How Do We Stay True to What We Believe About Teaching and Learning in This New Environment?

    I finally feel like I am getting a routine down. I've found ways to make this, online learning for fourth graders manageable, for now. A question that has been guiding me since the beginning is, "How do I stay true to what I believe about teaching and learning in this new environment, in a sustainable way?" 

     So a HUGE thank you to my team, my fourth grade peeps in my building and across my district, and to my amazing PLN. I can't even begin to name you all, THANK YOU!!! I feel so supported by my district from my coach to my principal, from admin in teaching and learning to our board of education--THANK YOU!!! I have learned so much, from screencasting, in a variety of ways, to keeping it lean--surely keeping a mini-lesson mini or double mini. I have actually come to a place where I just get the teaching point out there and I am doing the modeling in my recorded read alouds and in my live read alouds. And book clubs are a place I can coach into them as well. I keep coming back to how do I keep the spirit of workshop going in this environment? 

How do we keep the spirit of workshop going in this environment?

     So for that reason I knew I would need to try to do our historical fiction book clubs. This definitely brought the energy of workshop into this new learning environment. In some ways, there were benefits to doing this digitally. I'm able to really see what's going on with each group. I met with each group the first round, but this second round, thank you Pam Katchen, I am going to let them run their groups themselves. I can jump on the call and check-in, but they are running the show. Which makes sense when we think about the gradual release model. We tried it today for the first time and they ran it! I was so impressed!

     These live sessions, either in book clubs or read alouds, are the best part of my day! Another highlight was that we had our first live Grand Conversation, a shared inquiry discussion around the question, "Do hard times always bring out the best in people?" I was pleased I was able to come up with a debatable question that was applicable to each book club book. There is hardship in most historical fiction. First, I had students reflect and jot their thinking to the question before we even started talking, while I put them into Zoom breakout rooms by book club. Then they went to break out rooms to begin to answer this question, looking for evidence to support their thinking from their book, for either way they might answer the question. Finally, we came back together and had a whole group discussion. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit rough, but again the best part of my day. To see students grappling with deep thinking, changing their thinking mid-stream, seeing them look in their book to find evidence to support their thinking--it was the best. We'll get there and I'll get better at listening in to the break out rooms to those who may not share as much and then reference their thinking and connect it to someone else's to get a conversation going. These, ironically, are the same issues I struggle with back in our classroom with four walls. 

Is the work that students are doing meaningful?

     Another nudge I've had from my PLN peeps is to continue to ask, "Is the work that students are doing meaningful?" I can say a resounding yes for reading, as evidenced by their engagement in book clubs and live read alouds. I have definitely had to tweak things along the way. I've always been conflicted about reading logs, but in the frantic rush of our last day together Friday, March 13th, I set up a digital reading notebook template for each student. I actually envision it more as a dialogue journal where we can have conversations about their reading life. I also started a book club discussion doc for each group and linked in an Epic collection for each time period we were reading about. The Epic collection was a hit, but I had to hound students to do the digital entries, so I'm letting go of the book club discussion doc. The online discussions show me they are reading and thinking. I'm not giving up on the individual digital reading notebooks yet though. I still think this could be a great way for me to stay connected to each student and support their reading goals. 

Is there engagement? Where does the energy for the work come from?

     Right now, however, we are struggling with writing. I mentioned in a Facebook post that I think part of it comes from not having enough interaction with writing partners and the energy that comes from that. So we started writing clubs today. I feel like the first time for anything digital is always a bit of a hot mess. I've started telling myself to expect something to go wrong and that I'll have to problem solve. There's a piece of me that wanted to super control it. Go back through all the amazing resources from my PLN and pull something together, but a couple things are giving me pause. First, I don't have time. I'm tired. More than that I think I need to live the process with my students and develop what our writing clubs look like with them. I think it will give them ownership, a sense of agency, and make the work meaningful. I did end up creating a Google Doc with a class list and linked in their names. I thought they could record in this doc, but there wasn't time. It really just gave them access to each other's writing. So we came together in a Zoom conference. I explained that I know they are needing time to talk and get ideas from their partners and sent them off to a break out rooms. Some groups had plenty to talk about others did need more direction, but I know the time to talk brought energy to their writing projects. So we will try this again next week! 

How do we honor the guided practice component of the gradual release model?

     As I do this work I also ask, "How does the component of the gradual release model fit in?" Because they surely don't fit in the way they used to! We cannot simply replicate the classroom. The beauty of the gradual release model is the opportunity for feedback, feedback from us as teachers and feedback from peers. I think it's easy, well relatively easy, to do the modeling, synchronous or asynchronous, in this learning environment. I think the tricky piece of this work is ensuring that there is guided practice. This is what I've been playing with, thinking about, and talking about as of late. Thank you to my peeps in Lamar CISD in Texas for your collaboration around this! You always inspire me! How do we find ways to ensure a place for guided practice and student-to-student connection? How do we capture the magic that responsive teaching affords us in the gradual release model?

     So I think just like we do in workshop with our reading and writing lives, we live it in order to know how to best guide our students. We need to live this from the inside out in order to best be able to support our students in this journey. Thank you, Steph Harvey, for this reminder! And we need not be afraid to try different and new things with our students. We need not be afraid to fail and make mistakes. We are all in the learning pit right now. And while the learning pit is hard, we can learn so much there! Thank you for this reminder, Becky Gill! Let's all climb out together. (I think this video I linked is my favorite for the learning pit. I love how the narrator, I'm assuming the teacher, used her kids' pictures. I think I'll use this for an SEL lesson soon!)

     I don't know if you've felt this way, but it's so awkward doing a live read aloud online. There isn't the same back-and-forth energy. How do I orchestrate the guided practice? So I've been using the chat feature, telling students that as I read aloud, if they have thinking to jot it in the chat. That has helped. It is also helpful to pretend they are responding, "You might be thinking..." and then, "I'm wondering too." Then here's a little way to get feedback, "Thumbs up if you agree, sideways thumb if you're thinking something else."

     So here's a list of some ideas I am trying:

• Use the chat feature during live video discussions as a backchannel.
• Use thumbs up, thumbs sideways, or thumbs down to assess understanding.
• During live read alouds, use break out rooms as a turn and talk.
• During recorded read alouds, use Padlet or Flipgrid and when you ask them to pause the video, instead of having them jot on a post-it, have them jot or record in the Padlet or Flipgrid.
• Set up writing partners or clubs and they can meet when they need to during set times.
• Use a Google doc for reading and writing to keep dialogue going about their thinking and reflection on goals. 

     What I know for sure is that we need each other in this. I am beginning to do this work with other teachers and students, practicing together, doing some modeling, doing some coaching modules, and problem-solving all along the way! Contact me if you would be interested in having me work with your district. Wishing you all the best! We got this.