Novices Together: First Steps in Middle School Distance Learning

Today I hold my second ever middle school Zoom learning session. I am still not sure to what extent we can really show up for each other remotely. This meeting comes twenty-four hours after the sting of knowing that I will never hold class again in-person with these students.  It comes as a friend crawls out from under two straight weeks of Covid sweat, fever and lonely labored breathing. Collectively, we sigh and hope we will make it.  And we learn to be present in ways we have not been before. This is a moment. 

Wanting to show up for my students, I hosted my first Zoom lesson a week ago. I wrote a lesson plan as though it were the first day of school and I was a novice teacher. I developed a task. I practiced Zoom skills across the table with my quarantine-mate. I thought about everything I thought I knew about teaching face-to-face that might apply. That Zoom lesson turned out to be  a thrilling reminder of the messiness of trying new things. What does being present remotely mean?

At the end of that first lesson, I asked students to stay on if they wanted to volunteer for a learning experiment. As I described three sessions, journal assignments and homework, I still had twenty-six faces with me on the screen. So today begins the Great Distance Math Experiment. I get to test what I think I learned from the that first meeting about showing up remotely. Here’s what I may know right now about being present on-line as a teacher.

Learn from others. The day after Zoom Number One, I attended a session hosted by NCTM president Robert Q. Berry. It was the opening of NCTM’s 100 days of learning. He thoughtfully focused on the teacher’s role in facilitating social and cognitive presence on-line. Presence in this context means attending to each other and one’s own learning. This isn’t really any different from what we hope for in a physical classroom. In an on-line classroom rather than full physical present, we get at most nodding and talking heads. His talk inspired me to strive for supporting students to engage in real mathematics with me and with each other even as we learn to do so in dramatically new ways. He also introduced me to the work of Theresa Wills.  I have only scratched the surface of her YouTube channel, but my takeaways so far are:

• this is possible;
• keep it simple and; 
• make it interactive.

Find a partner. I am newly a novice. And as I make may way into new territory I need extra eyes and ears. Lucky for me, I share students with a paraeducator who offered to be there with me after my initial report to colleagues about this shaky new teaching territory. We will co-host. Already he is helping me think about how to make things more interactive even as our view is limited to 2-inch by 3-inch moving headshots. 

Limit the numbers. For that first session, I expected only a handful of my most eager students to attend. In place of the surety of face-to-face good mornings, school buses and the bell schedule, I invited using email, Schoology messaging and Remind texts. I included the opportunity on my grade level’s enrichment menu. And I posted the invitation directly into every communication I sent. My announcement showed up everywhere they might look. Instead of my hoped-for dozen, fifty-two students turned out. With my single tiny laptop screen, my novice Zoom skills and the goofiness of eighth grade, fifty-two was too many.  In order to learn to teach in this way, I have collected a group of just ten students who know they are part of a learning experiment that will support their whole school to show up for each other and learn in new ways.  

 Adopt new ground rules. My expectations, for the first meeting were direct translations of those I use in my classroom. This didn’t work.  Distant from the adult in charge some middle school students can be extreme goofballs. One chose to use his laptop to video tape Fortnite from his game console. I turned off his camera.  One started in on lewd gestures. I removed him from the meeting and locked the door.  Another turned off their camera, changed their name and identified themselves as ‘the hacker.’ I removed them too. The other forty-eight, on the other hand, followed expectations in roughly the way I had imagined. Only three wore hazmat head gear making them unrecognizable. I privately texted them to remove the masks. They did. And then there was the one who lounged in bed, eating Red Hot Cheetos. And then there were the two who repeated the same irrelevant chat over and over again. Busy enough with tracking the rest of meeting, I let them be. For meeting number two, my expectations look  different. 

I posted the about ground rules  in advance and will return to them throughout class. Most important of all I think is “be yourself.” Virtual learning cannot mean virtual presence.

We will see what today’s Zoom meeting brings.  For now I am grateful to be able to relax into learning with 10 other souls under quarantine. They know their voices will shape what I can offer from a distance. It is hard enough to walk in students’ shoes when we are present in the same room. Knowing what it means to students to show up remotely is insight we need to support equity in the long run. No matter what they tell me, I’ll show up to hear them. Even if the return isn’t worth the effort, learning new ways to connect through mathematics will never be a total bust.