In quick turnaround, teachers make the transition to remote learning methods

Teachers were thrown for an unprecedented loop last month when they were given just days’ notice to adjust their teaching methods and lesson plans in response to the escalation of COVID-19. On March 15, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City schools would be temporarily closed from March 16 to April 19, resulting in a move to a remote learning model for three weeks (or longer if necessary).

“The health and safety of our students and families remains our top priority, and we are committed to providing instructional opportunities for all of our students,” said Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza on March 15, when the City had 329 confirmed cases of coronavirus and five deaths. “We know that millions of New Yorkers depend on our schools for education, but also so much more, and we will be supporting each of them during this time. We have the best students and most dedicated staff in the world, and nothing will change that.”

Six educators, from both public and private institutions, spoke about their transitions and some challenges that arise when pivoting from traditionally face-to-face instructions to virtual ones.

1. Michelle Donato

Principal, Salve Regina Catholic Academy (Bushwick)

The Diocese of Brooklyn prepared for distance learning in advance. Talks between principals and their staff took place a week before schools were shut down, and teachers began to map out how they would shift their teaching styles as smoothly as possible. DeSales Media Group, the communications and technology arm of the Diocese of Brooklyn – for example – equipped the K-8 school with 92 iPads, which have been given out to students who are in need of a device to complete work.

“The most difficult part that the teachers are concerned with is making sure that they’re developing a high-quality learning experience for their students, and that the students are understanding the platforms being used and how to complete their work online. When you’re teaching face to face, you can interact with your class and can observe who is understanding the lesson being taught, based on the questions being asked and the body language that might be displayed,” Donato said midway through their second week of distance learning. “However, the teachers have taken the sudden change tremendously well and they have run off with it, doing tremendous things and becoming more creative in how to engage with the students.”

Teachers use Google Classroom every day to keep the students academically on track, posting audio recordings of themselves teaching the lessons. And for those classes that may seem difficult to translate virtually, teachers have gotten creative. For example, the physical education teacher assigned junior high students to watch a video that showed 25 different kinds of planks. Students then had to choose five planks and record themselves completing the plank for either 10 repetitions or 30 seconds. The junior high science teacher also assigned her students a lab in which they had to make a prediction of whether a water-filled balloon would break when pierced by a pencil. The next day, the teacher posted a video of herself completing the lab, which allowed students to see if their hypotheses were correct.

While the teachers would prefer to be back in the classroom and teaching their students in person, Donato noted that her faculty has been impressed by the technology and resources that are available online. “Right now we are working on seeing if we could provide resources for students with individualized education services programs, so that learning can continue with the resource room teacher. Our afterschool program is also developing a plan to see if they can help students in their program with any homework support,” Donato revealed on March 25. “These resources are still just being developed, but hopefully they will be up and running within the next coming week or so.”

2. Tyler Thier

Adjunct Professor, Hofstra University (Hempstead)

Teaches: Two levels of Introductory Composition Writing, Creative Writing

Bushwick resident Thier no longer has to travel to Long Island to teach his writing classes for the rest of the spring semester. Given that his real-life instruction is centered on intimate workshops with students’ desks arranged in a circle, Thier initially felt stressed about how to recreate the same environment online. “I was unsure of how I would maintain that level of interaction through an all-virtual platform. But now that I’ve taken a lot of how-to webinar sessions [conducted by Hofstra’s IT Department] that showed us the step-by-steps and figured out that there’s so many options available to me, I feel pretty confident now. At the same time, it’s overwhelming because there’s so much at my disposal now.”

Thier’s classes – which will stick to their usual once-a-week schedules – feature asynchronous and synchronous components. Students will be using the video platform Zoom to speak with Thier and one another in a live, virtual classroom every Monday. Students will also watch pre-recorded lectures, answer follow-up questions, participate in Blackboard discussion boards, and work in pairs or larger groups via Google Doc group work at their convenience.

“I’ll have deadlines set for these, but they can do it on their own time, just to account for the fact that everyone is in a different time zone and having a different experience right now,” Thier said.

The debate portion of his lower-level introductory writing course will have to be canceled. “Usually I split the class in half where students have a certain side to argue surrounding a certain topic. They do the research, compose an argument and allot different responsibilities to one another,” he said. “I’m actually not going to be doing that at all anymore because that’s going to be very messy and probably not as smooth if I were to do it in the Zoom Room session. I’m going to have them make their own arguments individually or do it in pairs instead.”

3. Jillian Gallo

Teaching Assistant, Summit School at Nyack (Upper Nyack)

Teaches: Global One, Global Two, Sociology for Grades 9-12

The Summit School at Nyack is a specialized, small residential and day high school treatment program for students with a wide variety of learning and emotional needs. Gallo explained that students come from at least 30 different school districts. A number of students live on site through the school’s offered residential program, but some travel to and from New York City by bus each day. 

Gallo spoke with us midway through her first day of remote learning on March 23, noting faculty members would try various different platforms throughout that week to see which would be suitable for their subjects and assignments. “I’ve been on my laptop all morning with our Google Classroom and email tabs up. We’re going back and forth constantly because kids are going to come on sporadically throughout the day [to sign in, interact with the teachers and complete assignments],” she said. “We’re going to experiment with making set times that students are on in the morning and in the afternoon, and figure out Google Hangouts.”

