Returning to the classroom after teaching from home for over a year has been enlightening. Even with less than two weeks under my belt, I realize the importance of a school and classroom space. I love being on a school campus. I love the day-to-day interaction with both students and adults. I love creating physical spaces that students can come to learn how to be better, both academically and personally. Even behind temperature checks, physical spacing, and masks, it feels like home to me, and the students who have opted to join us in this first cohort. As we return back to campus my goal is to take what we have learned this past year and create a new experience for my team and my students. We have the responsibility and the privilege to be better. I don’t believe we need to take the view of an either/or mentality distance vs. campus learning. Technology isn’t an either/or proposition. We now have the experience to build more innovative and judicial uses of technology. Instead of thinking about coming back to what was, we need to build better.
When thinking about the conversations this past week with my students as they return, their overarching reason for coming back is to connect with people and get the support they need to be successful. With all the amazing tools we have harnessed this past year, there is still a need for face-to-face interaction and connection. We have two months until we close out this school year and begin another. My current role is supporting and coaching students as they complete their online courses with their peers. I get the privilege of peering into my colleagues’ online classes and see all the many different ways teachers have innovated to make virtual instruction engaging for students. I get real-time feedback with students, what works for them, what doesn’t. This allows me as an educator to start my own planning for summer and fall, to begin to answer the question, “what will it look like for students as we move forward?”
I don’t want to paint the past year with rose-colored glasses. The learning curve in teaching remotely was steep, and the return to campus poses new challenges as we meet students where they are, and figure out how to begin together again. We have all been in survival mode this past year, and that challenge presented opportunities for innovation and creativity. We also must be honest that through trial and error, instruction for many of our students was spotty. There will be places and spaces where students will need to have some reteaching opportunities. But the focus cannot be on “learning loss”, but instead on acceleration. The past year has taught us how to hone in on the critical standards that students need to learn their content. Assessment will be critical not as an end in and of itself, but as a tool for teachers to plan, and students to learn. The key is to meet students where they are but to build a bridge to where they need to be as fast as possible. That is what we are working on right now. Through the use of technology, students have a broader set of experiences to demonstrate learning. Having the opportunity to work with students in real-time as they work through the virtual coursework gives me data as a teacher on what is effective and what isn’t. Having students talk through their challenges, allows me the opportunity to share that feedback with teachers, and together we can use this data to build targeted supports this summer and fall that will help them accelerate learning, and not languish behind.