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We've discovered how boring we are! Seriously, we learned we cannot use presentations designed for a live, face to face classroom in a Loom recording, or even in a live, but online setting. It has made us more motivated to create more engaging and interactive lessons.

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One fail/challenge in prek is that we have been separated from our partners.  The challenges have been immense and we are adapting, but feel failures daily with the things we are unable to do for the children.  This is an unusual model for prek children during this time of COVID.

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While all team members are positive and professional teachers, everyone agrees that this year has beat them down.  The biggest issue is technology.  They feel inadequate because they cannot use Canvas appropriately.  This came across from all members and new members who joined the group.  A suggestion to turn this into a success would be to appoint some faculty members who could be teacher liaison to help communicate needs and help teach faculty how to use canvas.  The big feeling is that people making decisions about IT may not have a clear picture of what is happening in our building and what the needs are to teach young learners, what essential teachers need to help them run from classroom to classroom, log off-log on, disconnect-reconnect, upload so many different lessons....add the temporary remote to the mix and it is the perfect storm. It is a lot and everyone is feeling the failure.

The success...we are surviving.

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Trying to fit in all the usual teaching while making sure the children are playing enough, is a huge challenge.  Have learned how to "let it go..."

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Teachers are emotionally and physically spent. There are not a lot of feel good moments. 

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Teachers are emotionally and physically spent. There are not a lot of feel good moments. 

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Parents watching lessons on Zoom is a big concern - makes the teachers and children incredibly vulnerable to judgements.

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Assessments have been the hardest issue to get a handle on for many in the math, science and history depts in the upper school. Cheating has been a huge issue. Traditional assessments don't hold up. Possibly shift to oral question and answer sessions in order to test knowledge of content.

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A LOT of tech fails but learning to 'fail forward' and being ok with not being perfect. Mistakes are growth!

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Team 15 - Connection through common interests/themes

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Team 15 - Connection through common interests/themes

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One of us wrote inspirational quotes for students and handed them out. Two of us sent postcards to students at home, letting them know about successes and helping boost their self-esteem.
So important to make connections with kids in ways that were simple when F2F, but now we have to work a little harder to make those connections.

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- Discovering different ways to connect with grade levels, each teacher has a different way of working out what is best for them.
- Parents - working together

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Connections with parents is so important, too!  We've sent videos and class pics to parents to help them "see" the classroom.

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Testing over Canvas and worries about academic integrity. Grading while remote over the computer takes way longer than grading a piece of paper!!!!

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- accepting that time isn't the same and nothing we plan works- planning ahead increasingly difficult due to schedule/architecture of Canvas challenges
- hard to not see the kids for a quick pop-in question (college counseling)
- getting better at tech, using Canvas calendar more,
- miss the connection of the hit and miss, even with more time, it isn't the same time; flex is difficult

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Failures: tech issues, losing connections, keeping remote students and in person students on same pace,  ensuring remote students have materials needed in time, making last minute changes to accommodate various issues with concurrent learning.

Successes: being in person is good for mental of students and teachers, learning what works best for individual students, realizing not everything works for everyone.

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Sound when teaching remote and F2F while playing videos was difficult for a lot of people in our group, but the overcoming of this challenge seemed like a success for so many because we conquered tough things!

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Using Canvas to stay organized and feeling like the module system kept everyone moving in the same direction. I was so grateful that I was able to have time this summer to really think through the best way to organize my class and then to pivot we go...adjusting the course with their feedback to tweak my canvas pages led to one of the highest approval ratings from my students!!

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Failures - Forgetting remote students, tech issues.
Successes - Proud of maintaining in person learning for 4 months. Keeping ourselves and our students safe.
Looking forward to - Trying new things in the classroom. Drive in graduation.

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Recess has been an amazing success! We've been able to divide the playground into sections and the students are excited to cycle through. With PK in smaller groups, the connections with students is great. The classes have bonded more cohesively as a group. Teachers know the students so well.

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Connection to students every day in the middle school instead of every other day has been terrific for some of our teachers but for others it has been so hard to go so quickly through material (math) and to not see their students (PA) for 5 weeks was really tough!

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Teaching is very different when balancing remote learners with in person learners. TIME is the biggest challenge, especially when planning and executing Centers. There is never time for extended play; hard to establish a flow as usual.

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Challenges:
1. Making the experience the same for in-person and remote learners.  How do we handle both at the same time?

2. How do we play games or work together when we can't be close together?

3. Teaching from home while students are in person. Impossible.

Strengths:
1. Being able to communicate needs, being vulnerable

2. Learning new technology

3. Back to school sniffles have lessened. Wearing masks, using hand sanitizer and staying distanced does have a few perks.

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Successes: more cohesive curriculum within grade level; digital text allows for unique learning tasks - like enlarging a book onto the wall for analyzing words or paragraph structure; having a remote advisor to teach the FSRL is really helpful; including in person and remote kids has led to creative ways to do Morning Meeting; practice "remote days" at school to prepare for all school remote days; students' Canvas knowledge and independence has grown; instructional videos can still be used after Covid

Failures: it's challenging to go back and forth between in person and temporary remote; new students arriving in person mid-year with little advance notice is stressful; being tied to the computer makes it hard to help kids who are in person; feeling like we're under the microscope of parents of remote learners who are listening in; background noise in homes of remote learners

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We are looking forward to having our full class in person starting Jan. 11th! It will be interesting to get to know the students who have been remote now in person.
We are excited for the second half of the school year- the children grow so much! As a team, we will be doing Poetry Day virtually (recorded) and we are excited to try this out.

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Figured out how to get in person kids and remote kids doing scenes together

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The children learned so much patience!
The masks have been successful- which was a surprise.

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Lag time is a challenge for revealing the Mystery Reader, music/dance videos. Also classroom timing is challenge when you have a remote learner. You must stick to a schedule so the remote learner(s) can stay with you. This affects the fluidity of the lessons!

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Mask crying is a fail! Need vaccine and/or Hazmat suit!

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Technology was the biggest challenge and you had to experience it in order to solve the problems. Also if someone got on the wrong BenQ board, we had to figure that out. But, having a partner has been so helpful! If Zoom updated settings without us knowing it, that caused issues.