• [categories_slider autoplay="1"]
  • Teaching STEM in a Pandemic: Hybrid and Virtual Learning: Elementary STEM Goes Socially Distanced

    Copy Help
    • Public/Private: Change the visibility of this video on your My Videos tab
    • Save/Unsave: Save/Unsave this video to/from your Saved Videos tab
    • Copy: Copy this video link to your system clipboard
    • Email: Copy this video link to your default email application
    • Remove: Remove this video from your My Videos or Saved Videos tab
    search-icon
    Watch at: 00:00 / 00:00:20let's meet our elementary teachers whowill be presenting tonightso we have kyle kermick who is thegreats four to five design andtechnology teacherat lafayette school in chatham newjersey we also have samantha studgenovwho is an early elementary teacher ofdesign and technologyfor the school district of the chathamsin morris county new jerseyWatch at: 00:20 / 00:40and she's worked at the southernboulevard boulevard school for sevenyearswe have allie tierney mall who is thek-3 design and technology teacher atwashington avenue school in chatham newjerseyand finally we have amanda turton who isan elementaryearly elementary teacher for the chathamschool district as wellWatch at: 00:40 / 01:00and she has worked at milton avenueschool for six yearsso without further ado let's get startedhi everybody welcome to elementary stemgoes socially distancemy name is samantha strzoinov i work atWatch at: 01:00 / 01:20the school district of the chathamsi'm excited to be here to start us offum you'll meet the rest of my colleaguesthroughout this presentationso let's get goingso these are my colleagues and i iam the second one from the left my nameis samantha's joining i'm the designWatch at: 01:20 / 01:40technology teacher at southern boulevardschool that's a k-3school you're going to hear from kylekermick allison tierney mall and amandaturton my colleaguesas the presentation goes onso what is different between a regularschool year and a hybrid school yearand there are a lot of differences firstWatch at: 01:40 / 02:00of all in a regular school yearthere's 40 minute class period for us wesee them once a week for 40 minuteswe have a whole room a design andtechnology lab a maker spaceall children are in school no one hasthe choice to be virtualor not it's required by law studentswork in small groups so that's somethingthat's really important to usWatch at: 02:00 / 02:20in our curriculum and our classroom andinstructionwe try to have small group work andcollaboration be a big partof the education that students get indesign and technologyso we really like that to be a big partof the regular school year and you'llseelater on you'll see how it was achallenge in the hybrid school yearWatch at: 02:20 / 02:40students are allowed to share materialsin a regular school yearand that's not happeningin the hybrid for safety reasonsand the collaborative classroom designis really important kind ofgoing hand in hand with students workingin small groups soa lot of times the design technology labWatch at: 02:40 / 03:00is setup so that collaboration can happen inany space and in any waythe hybrid school year there's only 30minute class periods sothere's actually a lot of time lost uhfor instruction forus and for student learning it works fortheschedule but it is a big deal and it's abig difference when you lose 10 minutesWatch at: 03:00 / 03:20of instructional timewe have to travel from class to class soonce we when we once had a sciencetechnology labnow we have to go on a cart essentiallyandsome schools don't have an elevator someschools do so it even variesbetween building to building for myselfand my colleagueslive streaming for virtual learners soWatch at: 03:20 / 03:40if you'reheading towards a hybrid model you'reprobably going to have some studentslive streaming in your classes so theyhave to have everything they need athomewith them and we'll go into planning forthatlater on students work independentlyand no shared supplies soWatch at: 03:40 / 04:00that huge part with collaboration andworking in small groups we had to find awhole new way to make that happenbecause it wasn't going to happenthe ways we did in the regular schoolyear and going with that students muststay at their desks onbehind their face shields so those arethe differences that the veryobvious differences between a regularWatch at: 04:00 / 04:20school year and a hybrid school yearand this is how we had to transitionfrom the regularto the hybrids so i want to show youwhatthe socially distant stem classroomclassroom looks likelike i said materials and storage arenowa thing that needs to be accessibleWatch at: 04:20 / 04:40class by classall around the building so we no longerhave design technology lab becauseteachers are goingto the classroom the gen ed classroomsi know this is not new for everyone butit was definitely new for usso what we ended up doing is we had ourown supply carts and a lot of storage inthe hallwayor if we were lucky there was maybe someroom in the classroomWatch at: 04:40 / 05:00but essentially think mobile and thinkin accessibility to every singleclassroomthat's why these rolling carts arereally really helpfulstudents work independently so in thisspace you can see they actually are intheir gen ed classroom and you can seeall their tools and resources for everysingle subject around them i meanWatch at: 05:00 / 05:20these desks got crowdedso trying to manage you know having amaker space for students to exploreindividually but still have you know allthe tools and resources they need fordnt that used to be in design technologylabum so just i just wanted to show youwhat the actualWatch at: 05:20 / 05:40picture looked likeand then we were talking about theactual physical classroom beforenow we're talking about the virtualclassroom so we area google apps for education district weusegoogle classroom a lot and there's a bigroll out last year and this yearWatch at: 05:40 / 06:00um because we have students who arevirtualstudents who are in person and thenstudents who you know are virtual for adayor a week because they have toquarantinethe virtual google classroom became ahugehuge huge um resource for studentsand for me and for parents and familiesWatch at: 06:00 / 06:20especiallyso i like and my colleagues and i liketo divideour topics and our projects our projectsby topicso we'll have like