Friday morning, I had the chance to participate in a discussion about best practices in distance learning put on by UC Irvine.  I signed up hoping to pause from the day to day business and decision-making that has engulfed our leadership team.  The goal was to listen and learn from teachers actually doing the work of teaching kids during this time of physical school closure.  It was the best 60 minutes of my week.

The interaction started off with an open discussion about what we were each doing to engage students via virtual platforms.  When the moderator put us in separate Zoom breakout rooms, I quickly realized that amongst the 7-8 people in our group, 3 of them were Santa Ana Unified teachers.  I always feel a little bad for the teachers in my group who get stuck with the assistant superintendent in their discussion, but these women were gracious and forthright in sharing both their triumphs and challenges at the student level.

Perhaps what suprised me most was that all 3 of the teachers reported 100% of their students connecting with their classes virtually.  In a district where we know at least 10% and perhaps upwards of 30% of students are struggling to connect virtually, this was a welcome report.  I was amazed to hear about the teachers’ collective wilingness to jump into the digital world, exploring a variety of platforms and supplemental programs.  All three of the teachers were elementary level.  For video calls, two of them used our Google Classroom platform while one had decided that Zoom was working much better for classroom facilitation.  Each also supplemented communication with a secondary interactive exchange platform, whether that be via ClassDojo or FlipGrid, while others posted directly via Google Classroom.  In addition, the teachers reported a variety of content delivery platforms that supplemented the experience.

What I enjoyed learning about the most were the different strategies the teachers were using to encourage engagement and interaction.  From Spirit Days do time each video session introducing siblings, pets, and favorite toys.  The teachers were all united in describing the challenges of overcoming ongoing distractions and how to balance students’ natural enthusiasm for catching up with friends with the need to engage in academic content.  These teachers were upbeat and enthusiastic, while also seeming a little worn out from all of the quick shifts and online calls.  The fact that they snuck in time for some professional learning and sharing with colleagues was particularly impressive to me.

Of course we know that there is variety in the quality of the experience that our students are having now that learning has moved into the digital space, this brief interaction left me feeling hopeful that students and teachers alike are making meaningful strides in navigating a fully digital learning world.  While we all miss the in-person interaction, our teachers and students are certainly doing incredible things with the difficult hand they have been dealt.