I love a list. I love a plan. I always see, if it's not written down it won't happen in your lesson. I have made a list, a list of all the bits that are good about being in a physical classroom and the less good bits.
Less good bits:
Struggling to walk round tables when you have 30 in a class and only 15 are meant to fit in the room.
Waiting for the projector to warm up/changing/cleaning the fliter
Losing the projector remote and having to climb on the desk
Grey muck on the whiteboard from not being cleaned properly
Negotiating towers of paperwork or work in progress
Waiting for the class before to finish and only having 5 minutes to get set up for your class
Good bits:
Seeing students
Seeing student reactions
Responding to students
Going outside for a private 1 to 1 with students
Live feedback/marking
Display boards
Singing and dancing together
I want to plan a way to build in as many good bits of physically being in the classroom as possible. Seeing students and responding to them, sure I can see them on a Google Meet but I need to make sure I take time to see them. How do they look? Are they happy? Are they engaged? I love a progress check. You can't go more than a few minutes in my lesson without falling over one. I want to capture this and give myself time to respond. Tools like Slido or Pear Deck are going to be more valuable to me now. I will treasure that feedback even more. I need to consciously build in time for me to react to that in my lessons.
Private 1 to 1s. My 19+ learners and my 16-19 learners come to class with all sorts of baggage. My job is to help them unpick it or pack it up. If we can fix it we can, we will stop, go outside and fix it. If we can't we will box it up and move on so we can focus on the lesson. I need a way for students to open up to me or a place I can take them if I spot something is troubling them. I'm going to make a pastoral Google Meet and a lesson Google Meet. If I see the need for a private chat I will ask the student to pop out and join the pastoral Meet. I will offer the pastoral Meet as a drop in too for learners. I can't wait for Google to introduce breakout rooms in Google Meet but my plan is worth a try for now.
I think Pear Deck and Slido can help me with live marking and feedback but I want to do more. I want to recreate that connection between me and my learners. I will try to record them a little voice note or video after the lesson as an overall feedback. I will use my reports from Pear Deck and Slido as well as student work to help. I will need to make notes during the lesson on everyone to help too.
I think I will make a virtual noticeboard in Google Slides using the template from Slides mania. I will pin my famous female mathematicians, my examples of student work and my other bits and bobs. I will post it to Google Classroom and set myself a reminder to refresh it every term.
I will still sing and dance, if I'm honest the learners don't normally join in with me anyway so I will continue to do this on my own!
I cannot recreate my physical classroom nor the experiences we share in it but I can create opportunities for us to create new experiences. I have discovered before how much effort goes into planning online lessons and going through these lists I am reminded as to why. We need to plan opportunities, then we need to plan where those opportunities will lead us to. We need to plan how we will converge onto the same end point from these discussions and we need to plan in time to check in on our learners.
It may seem early to start planning for next year as we still have half a term to go. But looking at the list of extra things we need to plan for I think we need to start now. SJ