the weeks and we willhave everything for that project withinthere and that doesn't have to be filledright away it can get filledas you go but we found that addingWatch at: 06:20 / 06:40or grouping our resources and ourinstructional tools and activitiesvia google classroom by topicswas really helpful and by projects wasreally helpfuland then something that could be reallyfun i know at the elementary levelreally like itusing pictures like there's emojiWatch at: 06:40 / 07:00extensions that you could useto just kind of add that emoji to atopic title so that you know for ourearlier emerging readersyou could just say go to the parachuteor go to the elephant or go to thewaterfall emoji topic and it's just avisual cue for them to findand so at this point i'd like to pass itWatch at: 07:00 / 07:20on to the nextspeaker i hope this part has been reallyhelpful helpfulso far and i hope that you find the nextpart helpful as wellhello everyone uh my name is kylekermick iam the fourth and fifth grade teacherat lafayette avenue school in chatham umwe've put togethersome of this i put together this part ofWatch at: 07:20 / 07:40the slides presentationand my goal is to have akind of beginning general tips andtricks that might help youalong the way before you jump into yourvirtual your hybrid settingwhatever it might be in your districtthese are just some things to beprepared for that are moreWatch at: 07:40 / 08:00not global but wide wide overarchingideas and concepts that could be helpfulbefore that you startfirst and foremost i think that um yourexpectations do have to bejust a bit different um we are in thisworld that is entirely different thanwhat we're accustomedto and used to so our end results areWatch at: 08:00 / 08:20probably going to be different and whatwe than what we're accustomed toum most notably i think some of thethings with classroom management arekind of toughum it doesn't mean that your classroomyou know becomes chaos butit does make life a little bit harderbecause students haveso many distractions right at theirfingertipsWatch at: 08:20 / 08:40this could be from multiple tabs openthis could be games this could be anassignment from the periodbefore this could be an assignment forthe next period but it's justthings that are right there that aren'teven necessarily always their faultit's just that they have thesechromebooks and devices andand so much depending on them that theyWatch at: 08:40 / 09:00have these things that they might belooking atso just kind of keep that in mind as youbegin or start your lesson maybe youask them to close out all the tabs ormaybe you ask them to close thechromebookin general but just kind of keeping thatin mind and workingfrom there always expect changesum to your device settings it's kind ofWatch at: 09:00 / 09:20something thatthe students love to explore and changethere's so many different views orkeyboards screen magnifiers thosedifferent things like thatsometimes just cause a little bit of anissue when one screen doesn't look thesame like the otherso just kind of familiarize yourselfWatch at: 09:20 / 09:40with those thingsand that will help you to troubleshootin the moment just a bit bettersome students become more shy in thevirtual world to tell you the truthi don't i don't know if if you're goingvirtualor hybrid but whatever it is i alwaystry to have those studentskeep their videos on uh what that doesWatch at: 09:40 / 10:00for meis to just basically keep the mostuh close to authentic experience betweenthe two of usas we we can and even when that happensyou can always relyon your you know those students withthose energetic and those talkativepersonalities to reallyWatch at: 10:00 / 10:20lead that conversation or pull those shystudents out of their shelland that always helps too because youknow that's that'll be the same thingyou do in the classroomit's just that we are now trying to doit herea few more tips and tricks um have anWatch at: 10:20 / 10:40all callfor screens to go down to get studentattention i think that that's importanti think that that's helpfulum it just allows and knows and lets theroom thatyou we are transitioning or you areready for my directionsand it puts everyone on the same pageand everyone knows what to do thatmy school uses um cougar courtesy modeWatch at: 10:40 / 11:00so they essentially tilt their screenshalfway and i have their eyes and theirattention to give my directions or orwhatever it might beuh truthfully let the students be yourbest friends they're on these devicesall the time they tend to be more techsavvy with usin some of our troubleshooting andWatch at: 11:00 / 11:20things like that so like in the lastslide when i mentionedum any of those settings from magnifierstodifferent screen colors keyboards don'tbe afraid to ask a classmate for helpbecausethey're probably going to know itsometimes before you doand that's fine on video calls um likethisum you know i have a little littleWatch at: 11:20 / 11:40picture of me in that corner thereum that gives me just a little bit of aface as i'm going through a directionor video alsoyou might want to walk them through theprocess of opening up an assignment orshare your screen to give them specificclear directions that allow them to jumpWatch at: 11:40 / 12:00right inand begin your assignment as soon asyou're doneshowing um having other students umpresent their screen sometimesof a finished product or maybe how theyare getting to the assignmentis a huge help um because thathas students seeing their peers do itWatch at: 12:00 / 12:20and sometimes you knowhow we talk or maybe how they talk isjust a little bit different so it'seasier to hear from their wordsuh my best tip absolutelyinstall strong routines from the startknow what you want your students to doand knowhow you want them to do it that wayWatch at: 12:20 / 12:40as the days progress and the weeks andthe months progressall of those things should begin to takecare of themselvesyou won't have to belabor any directionsor belabor any pointsbecause students get in that routine andknow exactly what to doand that should really be something thatyou're used to from your classroom i'msure you do that in person establishedWatch at: 12:40 / 13:00routines and settings that you want thestudents to followit's just a bit different on thecomputer when they're not with youbut that same idea applies have yourstudents in a