So, Now that we’re a couple weeks into this distance learning stuff, like most situations, I am finding some definite positives and some definite challenges to this working from home thing. (Note: there are no actual “positives” to COVID 19 itself. Be safe. Stay home!)- Positive? Not taking an hour-plus every morning to get the kids to school in one direction and get me to wherever I need to be in the other direction!
- Challenge? Needing that full hour-plus (broken up here and there) every day to read my kindergartner his assignment directions and set him up on each assignments (Note: his teacher is amazing. His assignments are very appropriate. He’s just a kindergartner and a bit attention-demanding)
Positive? Not worrying so much about what I wear or dressing like a “real grown up”. Less time and hassle!
- Challenge? I am about to WEAR OUT my fuzzy bunny slippers in APRIL, y’all! Real shoes are not worn except for my daily bike ride or walk around the neighborhood. Plus, I cut my own bangs and I’m pretty sure they aren’t very straight. It’s a hard thing to do when you wear glasses and need them to see to cut your own hair but they're in the way of the bangs.
I think there are some definitely positives and negatives/challenges to teaching from home, too. Anyone agree with me?
- Positive? The kids are quiet. Or if they’re not, you can’t hear them so it doesn’t bother you or each other that much (except in class meetings on Teams)
- Challenge? The kids are quiet! You can’t tell if they’re learning anything or if they’re daydreaming or ignoring you or watching Tik Toks all day.
- Positive? No bathroom passes. No scheduling computer labs. No worrying about who has a pencil. No passing out materials. No raising hands. No waiting for a copy machine line or running out of copies for the month.
- Challenge? Uh, no paper or book materials! No student hands to raise or see. New logistics problems -- getting digital materials to kids in the best and most efficient and useful ways. Ways that open and work...
And here’s another issue...
DOK Levels of thinking. Some definite positives and challenges here, too!
- Positive? You have every digital resource at your kids finger tips. Every kid has a (digital) textbook AND a device! The “assignments tab” is finally working! (thank goodness!) Suddenly, half the problems that used to thwart your day are gone (copiers, textbooks, pencils, bathroom passes, chatty children)
Challenge? “Right there” questions don’t work anymore. They just don’t! The kids are just going to google them. Or text their friends. You can no longer ask “When did ___ happen?” or “What’s the name of ___?” I mean, you CAN, but it sure isn’t very useful. .
We talk about things being ungoogleable (Just say that word out loud. It sounds so awesome!). That’s become important since the beginning of the days of the internet. It’s become even more important that we ask kids to do more than regurgitate shallow facts. It is even MORE important in the days of kids having personal cell phones and personal devices in class -- or AS their whole class experience!
It is CRUCIAL today, now that every single kid is on a device all day long.
It makes no sense to ask kids to spend time on “right there” questions when they’re all on devices. They can literally click “control-c” (copy) and “control v” (paste) without spending much (or any) brain power on comprehending the question or the answer.
We need to move on past low level questions anyway. This digital learning moment should help us accelerate that.
Low level questions and memorization were important for centuries before photocopy machines, to pass on culture, history, knowledge, and oral tradition.
And then came the internet. And now, instead of needing to memorize these pieces of information, we can Google them. THere are so many more pieces of information than there used to be anyway.Or, weirder still, we can ask Youtube (did you know that more teens ask Youtube questions than Google?) Or we can ask Alexa or Siri.
And now our students are online all day for school.
Who was the 16th president? Control-C and Control-V.
When did Rome become an Empire? Control-C and Control-V.
What happened in Miranda v. Arizona? Control-C and Control-V.
They don’t actually LEARN anything that way.
So, part of our teaching change is POSITIVE now that every kid has a device and we can all take virtual field trips and play Mission US or iCivics games.
But part of our teaching is a definite CHALLENGE because we now can’t really use one of those standard teacher tools: low level questions. I mean we can, but without being in person, it becomes mostly busy work that is instantly cheated on, WITH parents noticing,and we can’t catch the cheaters. Yikes!
So, what do we do instead?
We can move up the DOK Wheel, even one level. It’s the 4th quarter anyway. Kids have learned 3/4 of their school year and they are smarter and better readers than they were in August. So, instead of “right there” questions, let’s ask them to summarize, use context clues, infer, predict, or find cause/effect. You all have been doing these things all year. So let them try once with scaffolding (if they REALLY need it) and then take the scaffolding away and let those kiddos fly on their own!
The key to this is QUALITY OVER QUANTITY.
I’d rather have three or four (or two?) good questions that are mid or high level on the DOK than ten low-level DOK questions where the answers really come from Alexa or Siri.
If you’re tempted to ask “right there” questions, try one of these instead.
- What is the main/central idea?
What is the author’s claim?
- What evidence does the author/video/art/chart give?
- What is the cause of ___?
- What was the effect of ___?
- Summarize _____.
- Compare ____ to ____.
- What’s the difference between _____ and _____?
- Infer what the author/artist is trying to say about ____?
- Predict what you think is going to happen next.
I know that my fuzzy bunny slippers count this distance-learning as a positive. And my parenting-while-working-from-home definitely counts this as a challenge.
But as we work through our positives and challenges, let’s make sure to roll with the punches and be intentional about quality over quantity and mid- to higher levels of thinking. Nobody is paying us to teach Google, Alexan, or Siri. Plus, those guys know all the answers anyway.
How is your instruction shifting with our current way of work (other than bunny slippers all day)? Have you thought about and adapted to the fact that your students are Googling or asking Siri or Alexa the answers to all the low-level questions? As always (and more now that I only see one other adult all day!) I LOVE to hear from you! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org
-Tracy
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