A hundred years ago, schools were redesigned from one-room schoolhouses (which functioned a lot like farm houses and small businesses where everyone did what they needed to at wherever level they were) to industrial revolution schools.
Industrial revolution schools were where children were trained like factory workers -- mainly because they were being trained to BE factory workers. They sat in rows and the info went into the children as simple input and came out of them on tests as simple output. Low-level learning, teacher (boss) directed. Not creative or collaborative learning, because that’s not how their workplaces would be when the kids moved up and into the work world.
And then, in the last decade or two (or more?) we have worked on preparing our kids for a different kind of workforce. For jobs that don’t exist yet. For collaboration and creativity. For solving problems. For flexibility. We have asked kids to use higher order thinking and small groups and project-based thinking.
Suddenly, our classrooms look like plague-versions of those industrial revolutions. Rows, spaced as far as we can get ‘em. Not a lot of collaboration, if any.
And our at home kids are often silent. And invisible.
What the heck, you guys? Did we go back in time? Are we just training ALL kids to be Amazon drivers? How do we get back to collaboration and problem-solving and creativity?
Here are a couple of ideas to help kids collaborate. Because they are social beings who need to be social (for their mental well-being!)
(PS -- for YOUR mental well being, JUST TRY ONE OF THESE! DON”T OVERDO IT!
In-person Partners: Let’s not get in too deep here. Start slowly. There is no reason to start with anything complicated. We can start with our in-person students in pairs. They do not have to move close to each other. They can either talk (maybe loudly) to one partner in a smaller class or they can use (and clean) white boards and markers to “talk” in a larger class. Turn and talks are not dead. They just require a little finessing.
Online Discussion Boards: They aren’t bad tools, if used well. Ask kids to post “x amount” of times to a prompt -- and have REAL discussions, not just checking a box to get a teacher off their backs. Post something thought provoking, knowing that a quote, a political cartoon, an artwork, a chart/graph or something that has real substance gives kids something to discuss. Feel free to MODEL what a real online discussion should look like (their social media examples are probably poor examples).
In-person Teacher-led Small Groups:If you’re teaching simultaneously, it’s OKAY to give your online kids a task and a time limit and say “go read this NewsELA reading and meet us back here at 11:15”. Then, sit down in a socially distanced small group of in-person kids and work with them on a specific task like teaching a text-marking strategy or thesis-writing or explaining the corroboration between two documents. You can split your room in half and work with half your room while the other half reads the article, too. (it’s better for the other half if they can use headphones so they aren’t bothered by your group talking). It’s like rotations!
Online small-groups: These are slightly more tricky, but even more necessary for our lonely, at-home kids who are at risk for more mental health issues. You can create a sub-channel on Teams. Next to a Team, click the three dots (the breadcrumbs) and choose “Add a channel”. Then, give your sub-channel a name, like Group 1, Blue Team, or whatever you like. Assign students to a sub-channel (Group 1 will be Deshawn, Emma, Diamond, and Aiden). Show the kids how to click on the sub-channel.
NOW THE HARD PART: SUPERVISING THE CHANNELS! Make sure to pop between your channels at randomized times quickly to make sure conversations are appropriate and that kids are not up to mischief. If kids are up to no-good, remove them immediately and use your school’s discipline procedure.
Rotations: Treat your online students as one or two groups (depending on the number of students). Treat your face-to-face students as one or two groups (depending on the number of students). Then, have them rotate. Give the kids you are not working with a video, reading, computer work, or other independent work while you make your way through the 2, 3, or 4 groups. This helps the kids bond with you and with each other. It helps them see and be seen, hear and be heard. It helps them better understand the content. And it helps you-the-teacher see what content they are or are not getting.
I know you’re tired of “delivering” all the content in a teacher-centered way. It’s okay to take a break from that and rearrange some learning in a collaborative way. Actually, it’s really good for the kids.
And if all you can do is a discussion board or a turn and talk, that’s ok too. Do what you can do. I know that this is incredibly hard and that simultaneous teaching is double the preps and double the work. I see you and talk to you all. Maybe this can be a way to stop doing all the teacher-led work and let the kids do more of the thinking and leading? It’s worth a try.
You don’t work in a factory and you don’t teach in a 20th century version of a factory-prep school. It’s ok to let some collaboration back in as best you can.
Let me/us know how I/we can help.
-Tracy
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