What I've Learned From Teaching in a Virtual Learning Environment

Let me just admit my bias up front.  I'm a big, big fan of in-person classroom learning.  It is my belief that learning has always been a social experience, even back to the Garden of Eden and that it is the way God has designed our brains.  For those who have taken well designed online classes, that's wonderful, but I still believe you would have had a richer experience by being with a teacher.

That said, because of the shutdowns caused by the Coronavirus, I am now headed into my fourth week of teaching in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), and I've learned a few things that I would like to share.

More planning - I would never have dreamed how much harder it is to plan for an online class than an in-person one.  That could be just because it is different than what I am used to.  It could be because we are on an AB days schedule, which is hard to wrap my brain around for the classes that have multiple sections.  It could be because I have to figure out what can and cannot be done without the things from my classroom.  After 21 years of teaching, my planning for the following week at school usually takes 20-30 minutes, not to be ready to teach it but to get it mapped out.  Mapping out that same week for the digital class takes over an hour and half (even though it is only half the content).

Science Demos - This one is strange in its inconsistency.  Demos that work live don't always work online.  I expected that.  I can't do a lab or blackout the room to use a UV light.  I won't have color mixing stations for my light demos or be able to give students 9V batteries to explore circuits with.  I knew these were likely difficulties.  What I did not expect were the demos that the kids would create themselves in the middle of class.  I was talking my 8th grade about how instruments produce the sounds they do when one of mine typed, "I have a drum set in the room with me."  Well, turn on your camera, honey, and show us what vibration of a membrane looks like.  That's something that could not have happened in my classroom.  There's no way to make that consistent because the people in my other classes didn't get that experience, but it was a neat moment for the one class.  Other experiences (like showing reflections from concave and convex mirrors) have been possible but weirdly modified to show up on the screen, one of the reasons why planning takes so much longer.

Standing up - I am just old enough to remember when teachers taught from their desks.  Sitting was the norm.  Now, I cannot imagine it.  The advice I once gave to a new teacher after an observation was that she had to make herself the biggest thing in the room (whether through her voice or her movement or her proximity to students).  I once worked with a 350lb man who brought a whistle to class after seeing the movie Kindergarten Cop.  I said to him, "No one your size needs a whistle to manage their classroom."  The first few days of teaching in a virtual environment, I tried sitting at a desk.  This may work for some, but it does not work for me at all.  I felt like my hands were tied behind my back, so I ordered a bar table from Amazon and put a plastic crate on top of it.  I had to put a TV table next that for supplies, and I hung to pictures from school on the closet doors behind me so there would still be some school in my shot.  During class, I stand up to teach.  I sit down for grading and office hours, but I just cannot teach sitting down.

Non-verbal communication -  I knew that non-verbal communication was important, but I don't think I knew just how much of classroom communication (especially coming from the students to the teach) are from facial expression and body language.  When we started, we asked students to keep their cameras and microphones off, just to cut down on distractions.  As went on, we realized how much we needed face to face time with them.  I ask my smallest class to leave their cameras on for most of the class, and I ask all of my class to join with them on, just so I can see them to start.  Then, I kind of let them decide about their cameras.  Some still choose to turn them off because they dont' like seeing themselves.  Most keep their mics off unless they have a question or I ask them to turn it on.  What's still missing, though, is the ability to see confusion in their faces or recognize if someone is having a bad day.  More than ever, they have to advocate for themselves and volunteer that they are confused.  This has to be the biggest drawback of the online environment and why online classes aren't for everyone. 

Classroom management -  It is easy to believe this is better because the flow of my teaching doesn't get interrupted by students having conversations, but that is only true because their microphones are off.  Since I cannot see most of them, they can be doing anything.  I know most of them are eating, which is fine because they are at home with no worry of bugs in my classroom.  They aren't interrupting my teaching, but they could be texting, talking, or even going away.  I use cold calling on them or asking for a full class turn on your camera occassionally, just to refocus everyone, but I'm not crazy enough to believe I am truly managing my class.  Don't kid yourself.  It just isn't the same.  My students are mostly doing very well, but they have many more distractions at home than they do in my classroom. (As do I.  First period every Friday is interrupted by the garbage truck on my street, which doesn't happen at school.) 

Assessment - Different teachers have handled their assessments differently.  I wrote about it last week.  I'm not sure any of us feel like we are getting a true understanding of student knowledge or thought processes, but we are coming up with a few things we might like to use in augmenting our normal assessments when this is over. 

Boundaries - I have never concerned myself much with the whole work/life separation that so many seem concerned with.  I don't have a husband or children at home that I need to give undivided attention to, so the number of hours I spend at school never bothers me.  I don't own a cell phone, so I don't have to worry about students attempting to text me.  They email a lot, but there's less expectation of immediacy from that, so this paricular life choice took care of that boundary without my having to think about it.  During this time of teaching from home, I had to think about it for the first time.  My "classroom" is upstairs, and I remain there throughout the school day, other than to eat or use the restroom.  I dress for school the way I would if it were at school, and I do not change until my last class has ended (although I do sometimes put on shorts for the office hours time while leaving on my professional shirt).  When I come downstairs, I have "gone home."  It doesn't mean I don't do any school work, but I don't do any that I wouldn't have done at home before the lockdown started. 

I've seen a lot of posts with mixed reactions to what is happening with schooling.  They run the gammet from those now see a teacher's value in a way they never have before to those who think this proves schools are redundant.  For those calling this homeschooling, I think that is disrespectful to those who do homeschooling right.  This is crisis schooling.  It does not represent the planning and activities that are done by true homeschool parents.  For those who think this proves schools irrelevant because this online thing is going pretty well, there is a lack of recognition that this is not representative of a true online class.  My kids know each other and had spent three fourths of the year together and with me in a face to face environment before this started.  When one of them speaks, I know their voice.  None of that is true of actual online courses.  I haven't even mentioned the lunchroom, clubs, athetlics, teacher hugs, extracurricular activities, and the myriad of other school things that have no ability to be replicated digitally; but there are many things that make up school other than curriculum.  Am I grateful we live in a time where we have the technology to navigate this crisis digitally?  Absolutely!  Does it replicate the school experience I want for my students in non-emergency times?  No way.