Gallo also noted that social workers at Summit School will have to resort to Zoom or FaceTime in order to continue holding sessions with students.

“A lot of what we do is face to face, and you build a relationship with your students,” she said. “Not being able to do those in-person meetings and interactions makes our job, honestly, more difficult because we can’t sit down and speak with them like we’re normally used to.”

Though this experience has a learning curve for all involved, Gallo emphasized the importance of teachers like herself being there for the students virtually. “It’s hard not being able to give students a solid answer of what will happen [in the long run]. But we’re all trying to be a consistent part in our kids’ lives, even when this pandemic is going on and it’s, for lack of a better word, a mess,” she said. “Students can still know that their teachers are putting up assignments, so they can continue doing the necessary work.”

4. Hadley Ruggles

Head of School at BASIS Independent Brooklyn (Red Hook)

The Pre-K-to-12th-grade private school, which was on its spring break during the last week of March, is stepping up their distance learning platform for when classes virtually resume on March 30. “Our team is working ‘round the clock, even though it is technically spring break this week, on our phase II,” Ruggles said on March 26. “Our community has truly mobilized quickly to translate all of our lessons online, and we are so grateful that parents have been patient and supportive during the necessary change to home learning during the pandemic.”

BASIS Independent Brooklyn will be using the Microsoft Teams platform, and will be scheduling more live faculty and staff hours via video conferencing. This, Ruggles said, will allow teachers to continue their curriculum while adding in extra support so students can continue learning effectively.

“Our sister schools in China have months of experience teaching through remote learning platforms,” she explained. “That experience informed our plans, such as videotaping lessons so parents can play them back at different times of the day rather than livestream, particularly if family members are sharing computers or devices. Parents need flexibility at home, since they are working full work days alongside their children. We also realized the need to offer more support to students through live video conferencing times with faculty to review lessons and differentiate learning.”

Prior to spring break, staff and parents also began organizing “virtual recess” meet-ups on Zoom so that the youngest students could see each other. “Maintaining connections right now is so critical, and our students want to see their teachers, and they also benefit from seeing their classmates,” Ruggles noted. “Even afterschool options are migrating online. For instance, our chess team practices and plays remotely now.”

5. Neli Brussi

World Language Teacher and Department Chairperson, Fontbonne Hall Academy (Bay Ridge)

Teaches: Latin and Italian for Grades 10 and 11

When it was confirmed on the evening of March 12 that Fontbonne would temporarily close, Brussi said she felt a mix of emotions. “I remember leaving campus on March 13, going towards my car and trying to pretend that everything was okay and normal. Deep down I was wondering, ‘When will I come back to work? When will I see my students and my colleagues again? Is this for a week, two weeks, for the rest of the year?’” she explained. “But you rationalize and stay positive. I have to commend my administrators for giving us good directions and a schedule because I think that it reassured all of us that this wouldn’t be such a hard transition.”

Fontbonne has been technologically equipped to implement online learning for years, having used Google Classroom for class assignments and communication with students since 2014 when the school was an actual test site for that Google product. In the wake of COVID-19, Fontbonne used March 13 as a Professional Development Day for teachers to brainstorm and troubleshoot potential problems.

“It’s a learning journey for us too. There are so many products available out there and I think we are really learning a lot and bringing it into our online teaching,” Brussi said. “As soon as a teacher finds a good app that we could use, we share it and we try it. We are very open-minded about going beyond what we used to do while classes were in person.”

Two ways online instruction has been easier for faculty is that they have more prep time for lessons and that they can have extended, virtual office hours. “I don’t end anymore at 2:45 or 3 pm because, if a student really needs help, I’ll make myself available – even at 5 pm. I’m helping them beyond those regular hours that we had when we were in school.”

6. Dawn Duggan

Math Teacher and Department Chairperson, Fontbonne Hall Academy

Teaches: Two levels of Geometry, A.P. Calculus

For now, the all-girls Catholic high school is slated to return to traditional classes on April 20. “Nobody really thought we would be closing at all [at the beginning of March]. It was in the back of our heads as a maybe or just in case,” Duggan said midway through Fontbonne’s second week of distance learning.

Since mathematics is one of the more difficult subjects to teach verbally, Duggan and the rest of the department have been pre-recording lessons using their touchscreen laptops and Screencastify, a screen video recorder for Google Chrome.

“When I share my screen with the students, they see the equivalent of a whiteboard where I can write and where they can follow along with the example. They are basically seeing the lesson as if they were in class,” she explained. “You’re obviously not able to pause and ask questions in this way, but during our pre-recorded lessons, we can say, ‘Pause. Try the next example and then come back and press play.’”

Unlike other subjects that can have tests with multiple-choice questions or short answers, math doesn’t always lend itself easily to virtual testing because students have to be able to show their work, Duggan noted. She’s planning to upload tests for students to print out – or, if they don’t have printers at home, they can view the tests online and do their work on other clean sheets of paper. “I want to make sure my students know how to do the questions, can work through the process, and can solve the problems on their own.”

Top photo from Pexels