strong routine so theyknow what to doand then work and life and the communityof schoolgets a little bit easier in theclassroom as yougo my last slide is really justWatch at: 13:00 / 13:20to be you i can'tstress that enough in this settingbecause you being youallows you to accomplish all the greatthings that you already haveas the teacher that you are that putsyou in this position orplace um that you are nowyou're going to find there are probablyWatch at: 13:20 / 13:40a ton of differenttech tools or things suggested to youthat can help youand and make you into this virtualhybridteacher instead of just the classroomteacher or in person classroom teacherand my really best suggestion to youwould be totake maybe one or two tools at the mostWatch at: 13:40 / 14:00at a time and just see if it works foryouthere might be a teacher next door thatloves a tool and he or she isfantastic with it and her students loveit doesn't mean that you have to use itor that you love it or that yourstudents are going to love iti teach 30 different homerooms andWatch at: 14:00 / 14:20the tools that i use in each the sameexact way arevery very limited uh each class is somuch differentand you as a person are so muchdifferent from that teacher that youhave to keep in mind to find somethingthat worksfor you again realistic expectations andstandards are justWatch at: 14:20 / 14:40important uh some days are tougher thanothersjust keep that in mind as you work andas you start to goso you don't ever get too low don't everget too highuh just kind of keep rolling throughyour school day and knowing that you'redoing the best thatyou can and once you kind of get in thatgroove with your students where they'reWatch at: 14:40 / 15:00giving the best that they can and youare tooyou know it becomes a an experience thatyou start to appreciate a little bitmoreuh because it's all of a sudden startingto flow you've gone through thesechanges you've implemented these thingssome have worked some have notbut now you and your class kind of setinto a groove and into a rhythmand all of a sudden it starts to get aWatch at: 15:00 / 15:20little bit easierso best of luck with everything um myemail my contact will be at the endif anything for this particular agelevel maybe fourth and fifth gradeplease feel free to reach outhi this is amanda turton and i'm goingto talk a little bit more about howwe've dealt with managing materials inWatch at: 15:20 / 15:40this uniqueschool year and with our hybrid learningenvironmentso of course with all of the socialdistance protocols and all of thespacing and safety precautionswe've had to consider the idea that wecan't share materials as much anymoreand that we need to keep everythingseparate just to keep everyone safeWatch at: 15:40 / 16:00so this has been a little tricky for ourdesign projects but we've found somesolutions that seem to be workingthis year so we've created a supplydistribution day so whenour students reach the create step ofthe design processwe set aside a particular day just forpassing out materialsWatch at: 16:00 / 16:19when you're doing this individually andwhen teachers have to managethis process it does take a little bitlonger so we found that setting aside acompleteday just to hand out materials to eachstudent has worked pretty wellum we've used something called a wheelof names to help make thisrandom for who goes first and what orderWatch at: 16:19 / 16:40weallow students to pick their supplies inand then other students are workingindependently on an assignment that'srelated to the challengeor working on a tech skill like typingso we have supply distribution days andeveryone will come up one at a timeto the supply station and fill theirbags with their materialsWatch at: 16:40 / 17:00and then the next week everyone at oncewill get their tapeand be able to start building we've alsofound it helpful to getpre-bundled supplies so we'll make thesebeforeeach project starts so if a certainprojectcalls for a limit of 10 popsicle sticksandfive index cards then we found itWatch at: 17:00 / 17:20helpful to pre-bundlesets of ten popsicle sticks and sets often or fiveindex cards so that when we distributethem it goes a little bit quicker andwe're notcounting it out um in front of thestudent so that definitely has beenhelpfulum and we definitely have encouragedstudents to take only what they needso really thinking about that list ofWatch at: 17:20 / 17:40materials that they createin their plan only taking the materialsthat they need so that nothing goes towaste since we can't really collectmaterials backit's really important that students trynot to waste materialsso we have as much available for theschool year as possibleum here's an example of a cart that weWatch at: 17:40 / 18:00carries all of our supplies wherestudents would go up to collect theirmaterials on supply day another thingthat we have to deal with this yearis what virtual students will do duringdesign challengesso in the beginning of the school yearall students who opted to be virtualor sent home special supply bags andWatch at: 18:00 / 18:20this includedmaterials that weren't necessarily goingto be found around the homewe included popsicle sticks pipecleaners masking tape and index cardsall in a plastic bag so we encouragestudents touse these materials for any designchallenges and we made sure thatin our material specifications eachWatch at: 18:20 / 18:40challengecalled for these supplies so at theminimum they would have these suppliesavailableanything else they had available at homethey were welcome to useobviously with permission um but atleast they had a basis of materialsavailable that they couldalways be participating in the designchallenge from home so that was helpfulto haveWatch at: 18:40 / 19:00set up in the beginning of the year wealso got tothe middle of the year towards thewinter we eventually sent these homewith every studentwhen students were going in and out ofvirtual learningum or having to quarantine and all thisstuffit was helpful that all students had aset of supplies at home but in thebeginning of the year we just startedWatch at: 19:00 / 19:20with sending this home to the virtualstudentsum and still making sure that we hadenough left in school so it did requirea lot ofthinking ahead and um ordering a lot ofextra materials just so that eachstudent would have enoughto use throughout the year storage