We are in this! We are in deep. Students are at home learning remotely and we are teaching from home or from empty classrooms. In many ways, we are flying blind. Rules keep changing, but that's not what I mean by flying blind. I mean we don't know what the students are doing on the other side of the screen. For this reason, modeling student work has become essential to my remote learning practices.
Currently, I am modeling anything I can. I am modeling how to create a table of contents, take organized notes using color and images, and writing. My students seem very appreciative. And when I look at them, they are working. I can tell by their movements and posture. They are leaning forward, looking closely at the screen, and writing on paper!!
I am aware that they could be faking or working on something else (they are tweens and teens after all), so I ask them to hold up their notebooks from time to time. They seem to like the accountability. They like the structure.
You might be curious about how I model student work. Recently, I acquired a fairly new document camera and hooked it up to my computer. While Zooming, I turn on the document camera and share my screen. I select the window with my document camera display. It has worked great. Both Zoom and newer document cameras also allow you to annotate over your screen, so I can be even more explicit with my modeling. Here are a few pictures of my students taking notes on Taking Great Notes. (Feel free to use this presentation.)
Modeling is a component of good teaching. We do it in the classroom, and all students appreciate the visual guidance. Now more than ever, our students need us to model. They need to see our vision at work. If your document camera is too old or doesn't work well, talk to your principal. If that is a dead end, consider using classroom funds or Title I (if available to you) to purchase a new document camera. You can also start a project on Donors Choose. Good luck and keep being great!
Comments
Post a Comment