"Covid ate my homework." by Cecily Robinson https://padlet.com/crobinson195/fox22d7k2s6rxkfm Covid has taken the education world by storm. We often discuss the difficulties and hardships on parents and teachers, but we dare not forget our students. I had the opportunity to shadow one of my students for a virtual school day...and this is what I learned. en-us 2021-05-01 03:40:27 UTC 2021-05-01 04:01:46 UTC hello@padlet.com Daily Schedule (Student has modified schedule due to home-life issues)80 min - Math 80 min - ELA35 min - Lunch 40 min - SS40 min - Science crobinson195 https://padlet.com/crobinson195/fox22d7k2s6rxkfm/wish/1480458381 2021-05-01 03:59:44 UTC https://padlet.com/crobinson195/fox22d7k2s6rxkfm/wish/1480458381 Day in a Nutshell This student does not attend school physically anymore due to his new modified schedule. His family and him are currently living in a shelter due to situations outside of their control and that prevents him from being able to attend school in the physical environment. However, he participates in the online format through Zoom. He begins his day meeting with his math class for 80min. Spending all day staring at a screen is exhausting especially with his current situation alongside a pandemic. We as teachers have to understand the difficulties for these young students to perform well, participate well, and take care of themselves while learning in a completely different format than what they have been used to. Especially for this student who is going through tremendous difficulties outside of school. Similar to an in-person classroom, students never move. They are to remain attentive and focused on the lesson and teacher. This student already deals with attention issues but his current environment causes chaos around him. I can see that he’s struggling and his day just started. I was even exhausted. It’s different being a student who can only speak at given times versus a teacher who is continuously verbally and physically active within the classroom. We then moved on to his ELA class and by then I almost couldn’t keep my eyes open. I understand even better now why learning loss is so prevalent during this pandemic age. ELA is not as interactive as math so we were met with even more struggle in participation, attentiveness, and fighting off sleep. My host student is also not in an environment where he can be an active participant in the classroom. He already had trouble with in-person interactions so online-only is a whole other obstacle. The only time my host student was active and had more energy was during his brief lunch break. As we moved through his last two classes, his energy depleted more and more until he eventually shut his camera off. I wanted to do the same. The expectation for students, especially young students, is still centered around orthodox manners of teaching and that does not work within a pandemic. I was so exhausted shadowing this day that I could not even complete work I had to do afterwards. I was more than drained and I could not stare at a screen any longer and the students still had online work to do. This is not sustainable. crobinson195 https://padlet.com/crobinson195/fox22d7k2s6rxkfm/wish/1480458704 2021-05-01 04:00:14 UTC https://padlet.com/crobinson195/fox22d7k2s6rxkfm/wish/1480458704 Key Takeaways Pandemic learning needs to shift to become more interactiveIntroduce end-of-class games whether online or with peers Required movement during class i.e., stretching, small dance, walking aroundShift from passive learning to active learningMy host student rarely spoke within any of his classes as well as his peers. They generally sit quietly and listen to the teacher. Students were passively absorbing the material but I can guarantee that they most likely did not retain much of the information. Active learning allows students to spearhead their education themselves so they can own their learning. The students now have no control or autonomy within their learning and that is the number one thing I would change. Create rapid mini-lessons for student engagement Include physical movement within the lessons Students start to lose focus when they spend all day staring at a screen, staying quiet, and not moving. They will not be able to learn properly if these conditions persist and that leads to a decrease in participation, test scores, and overall excitement to learn. Including moments where students can become physically active will change those factors. Movement has been proven to wake the brain up and it will help students to not glaze over during hours of online learning. Be more patient with the students and extra attentive to those with different learning stylesFind different ways to hold students and teachers accountableAfter shadowing my host student, I gained extra respect and empathy for the kids learning in this kind of environment. They need understanding and unorthodox methods of teaching or we are setting them up for failure. In this pandemic, we have to find ways to balance the needed lessons with new methods of learning for our students. We are living in a different time so we need to teach differently. crobinson195 https://padlet.com/crobinson195/fox22d7k2s6rxkfm/wish/1480459241 2021-05-01 04:01:02 UTC https://padlet.com/crobinson195/fox22d7k2s6rxkfm/wish/1480459241