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Teaching during COVID

Updated: Aug 7, 2022

This is a bonus episode that features the Kappa Delta Pi Teaching During the Age of COVID Webinar featuring panelists:

  • Frederick Yeakey, Vice President, Providence Cristo Rey High School (Twitter: @FredYeakey)

  • Chrystal Struben, President & CEO of AYS (At Your School) (Web: www.ayskids.org)

  • Dr. Samantha Fecich, Assistant Professor; Instructional Technologist, Grove City College (Twitter: @SFecich)

  • Brittney Alexis Caldwell, Teacher, Cedar Grove High School (Instagram: @talkteachtravel).

KDP shares, "You're being asked to teach in all-new ways during this global pandemic. Although no one has all the answers to this unprecedented situation, we can learn from the mistakes and successes during the spring and strategize best practices for teaching this fall. "Listen to best practices, strategies, and techniques to help you during the fall.

Frederick Yeakey the Vice President of Providence Cristo Rey High School

  • Information

  • Federal, State, Local

  • Safety

  • Grades versus Grace

  • Virtual Learning

  • On-the-job training

  • Contingency Plans

  • Training for educators

  • Supports for families

  • Community

When your Lesson Plan fails, then you teach to the Lesson
 
Chrystal Struben the President & CEO at AYS

  • Space design for operating in COVID-19

  • Static grouping/social distancing

  • 1:15 ratio for K–6 (1:12 with 4-year-olds)

  • 6 ft per student space

  • Breakout space for those groups

  • Isolation Area

  • Students/Staff only in program space

  • Frequent handwashing

  • Individual program supplies

  • High SEL focus

  • Maintain clear protocols

  • Who owns cleaning—what and when?

  • Appropriate cleaning materials for staff

  • Surfaces should be wiped down after each use

  • Including doorknobs and bathrooms

  • Deep clean daily

  • All students and staff are required to wear face coverings

  • Indiana has varied face-covering requirements

  • Daily Wellness Checks

  • Monitoring temperatures at the start of each session

  • Intentional screening

  • Asking the COVID questions for adults and children

  • Immediate action

  • Keep staff informed as changes occur

  • Manage expectations by providing parent tips

  • what to expect from us

  • what we expect from you

  • Keep the community informed

 
Dr. Samantha Fecich Assistant Professor of Education at Grove City College

  • Asynchronous— happens on your schedule. It is flexible and self-guided.

  • Synchronous—Learning happens at the same time. Everyone meets at a particular time/ date/ place (virtual or face to face).

  • Collaboration—Working together to achieve a common goal. This is a 21st-century goal that our students need to do due to education.

  • Jazz up your content with Slides mania, Slide Carnival, Canva, Microsoft Sway, Buncee Edu, Adobe Spark

  • Tools for engaging students: PearDeck and Nearpod

  • Additional collaboration tools: Google and Microsoft suite, Microsoft whiteboard app, One Note, & Padlet


Whether you are teaching online, face to face, or hybrid, you are an educator of excellence. - @SFecich

 

Brittney Caldwell, MAT at Cedar Grove High School, SPED & Social Studies


How Do I Adapt my In-Person Lesson Plans into Virtual Plans?

  • Assess what course materials you already have. Ask yourself: Can this be easily formatted and redesigned for online use? What materials will I need to remake from scratch?

  • Decide how you will be running your online classroom. Mostly synchronous? Blended? Mostly asynchronous? Categorize the assignments and activities that you use in the classroom.

  • Chunk your learning objectives, standards, and units into useful bits that allow students to achieve in a virtual setting. Large chunks of your existing lessons may need to be “chopped up” into bite-sized content and linked through various navigation features. “Online Modules” can be created based on standards within significant units.

  • Utilize apps and resources that mirror your teaching style. Just as you test your equipment, prepare your classroom, and organize your materials for instructor-led training, plan and test your virtual training.

  • Restructure your formal/informal assessments to match your online classroom. Restructure Assessments to match online formats and include questions that cannot easily be “Googled,” such as open-ended questions, surveys, essays, and projects.

How Do I Increase Student Engagement During Virtual Learning?

  • Build a Community: Students feel more engaged when they have a ”family” sense of the class and no personal connection to one another. Message boards, a typical social media hashtag, and accountability partners are ways to build a community amongst students. This also increases accountability.

  • Shorten Content: Keep lectures between 5-10 minutes and supplement content acquisition with multimedia presentations, asynchronous assignments, or short readings. Students will skim readings that are too lengthy and begin to tune out lectures that are too long.

  • Encourage face-to-face interaction: Video record your lectures if possible so that students can rewatch and become familiar with your face and voice as the course continues. Encourage (but do not require) face-to-face small group sessions on Zoom/Meet.

  • Require Them to “Do”: Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to create assignments encouraging students to produce, facilitate, create, etc. Avoid monotonous assignments that can easily be “Googled.”

  • Provide Opportunities for Collaboration: Fight student isolation by assigning partner, group, and class projects. This keeps them honest as well. No one wants to let their partner down.

We hope that these tips help you to prepare for this fall semester.
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