wasanotherchallenge that we've dealt with thisWatch at: 19:20 / 19:40year with managing materialsum i'm used to having storagespace in my room with plenty of shelvingfor each grade level each classhas room to store their projects theirnotebooks their foldersetc and i have room in my classroom as acompletestorage bin um with shelves that hasWatch at: 19:40 / 20:00all of our supplies neatly organized forstudents to access when they need forprojects but of course since um dnt wecame on a cart this year and we traveledintoeach classroom rather than themtraveling to our classroom some of thesethings had to changeso we started by thinking abouthow we would transport materials how weWatch at: 20:00 / 20:20would store materials and how we wouldstore projectproducts and projects so all buildingmaterials the bulkof the materials were kept in theclassroom where we kept our largequantities and then onour traveling carts that look somethinglike this with little drawerswe had a stock of supplies that we wouldbe using regularly for projects soWatch at: 20:20 / 20:40things like popsicle sticksindex cards tape were alwaysstored on our cart for each project andthen we could refillas necessary from our bulk supply in theclassroomany projects in progress we tried asmuch as possible to allow these to bestored in the classrooms just to make iteasier to go back and forthWatch at: 20:40 / 21:00we found it helpful to create largeboxes or binswith uh classroom labels that we canstore all the projectsa little more efficiently in theclassrooms if there was no space tostore in the classrooms then theseboxes and bins allowed it allowed theprojects to be transported a littleeasierback and forth to the dnt classroom andWatch at: 21:00 / 21:20then back into the homeroom classroomwhen it was time for designer technologymy name is ali mall and i am the designand technology teacher at washingtonavenue schoolso i'm going to be talking to you aboutways that we have been tryingto foster collaboration in a hybrid stemclassWatch at: 21:20 / 21:40so one of the main goals of our stemprogram is to teach studentscollaboration skillsthrough the various projects that we dobut given the fact that students haven'tbeen able to physicallywork together this year we have had toget a bit creative with how we'vetaught these skills um so using some ofWatch at: 21:40 / 22:00the programs that are listed over heresuch as google jamboardflipgrid padlet google meet breakoutrooms and seesawwe have been able to give students theopportunityto learn and practice collaborating withothersso we really want students to learn howWatch at: 22:00 / 22:20tohave accountable discussions wherethey're able toshare their thoughts listen to theirclassmates thoughtsand build on their ideas respectfullyagree and disagree so using some ofthese programs we have been able to dothatwe also want to teach students how toWatch at: 22:20 / 22:40giveand also receive effective feedbackwhether that be in the form of acomplimentor whether that be in the form of apiece of constructive feedbackand lastly we want to teach students howto compromise on ideasso typically during the plan step of anWatch at: 22:40 / 23:00engineering design challengestudents are taught how to agree on afinal planum because usually they during theimagine step they come up with differentideasum so not being able to have studentswork together in person we have beenable to use some of these programsWatch at: 23:00 / 23:20to teach them how to compromise um so onthe next slide i'm gonna talk to youa little bit more about how we'veactuallyused these programs and showed andshould also show you some examples ofstudents using themWatch at: 23:20 / 23:40on this slide you can see some examplesof studentsusing the different programs that imentioned on the lastslide um so in this first pictureum you see this boy sharing his ideaon flipgrid so a lot of times i like touse flipgrid for students to share theirprojectsum share their plans and so on so inWatch at: 23:40 / 24:00this case the student is sharinghis idea for a i believe it was for aparachuteso he went in he posted a video and thenthis video became visible toall of the other students in the classum so whether the student waslearning from home or learning in personWatch at: 24:00 / 24:20they were able to seeand listen to his idea um so i had thestudents goin and leave this boy some feedbackusing some of the prompts that wereposted onthe previous page um so theyi really like flipgrid because you canleavecomments in the form of videos or in theWatch at: 24:20 / 24:40form oftext which makes it really accessible toall levels of learnersand also for different age groups soeven at this point my kindergartenerscan pretty much independently navigateflip grid um so in this next picturehere thisis an example taken from seesaw soWatch at: 24:40 / 25:00seesaw is pretty similarto flipgrid where students can stillrespondto a question and they can see eachother's answersand leave comments on each other'spostingsum so over here this example is takenfromjamboard um so both jamboard and padletWatch at: 25:00 / 25:20are live documents where the otherstudents in the class can see whatother people are writing so in this casewe use jamboard to activateprior knowledge at the beginning of aunit um so students were asked aquestionand they were able to go into a gm boardWatch at: 25:20 / 25:40a jam board that every single otherstudent in the class was onand post their thoughts i have also usedjamboard for students to present theirprojectsto be able to go in and leave commentson their classmates projectsso i like to use padlet a lot at the endWatch at: 25:40 / 26:00of the unit for students to sharewhat they learned and also have thempractice having accountable discussionssoin this case i posted a question andstudents usedsome of the talking stems to sharetheir thoughts to um agreeand build on each other's ideas and toWatch at: 26:00 / 26:20also respectfully disagreewith each other's ideas and then finallydown here you can see this girl she isparticipating in agoogle meet breakout rooms and she isactuallyin the classroom so at first i was alittle bit skeptical about using googlemeet breakout roomsgiven the fact that the majority ofWatch at: 26:20 / 26:40students are in person and maybe onlythree or four students per class arelearning from homebut with a little bit of