After The First Full Week

I got through the first full week of school.

A small number of us are working on campus rather than from home.  It's nice to get out of the house, not have to cart my materials home, not have to give up my kitchen table, and get to each lunch with other adults.  We were picnicking under a large shade tree, now that we have a full hour for lunch, but the 100+ degree heat and the raining ash from fires 75 miles away have forced us into a classroom to eat.

It's was just the first week of school, and a number of us still anticipate a dropoff in a few weeks, but in-person attendance has been surprisingly high.  That's good, because the instructions for attendance that we've been given seem a little shady to me--if a student logs into Zoom, present.  If a student contacts us about missing a class, present.  If a student does neither of those but completes the assignment for that class period, present.

In one class today I got some interesting feedback.  I record lectures, give plenty of class time for my students to watch them, then we discuss, work problems, ask and answer questions, etc.  I don't believe in giving students lecture notes, I insist that they write them--but today's video was just the handwritten slides I'd use for instruction with very little amplification.  It was an 8 minute video, I gave 20 min to watch and copy down all the slides (it was necessary for students to pause the video, a lot, in order to copy all those notes), and we spent the rest of the period discussing.  When I asked which method they preferred, it was 2 or 3 to 1 in favor of the short video with lots of in-class instruction rather than having an entire lecture recorded.  Perhaps I'll try that method for another week with that same class and see if they still like it; if they do, I'll try it with my classes in another subject and see what they think.

None of us math teachers really has a way to give tests that have even a modicum of cheating prevention, so while I know what I'm going to do, I'm not happy about it.  

I have a student teacher.  His credential program is preparing him and his classmates for distance teaching, but he said they aren't learning much about in-person teaching.  Today I drew his attention to a couple verbal management strategies that I learned 20+ years ago and still use effectively, he seems to appreciate such practical lessons.  Oh, you want to know one of those verbal strategies?  I can still quote my own instructor verbatim:  "Simultaneously tell students what you want them to do, and what you don't want them to do, using concrete, kinesthetic language."  Example:  "Please raise your hand in Zoom without calling out when you have an answer."  (Bonus technique: the word "without" is very powerful.)  In class, you might say something like, "Please take out your homework without talking."  That's very clear.  "Be quiet" isn't clear--is whispering allowed?  It's not "concrete".  Things like that.  You non-teachers may not think these are a big deal, but with teenagers, especially?  Oh yeah, big deal.

Anyway, Student Teacher's roommate was exposed to someone with the rona, so Student Teacher is isolating at home until test results come back (perhaps a week).  His credential courses are all online already, so no schooling lost!  And as for our classes, he's still in the "watch and learn" phase.  If he were in the "teaching" phase I could email him anything that I'd normally give him in class.  So, all good.

I'm learning how to use Google Classroom.  It's not my ideal tool, for sure, but perhaps it'll be more useful to me as I learn more of its functionality.  Given that so many of my school's teachers have been using it for a couple of years now, I'm surprised at the several seniors I have who don't know how to do simple things (e.g., attach their homework to submit it).  I guess we'll learn it together.

This distance teaching deal is more work than in-class teaching, and I start a 4-unit math class at the local community college this upcoming week.  Joy.