Week 1 is in the books, week 2 has begun, and what is the takeaway concerning hybrid learning to date? Well, I'm so glad I am writing anonymously because I have a lot of thoughts that might not be edifying for my colleagues. I make a real effort to smile and encourage my colleagues. Bad attitudes are contagious, and the last thing we need is another pandemic of any sort.
The good news is that we are making it work. Day in, day out, my colleagues are killing it! They are teaching, adjusting, strategizing, reworking, innovating, assessing and readjusting, restructuring and all out working more than in the Spring of 2020.
The bad news is that it is not optimal. I feel like I am teaching from the moon between the time I ask a question of a specific student online and the time they answer. Students in the classroom are rolling their eyes at the length of time things are taking. There is more ebb than flow. When the whole class was online, your focus was there, and the interruptions and lag were across the board (or grid if you use Google meet). Today I tried identifying the order of the students I would call upon, and even with that, it was not much better. "What did you say?" I'm hearing from colleagues in Elementary and Middle School and it is worse there.
As much as we are making an effort to make it equitable between live and streaming, it is not the same. The benefit the live kids are receiving exceeds that of those online. At times, I feel like I am giving so much focus to the online kids to get them involved, that I am ignoring the kids before me. They are nice about it, but if they weren't nice kids, I feel I would have serious management issues.
Our technology has been a bit of a game of chance. Currently, I am working either 2 computers and my phone or 3 computers. One for the meet, one for the content to cast on the screen and the third (mostly the phone )to troubleshoot or to project my voice when the sound lags. This is not ideal. At one point, I had 4 screens in hope of accommodating the larger at home groups in one class. That was not a win. Also, glare on the white board. Yikes. So you are constantly repositioning the screen for the at home kids to see the problems you are working out on the board. (Yes, I know I can use a digital white board, but I am trying to avoid having students in their computer for 7 hours straight. Many of our parents do not prefer that our students receive instruction digitally and so they have elected to send them to school. ) So, one group or the other gets the white board.
Hybrid indicates that two things coincide harmoniously to create one great product. At this time, kudos to the cars that are hybrid. You made it work. To the schools, we are not there yet. We need to keep working on the prototype. Unfortunately, the cost is high. We will have underprepared students in our topics. We definitely could contribute to the illness of others just by nature of sharing the same duct work. There is not a situation that is beyond tolerable, at least at this time. To the teachers yet to start, get ready because it is not a perfect situation. It is far from ideal. Yet, it is still better than seeing our students on the screen only. To the admin, and maybe this is only true at my school, stop having a kneejerk reaction every time a parent complains. I am all for adjusting your approach, but this week we have had daily changes about many things. We are taking being fluid to an art form.
My school does a live broadcast of the classroom teaching for the at home students to join in. It is not the same as being in class. Period. If you have a chance, or a voice, I would strongly recommend that the teachers who prefer not to come to campus teach from home to the groups of students who prefer not to come to campus. Better to have a couple of extra preps and be focused on what you are doing than to be divided in attention and use the cross your fingers and hope for the best strategy.
For my team, let's keep going and adjusting. For you, be patient. It is such a slow slog with hybrid. I wish you a successful hybrid week, or an online week, or a campus week. For me, I'm going to lift the hood of the hybrid and see if I can't jump start it -- again.
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