practicestudents reallyum effectively effectively begin to usethese breakout rooms where they're abletowork on slide shows together work onchildren's books togetherWatch at: 26:40 / 27:00my third graders recently finished up aprojectwhere they were working in groups andevery singleevery single period at the beginning ofthe period i would put them intheir breakout rooms and they were ableto work on their slideshow whilecommunicating with their classmatesthrough the computer so i really likeWatch at: 27:00 / 27:20breakout rooms because it does allowstudents to work in groups when theycannot be next to each otherso these are just a few examples of waysthat wehave used these programs to fostercollaborationin our stem class this year and thereare many different waysto use these programsWatch at: 27:20 / 27:40so you could use them however you seefitso please keep in mind that what worksfor our districtmay not work for yours each of ourdistricts have distinctdifferences that make us unique and thecurriculum should be reflectedof the needs of our students so youWatch at: 27:40 / 28:00might take a little bit of what youlearned hereand modify it to fit your own classroomum so thank you so much for joining inwith us todayum feel free to stick around immediatelyfollowing this presentation we are goingWatch at: 28:00 / 28:20to have a question and answer sessionbut if you would prefer to email usinsteadour email addresses are listed righthere so thank you againwe hope that you found this presentationto be helpful and hopefully you tooksomething away from itthanksWatch at: 28:20 / 28:40alrighty well thank you to kyle samanthaallison and amanda for that superinformativepresentation that you all gave us beforewe get started just as a reminderif you have any questions for ourelementarydesign teachers here please ask yourquestion in the q a box down belowWatch at: 28:40 / 29:00and let's get started um so the firstquestionis how do you manage students who popin and out of virtual learning so any ofyou cantake it away yeah so i always go intoclassexpecting that there's going to be atleast one virtual studenteven if it's not listed on theWatch at: 29:00 / 29:20attendance soahead of time to prepare for this ialways post resources materialsworksheets right onto google classroomso that all students haveaccess to them whether they're in personor virtual andif they're learning from home they havethe option to print out those resourcesand also as amanda talked about a littlebit we sent homeWatch at: 29:20 / 29:40supply beds at the beginning of the yeari have been finding that students havebeenlosing those supply bags by this pointso we're kind of umwe allow them to use really anymaterials that theyhave around their house um so reallyflexibilityis the key when managing both in-personand virtual studentsWatch at: 29:40 / 30:00does anyone have anything to add or iguess alison's covered itremember we i don't know if we've had aseminar with so many presenters beforeum let's see this is a questionfrom so this kind of um goes along withituh what is your typical budget to runWatch at: 30:00 / 30:20this type of programis it the same for the early grades andupper gradesum so i saw kyle you were starting toanswer that questionuh yeah i said i i unfortunately don'tknow an exact number but i know thatbetween us our budgets fluctuate a bitdifferentum depending on the number of studentsum in our school so i haveWatch at: 30:20 / 30:40about 700 kids um and then i think samis the next and then ally and amanda umkind of in that order so i know thatwhen i typically ask for thingsum that if my supervisor can't provideit or you don't have money in the budgeti also like to try to usethe pto is often pretty helpful withWatch at: 30:40 / 31:00differentprojects especially like a course likeours whereeach student in the school uses it oruses the product that we might buy thatalways is kind of helpfulum but as far as an exact number i'm notsure but i know it does reflect on thepopulation sizeWatch at: 31:00 / 31:20thank you for that um let's seeum how do you manage students who pop inand out of virtual learningso i think we talked a little bit aboutthat questionbefore um so really just preparing aheadWatch at: 31:20 / 31:40of timeand just being flexible and allowingthemto use the materials that they have athomeum if the materials if they don't haveit and their things are at school sojustbeing as flexible as possibleflexible seems to be the key word forWatch at: 31:40 / 32:00elementary teachingi think a lot of the times we're luckyin a sense that the materials we'reproviding cancommonly be um household materials so ifwe maysuggest you know a paper towel apaper towel tube but they have a youknow toilet paper tubegreat fine if they have a paper plateinstead kind of just makeWatch at: 32:00 / 32:20making through that um home experiencewith whatever they have and then whenthey come backyou can provide again or they can find acreative way with what they haveum let's see what advice would you giveto teachers struggling to juggle both inperson and virtual learning studentssimultaneously so chatham seemsWatch at: 32:20 / 32:39unique that they required all of theirstudents toor a majority of their students to comeinso it was a virtual um they offeredvirtual learningokay so it's been hybrid since septemberso that's really what makes us unique inthat we haven't startedthe year virtual and then transitionedto a hybrid we startedWatch at: 32:39 / 33:00in the hybrid um and just to add on tothe budget questiontoo we actually had a meeting at the endof the year thinking like in the senseall right what are we going to need tolikehave what are we going to need toprovide kids who choose that virtualoptionand stay at home all year or then comeback and go in and outi mean it's just reallyWatch at: 33:00 / 33:20challenging to think that far aheadsometimes but when you push yourself todo it you're likemuch more grateful and thankful once youdo it in the end because then you'reprepared and you know the students arepreparedand also families are prepared because alot of times it takes a lot of familycommunication and partnershipin order to make the educationsuccessful and the learning successfulWatch at: 33:20 / 33:39for studentsoh so here's a little segue question offof that um is there any talk about theformat fornext year or for the falli think