Inspiring Women SUMMER 2020

While I lean on trust, community building and collectivist (as opposed to individualist) mindsets in
my classroom, I don't know how to create this experience for my students at home. As I juggle the
learning curve of Ed tech, virtual meetings and my coaching check-ins with other science
teachers, I prioritize providing enriching content in a way that students will be able to access at
any time: video lectures with follow-up assignments. This direct-instruction approach is nothing like
the student-centered, discussion-based classroom my students and I have built since August. In
class, I spent time studying my students’ learned behavior patterns and guiding them to embody
their identities as learners and scientists. Now I record 15-minute lectures a few times per week
(which each take more than an hour to create), give electronic feedback on assignments and
host weekly virtual office hours attended by 5-8 students who are craving a connection with their
teachers (often not the straight-A students you may expect!). I no longer get to see students take
risks, endure frustration and learn from each other. I’m putting in the same behind-the-scenes effort
of lesson creation without any of the incredible “aha” classroom moments that keep teachers
going every week.
While working on these
logistical teaching pieces,
another top priority in my job
description as a remotelearning
teacher is weekly
contact with the families of
my 24 sophomore advisees.
Every week I hold my breath
after I ask the parent/
guardian if everyone at
home is safe and healthy. At
this point, they all are. A few
students are displaced
(staying with relatives with
better internet access),
some caregivers are in the
hospital for non-COVID-19 related issues and many are still working outside of the home. I log all of
this contact in PowerSchool, our online record-keeping software, and call the next family. Some
guardians don’t respond, so I text the student, as our guidelines on (well-documented) cell phone
contact with students have been loosened during this crisis. As has always been the case for
teachers, this part of the job does not end at 3:00 p.m. I talk to families at all hours, as they have
updates and are available between work shifts. I find this task draining. Normally it’s students’ jobs
to get to us. Now it’s my job to get to them, provide the resources they need and, of course, teach
them chemistry.
A major goal of frequent family contact is to increase student engagement in remote learning,
which is hovering between 20 and 25% schoolwide. The thought that only a quarter of the
sophomores I inherit next year will have completed the (modified) freshman curriculum is a
daunting one: how will I fill those gaps for them? Through surveying our families, we found that
roughly 80% of them have internet at home, about 50% of students had a computer on which to
complete schoolwork and the other 50% had only cell phones or no hardware with which to
complete work*. As I work on this piece, there is still one advisory family I have not managed to
contact in five weeks, and the uncertainty of their health and safety weighs on me daily.
16