What I’ve learned from being a Virtual Teacher so far
by Amy Bowker
January 8, 2021
I would have never thought that I would be a virtual teacher but when Covid-19 hit Canada and my husband is high-risk, I applied for a virtual teacher position. For me teaching in schools with masks and social distancing seems impossible. I could at least wrap my head around teaching when all my students have a laptop. The possibilities at first seemed endless. I was excited to dive into a year where anything was possible. But of course, that was not the case. I have always been a pretty techie teacher. I love technology and I love learning about new software and trying it out with my students. The possibility of using technology is so exciting in the classroom. Being safe at home during covid-19 is a privilege and I am thankful that I can stay at home and keep my family safe. Virtual teaching I thought would be easy and it is so much harder than I anticipated. Here are some things that I’ve learned so far about virtual teaching or teaching in general through this crazy year.
Firstly I’ve learned that is impossible to teach students anything when they will not communicate with you. I think the trauma of the lockdown and the shutdown of schools has really been hard on all of society but especially our kids. Our students are either really struggling or have learned that they can hide instead of learn and let’s be honest, right now hiding sounds way better than learning. Students hide by not turning on their cameras and not turning on their microphones to communicate with each other or their teacher. I thought that cameras being off would be okay for me but it’s way more challenging. Without communicating back and forth about what students understand it’s impossible to know how they are doing, where they are in their learning and how you can help push them forward. In a classroom, you can do this easily by going to a student’s workspace and asking them a couple of questions or seeing the work that they are completing to see how they’re doing. Online I see none of it. I don’t see their faces and I rarely see their work.
I’ve learned that social cues are so important. “Social cues are the signals people send through body language and expressions.” via Understood.org Without seeing students’ faces and seeing their social cues it is very difficult to teach a lesson. Usually in a classroom when I’m teaching a lesson I can see students’ faces. I can see their confused face or that they are nodding that they understand or I can see them zone out. With students’ cameras turned off I can’t see any of this. I can’t gauge what they’re thinking about, if they’re understanding, or even if they are in the bathroom. I’m teaching a lesson completely blind and it is so difficult. I’m personally finding the students who really understand the material well or can grasp the material quickly are the ones who are asking questions and the ones with their cameras on. This means that I’m assuming because I can see only those students that the rest of the class is understanding the lesson as well. So I move on. I assign work or we move on to the next thing and most of the class does not understand. This means that normal activities in class that would take a day, seem to take several days so I can slowly figure out where the students are and teach to their level.
Building community in the virtual classroom has really difficult as well. Every morning we have a morning meeting where we review our schedule for the day, we talk about a question or a funny prompt where they can share something about themselves. I’m finding that the same students share every day. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled because if they weren’t sharing I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to but I’d love to hear from ALL my students. I’ve tried many different tactics to get others to share, from Google Classroom Stream, asking in chat, taking polls and of course verbal. Some of our students have just disappeared and these are the students who really need our help.
I’ve also learned that the relationship between teachers and parents is an essential one. I already knew it was important but having the students at home, instead of with me has been challenging. Communication with parents is essential for this virtual learning to work. I have changed my teaching and assignments to communicate better with parents. This has been a huge learning curve for all of us. I’m also considering how I can involve parents more in my teaching without it being a burden to them at home.
As you can tell from reading above, I’m finding it really difficult in Virtual teaching to connect with students about work or life in general. In a normal classroom, you have access to the students at all times. If you want to connect with a student, you can keep them back from Recess for a minute just to check in on how they’re doing or quickly pull them into the hallway. In a virtual classroom, it’s trickier. If students don’t hand in their work I can’t keep them after class to remind them about their overdue work. They just disappear. You can email students to remind them but my students don’t check their emails either.
Above I talked about how students are hiding by turning off their cameras and muting their mics but another real big struggle that I’m seeing is that students are disappearing. They’re not coming to school at all. They’re not completing any work and because our attendance doesn’t call home the parents are unaware for days at a time if not longer than that student is not attending school. In my class of 34 students, I’m doing my best to connect with parents as much as possible but students are missing a ton of work and a ton of school. Even if the students are in the Google Meet their mics are turned off and the cameras are off and I don’t really know if they’re there. Most of the time most of my class is hiding. I have no idea if they are listening.
I’m finding that you need to poll or survey your class so much more often than you think you do in Virtual teaching. I do check-ins constantly to see how my students are feeling, why their cameras are turned off, why they’re missing their work and so on. Since they hide by turning off their cameras and turning off their microphones a poll or a form is a good way to see why most students aren’t completing their work or how they’re just feeling in general. My real focus this year is mental health and we are constantly checking in on the students and seeing how they’re doing and how I can help them.
Even though there are many negatives to Virtual teaching I am finding some success. In virtual teaching students are going to hide when they can. I am making a point of it to ask them to turn on their cameras if they can. I’m asking specific students questions directed to them and hope that they will share.
I am finding there are some things I like about virtual teaching. I really am enjoying using technology with my students and all my students having access to technology right away. I think this year has been a huge learning experience for all virtual teachers and we are slowly understanding how to do this better. There are definitely students who are extremely enjoying virtual learning and are doing it extremely well. I have been continually adapting throughout the fall to be a better virtual teacher. Some of the options that I’ve been making is a daily online planner so that the students can see what we’re doing throughout the day but I have adapted it into a weekly assignment checklist as well so that the students can have a daily itemized assignment tracker that they can check off when they have completed assignments. I’m finding the parents like this more than the students.
I’m personally enjoying teaching from home because of sweatpants, walks at the break, not having to make my lunch beforehand, quick access to the bathroom, homemade coffee and the comfort of being in my own home.
For the next term, I will be focusing even more on Mental Health in my classroom. Since the fall we have had a daily check-in form the students are supposed to fill out every single day with how they’re feeling based on the Zones of Regulation but I’m finding that as time went on they are not filling it in anymore. I have created a new daily check-in form for term 2 that will focus on how they’re feeling in the morning again referring to the Zones of Regulation but then as a class, we will be focussing on activities to do to get them to wake up and feel better. Week 1: Exercise, Week 2: Yoga, Week 3: Meditation and Week 4: Drawing. After that, the students will be able to pick out an activity that they feel will help them feel better or wake up in order to be ready to learn.
I think the main thing that I’ve learned about virtual teaching is that wherever your teaching it is hard especially in a pandemic. This teaching journey this year is a work in progress and I will continue to try my best to serve my students well and to make sure that they are mentally doing the best that they can. My focus isn’t on work this year it’s about my students’ engagement interests passions and mental health.