we've heard that there may be apossible that theirpossibility that there still might beWatch at: 33:39 / 34:00some virtual students is that correcti would i think the mantra is plannedfor the worst hope for the bestyeah so we may still have that as anoptionum we are thinking about thatnot maybe as much as it was going intothis school yearbut um it may still be something thatWatch at: 34:00 / 34:20chatham does offerum like as a as need basis just seeingwhere we're atin the fall so we are still thinkingabout what that would look likei know that when we did our like becauseour budgets happened like way in thebeginning of march and even february sowewere past that and i know that we werethinking like whatWatch at: 34:20 / 34:40do we need to order do we need toprovideyou know supplies for all of ourstudents and in kyle's case at 700studentsmy case that's 500 students like it's alot to think about in terms ofwhat are we going to give these kids ifwe can't one shareand two we have to have that virtualoption again and then provide at-homeWatch at: 34:40 / 35:00suppliesfor students so it was a conversationthat came up i thinkthe answer is i don't know buti mean i'm hopeful that it doesn'thappen but it might be something thatgets offered like amanda saidso thinking about the summer with withif you don't know stillis there any way you'll prepare for theWatch at: 35:00 / 35:20fall will this summer be different fromlast summerespecially since last summer was a bitmore of ascramble what do you think the summerwill be like and do you have anyrecommendations forteachers preparing this summer for anunknown falli think sam mentioned um i'm and i thinkWatch at: 35:20 / 35:40maybe we allare just in the mindset of preparing fortotallyyou know almost the same year again umjust becausewe've already done it once so if we haveto do it again we know that we canand that is kind of the bottom flooranything above that with maybe morestudentsin or more of a specific requirementWatch at: 35:40 / 36:00on okay if you choose to be virtual youare virtual fortwo or three months something like thatwill be easier fromplanning for this total hybridmix again um i would suggestum your question kind of made me thinkof one of my slides if youWatch at: 36:00 / 36:20are given a um school device that youcan take homeduring the summer i would you know justfamiliarize itto familiarize yourself with it as muchas you can because i know that for meall the time i look at three studentsand their screens look entirelydifferentbecause students have changed settingsand things so if i canWatch at: 36:20 / 36:40quickly fix them or tell help one andtell the other how to do itthat's just a big help to meyou're thinking of playing with thetechnology is that what you're referringtoabsolutely whatever device you have youcan bring it homeum do it or whatever if you like one ofthe tools on hereum use it at home experiment with itwith cousins familyWatch at: 36:40 / 37:00kids uh whoever just so you already havethat experienceum so you become more of a pro evenbefore school startsyeah and i would add on to that so likechoose one thingespecially in instructional techniquesfor instance i think the pushin i'm gonna say all districts is toWatch at: 37:00 / 37:20incorporate more instructionaltechnology and implement that in theclassroom in order to foster studentengagementis choose one instructional techresource that you want to master whetherthat'sunderstanding the chromebook and theactual software that happens with thatand it's um shortcuts and such or youknow if you want to becomeWatch at: 37:20 / 37:40the world's best flipgrid user by allmeans do thatbecause then you at least have that inyour back pocket and in your tool kitand you can apply that in the upcomingyear and then you know you have onethingdone you're an expert in one thing it'sgoing to be a lot of stressoff your back because i know i meanwe're lucky enough that we havebackgroundsin um pec ed and then i know a lot of usWatch at: 37:40 / 38:00like wewere passionate about instructionaltechnology and i think a lot ofclassroom teachers that i know i'veworked withthey have a lot of anxiety aboutimplementing that in the classroomso like if you give yourself anopportunity to just focus on one andkyle mentioned this as well likeget familiar with one thing become anexpert on itWatch at: 38:00 / 38:20and then the rest can fall into placeafter the fact because you can't youcan't tackle it allyou just can't um so just give yourselfone goaland achieve it and you will and then youcan work from thereset the next goal after that's a greatsuggestionif a teacher had to tackle one of thoseresources that you mentioned do you haveWatch at: 38:20 / 38:40a recommendation for which onein my opinion i would honestlysay it's so interesting because i don'tknow if we're gonna go hybrid virtualwhateveri really liked breakout rooms and iwould even want to bring it into thelower grade levelsum like k1 i use it a lot with two threeWatch at: 38:40 / 39:00but i would love to bring it to k1um but outside of thatumjust get really good at google classroomyou know what that's what i would sayget really good at google classroomunderstand the ins and outsthere's so many cool tools with it thatmake your life so much easier in termsWatch at: 39:00 / 39:20of gradingin terms of checking student work interms of umcommunicating with students and familiesit is an excellent resource and ifyou know how to use it you're better atcommunicating with students familiesyou're better at um putting outresources to everybodyyou could become an expert and someonelike a leader in your districtWatch at: 39:20 / 39:40and people because a lot of people usegoogle classroom andthey need help or they have wonderingsor something goes wrongyou can become that go-to person foryour school or your teamor even just your teacher friends so ithink google classroom would be the onethat i wouldpush for and that's my own personalopinion soWatch at: 39:40 / 40:00yeah i would agree with sam on that ithink that's the one thatum the kids use more they're using it intheir regular classroom they're using itwith specialistslearning how to organize your classroomthe best way possible whether it's byweekby activity and teaching students whereto findthe different materials so that they'reWatch at: 40:00 / 40:20almost able to get on independentlyum even if they're