She can tell her students miss those relationships. She misses them, too.
“I signed up to do this job because I love kids and I want to spend my day with them, and I want to help them grow and learn,” Poe said. “It’s hard, because ... that piece of my job is not here right now.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 5:30 AM.
