Well hopefully you've got beyond the huge title and realised it a weak attempt at linking the end of term reflection (hence the mirror) to a more exciting title.
As I've mentioned on a previous bog post I spent around half of this term teaching Cybersmart sessions from home, as Auckland moved into another lockdown and cases continued to emerge in close proximity to some of my schools. I'll try not to repeat myself but you can see that blog post here.
Tips and Tricks:
After a few weeks of teaching in this way (again) I realised that without much explicit planning or conscious effort, my classroom (or Meetroom) management had adapted to suit the new circumstances. Some examples off the top of my head are:
-using a lot of thumbs up and thumbs down to judge understanding
-students showing on their hands (out of five) how confident they were to start an activity
-students choosing one key idea to put in the chat after watching a video or reading a text
-following up a student sharing by letting them pick a number, then counting on Gridview to see who that student is to give them the opportunity to share next
-encouraging students to hop back into the Meet if they were stuck and want to ask a question without having the rest of the class present
Positives:
Because the teacher was in the room but I wasn't during these sessions there was a shift in roles and responsibilities. Teachers were called upon to roam and support students more as I was not able to do so. At first this often meant that we did not have time to catch up and discuss any challenges or goals. I soon realised that it was vital to build this time in. So the teacher and I would stay on the Google Meet once the students had left to catch up for ten minutes or so. As well as the obvious benefits for the teacher this also forced students to be more independent as they started their activities. By using Hāpara Teacher Dashboard we were also able to share examples where students had used this time constructively.
Another benefit is that students won't have had a huge gap between Google Meet experiences if we were to go into another distance learning situation in Term 4 (here's hoping we don't though). I like the idea of having Meet drills just as you would have fire drills (to help prepare for any future distance learning scenarios) but for the classes I've been working with in this way they would be less of a necessity.
Challenges:
Lights, camera, camera, camera? - I noticed the older the students got the more reluctant they were to have their cameras on or the more easily distracted they got by being able to see each other. My general tactic was to normalise being able to see your face e.g. People see your face all day, on the playground, during lunch...
Who wants to share? Who else wants to share? - Encouraging a range of students to share their work rather than always using the couple of super keen sharers has always been a challenge. Being confident to share in front of your peers relies on having a strong and positive classroom culture. However, I think having lessons via Google Meet amplified the difference between those wanting to share and those not wanting to. I wonder what percentage of the unmuting, chat use and screen-sharing was accounted for by just a couple of individuals in each class.
Timing is everything - Students love creating DLOs but this takes time. Often the class would be incredibly engaged with creating a Screencastify, pick-a-path story or animation, only for the time to run out. I don't like leaving work to finish off for classes as I'm supposed to be taking things off teacher's plate not adding more!
Some classes continued with Cybersmart when I left so that they could finish and others had time blocked off later in the week for 'finishing off' which seemed to work quite well. After a great discussion with other facilitators I'm also thinking of running multiple sessions with the learn content then blocking off the next session purely for the create part.
Moving Forwards:
As I plan Term 4's Cybersmart sessions I will be keeping in mind the fact that they may be delivered face to face or they may be delivered online. I hope to create sessions that will work equally well in person and over Google Meet. I'm also excited about collaborating more with facilitators from around the country to provide the best learning experiences for our students and teachers.
Happy holidays / non-contact time everyone!