a kindergartenerpreparing them for success throughouttheir educational careerand i think too like thinking aboutpreparing forlike preparing over the summer for nextyear if like google classroom issomething that your district usesWatch at: 40:20 / 40:40thinking about how can i make mycurriculum and make all of my materialsand assignments that i know i'm going tobe using throughout the year like howcan i make themaccessible if students are home all thetimelike so it's great if they're in personand you have that if they're in personbuthow can you use those tools to make sureWatch at: 40:40 / 41:00that yourall of your units and all of youractivities can be accessible fromtheir computer or whatever devicethey're using at home umwe'll just make sure that you're reallyprepared and then anythingin person is always a little bit easierit seems like you all can pitch to aschool district that's not a googleschool to become a google schoolWatch at: 41:00 / 41:20what was that you use it a lot we usegoogle all the timeum it seems super helpful but were youusing google classroom before thepandemicor you were yeah so we've been using itfor yearsum i think the classroom teachers wereWatch at: 41:20 / 41:40kind of pushed to start using it morebecause of the pandemicum but even the teachers now are umthey can easily navigate it and thestudents as wellyeah and there's other programs thathelp you like connect students with likeresources and such butso whatever that program is for you inWatch at: 41:40 / 42:00your districtyou know just get familiar with that oneall right perfect well thank you for forthat answerum that was super informative um let'ssee what else there isum do you connect the teaching of designand technology to align with what'sbeing taughtin the general education classrooms andWatch at: 42:00 / 42:20their teachersyeah um i can take this one unlessanyone can jump in um we do this a lotwith scienceum we've spent some time looking at ngssand the standards that our district usesum and i would assume most in new jerseyWatch at: 42:20 / 42:40um and thought about how we canmake our design challenges and our unitskind of linked to what they're learningin scienceum in that way so for exampleone of the science skills in first gradeor one of the science topics in firstgrade is like adaptations soWatch at: 42:40 / 43:00we might do some research on that sowe're incorporating tech skillsabout something they're also learning inscience so it kind of pairs welltogetherand then we might do a design challengeat least at our levelwhere they have to design like a birdbeak toolor something to pick up seed so they'relearning the content in when they'reWatch at: 43:00 / 43:20with their classroom teacherin um their homeroom in science classand then we mightexpand on that in design and technologyum and then chatham at least for the k3levelnot this year but in previous yearswe've had like uman extra tech science push in time wherewe'veWatch at: 43:20 / 43:40even gone into classrooms for um secondand third gradersand we've supported their science timesin that way where we've addedin some like instructional tech tools orjustso um kind of help to bring those twosubjects together and see like where wecan blend ideas andcross-curricular connections umWatch at: 43:40 / 44:00this year we didn't because of like ashortened schedule but i think it shouldcontinue next yearif everything is back to somewhat normali think um i can add just a little umin the um fourth and fifth grade spotthat i teacha few connections that i've ran intoWatch at: 44:00 / 44:20that honestly at some points i wasn'teven trying to make but i remember ithappening my first year and i've alwaystried to roll with itbut um things like um from socialstudiesum san francisco earthquake was alwaysone that we got throughor the fault lines of geography sciencelike amanda said is a pretty easyconnection for usWatch at: 44:20 / 44:40i luckily do um a ton withrenewable energies that always ties tothe fourth gradeum energy topics that they do a ton ofelectricityum the fourth and fifth grades in myschool bothuse sketchup which is a 3ddesign program so we have i work withWatch at: 44:40 / 45:00teachersto use that to connect where studentsare 3d modeling their ownmaps of the southeast or northeastregions that they're learning about inclassand we also use umthe 3d modeling program uh tomake connections to umWatch at: 45:00 / 45:20fifth grade does a shadows project orthey learn how shadows workand in the 3d program uh we createa um a shadow animation that shows howthe really the sun is moving and not theobject itself itself which is alwayskind of a cool experience for thatWatch at: 45:20 / 45:40and have you been able to align with thegeneral classroom and those topics thisyear has that been challengingto work with the other teachers in thatcapacityum it it doesn't always it might notalways be perfect whereyou know september 13th umWatch at: 45:40 / 46:00you know miss turton is doingscience and then my science lesson isperfect but there's a ton of times whereum a class might say oh we just did thiswith our teacher oryou know two weeks later they'll say tothe whole room teacher oh we just didthis with mr kermick soit kind of acts as a really nice um youWatch at: 46:00 / 46:20know preor post which that information is stillthere so it's really helpfuli will say just to add on science haslooked different this year just becauseof the shortened schedule andscience and social studies kind of likeare switched on and offum in the curriculum now in terms ofWatch at: 46:20 / 46:40like when they're taught like there'sliketwo weeks of science and then two weeksof social studies so it became reallyhardthis year specifically to kind of matchit up like we used toum but it would be moments like whatkyle said was like oh heyuh we're starting this in d t you canlook forward to it soon in scienceor oh hey i know i spoke to your teacherWatch at: 46:40 / 47:00that you learned about slow and quickchangesin second grade science so we're goingto talk aboutflooding and flood barriers and damagesand preventions for thatso it's just keeping communication goingbetween jenna teachers and yourself orscience teachers at the four five levelWatch at: 47:00 / 47:20um it's just reallykey because i mean i feel like everyyear kind of looks different almost youknow based on the needs of the school inthe district thatchange out of your control sometimesand i'm sure the students as you saidthe students don't hesitate to remindyou that they learned it a week priorbut i like your positive spin on it thatWatch at: 47:20 / 47:40they can be considered like a post or apretest orreminder for them um so we're going toswitch gears a bit totalk about parents so did youdo you involve the parents to let themknow what to expect their childwill learn in your program um if so canyou shareWatch at: 47:40 / 48:00how you communicate with your parentsabout the programi can take this if you want i couldstart it and then you guys can add onum i know that i mean we havepresentation what our district has donefor back to school night specificallyandwe've been a like a program that's beenhere for seven years nowWatch at: 48:00 / 48:20so the parent community pretty muchknows the program but i know at the verybeginningthere's a lot of stuff that oursupervisor did in order toset up meetings with ptos at all thedifferent schoolsthe superintendent would talk about ourprogram a lot so that the community knewabout itin terms of the yearly communicationwe have done back-to-school nightWatch at: 48:20 / 48:40presentationsevery single year but um or like beenavailableand now we transitioned to a websiteback-to-school night so i knowall five four of us had to recordlike a presentation about ourum our standards how we organize ourlearning goalsWatch at: 48:40 / 49:00expectations for student learning allthat stuff umso they have access to that but then iknow thatyou know within each school you couldeven create your own parentcommunication i do a design denum so there's like you know how umschools sometimes givelike little uh newslettersWatch at: 49:00 / 49:20every month so i do a design done likesection in the newsletter where we talkabout you know this is what's happeningin dt this month at each grade level umand then of course so we on an evensmaller scale discussing with parentsabout likethe expected assignments googleclassroom actually has guardian emailsWatch at: 49:20 / 49:40which we've all activated and thatautomaticallyas soon as that parent email isconnected to the student's emailit sends a parent email saying hey theseassignments are coming upthese assignments are due theseassignments are past dueand it just kind of creates thatcommunication with you thatit's completely hands off for you butWatch at: 49:40 / 50:00it's already happeningit's there um so that'skind of how it works this year on like aday-to-day and then going from that andgrowing outand seven years ago there was just a lotof pto meetings andpressanyone else have anything to add orWatch at: 50:00 / 50:20no i think one covered itsometimes here for me just requestingmaterials to tell you the truth i mightask forsoda bottles like i need two litterbottles for stomp rocketsso i might just say hey your fifthgrader is doing stop rockets and we needsoda bottles please helpsome a little like that tooWatch at: 50:20 / 50:40that's a good that's a good way thencommunicate as well i guessum and i guess it also shows if thestudents arebeing involved from home as well becausesometimes it might be hard to tell rightum so we'll take one more questionWatch at: 50:40 / 51:00um did assessing students change at allduring the pandemicassessments um in terms ofgroup group work and how does that lookthis yearWatch at: 51:00 / 51:20um i would saywell they they worked a little bit ingroups likesharing ideas and breakout rooms andstuff butfor like the building steps that allneeded to be doneindependently um and for some of thebeginning projects thatat least for me i did a lot of inWatch at: 51:20 / 51:40independent work just to geta sense of like how we can do thissocially distancedand then throughout the year startedadding a little more collaboration withmore comfortable i got with breakoutrooms and other tools where they couldshare ideas andcommunicate with each other but i wouldsay i think thei know we've said this word like aWatch at: 51:40 / 52:00million times already butin my assessing and grading this yeari've just been very flexiblewith my expectations like i know what ithe main goal of the lessonor the unit that i want them to be ableto understand and take awayand if it doesn't look exactly like itdid last yearbut i think they still get the idea andWatch at: 52:00 / 52:20they stilldid the best that they can with whatevercircumstance they were inum at least for myself and i would thinkthe rest of us have been pretty flexibleandunderstanding um even like anyassessments that we've had to donehad to do thinking about how they couldbe done electronicallyif it was like really answeringWatch at: 52:20 / 52:40questions in that sense umin any writing that they needed to dohow that could be done electronicallyso it could be um turned in from anyvirtual student sowe still expect them to complete theprojects and do their best but i wouldsayit's been a little more flexible thisyearWatch at: 52:40 / 53:00if anyone wants to add yeah i would saythat this yearit's been a little bit easier to collectdata since a lot of the stuff that we'redoingis on the computer and on googleclassroom so we can go on and we can seewherestudents are within an assignment umpretty easily rather than going throughtheir notebooksWatch at: 53:00 / 53:20but for the virtual students at times itcan be difficultif they're doing a step of the projectat home and they leave it at home sothat's where it can get a bitchallenging but forthe assignments that we're doing on thecomputer i would say that it's easierto see where they are in their learningbecause you can just pull up one studentafter another on google classroomWatch at: 53:20 / 53:40um so the formative assessment has beena little biteasier i would say because of thatit's nice to hear that something'seasier this yearum well if there's no other questionsum i just wanted to add just from myselfWatch at: 53:40 / 54:00watching a presentation i loved that youhad the students in the classroomdoing google meet with the students athome because i know there are someschool districts that are the studentsat home are just kind of completelyseparate from the students in theclassroom so i really love thecollaborationbetween the hybrid and the virtualstudents so thank you for doing thatWatch at: 54:00 / 54:20and for all your hard work this year