Episode 50: Remote, Hybrid, and In-Person Learning


Voiceover: Welcome to the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. Each week we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self-paced, and mastery-based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other, so this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. 


This is the Modern Classrooms Project podcast. Welcome to the 50th that's right. Episode of the Modern Classrooms Project podcast. Yes, we started this podcast about one year ago. So our deepest thanks to you, the listener, for tuning in each week. We appreciate you. I'm Kate Gaskell, Modern Classroom mentor, and I am back in my natural habitat. I am a proud Washington, DC public schools instructional coach and teacher. I have returned to school based work and wow teachers. If you are anything like me. We have a lot of feelings and questions right now as we prepare to welcome our students back into the school building, some of them who will be stepping inside school for the first time in nearly a year and a half. So it's a lot. So some of us have only taught with the Modern Classroom instructional model virtually. And some of us who are listening, we might feel that our in person teaching skills are a little rusty right now. Some of us are really excited to go back while others feel very anxious. And of course, all of this is happening as we face more questions about how the delta variant could impact our school year. So there's a lot to unpack in episode 50 today. So here with me today to talk about these questions and this pivot back to in person instruction is Modern Classroom mentor and middle and high school science teacher Demi Lager. Demi and I recently presented at the Distance Learning and Teaching Conference through the University of Wisconsin, and we wanted to continue our conversation we were having about the versatility of this instructional model in person, in hybrid, in fully remote, and kind of talk about just the transitions we're making as we go back into the building over the next few weeks. So, Debbie, you've been on the podcast before. Welcome back. Yes, thank you. Hi, Kate. I am so excited to be back and kind of start unpacking all this stuff because this is my third year with implementing Modern Classrooms into my classroom. And so, yeah, it's going to be interesting. I've been lucky to kind of go through Modern Classrooms in person, modern Classrooms, completely virtual and a hybrid version of Modern Classrooms. So I'm excited to talk about that today. Yeah, I'm so glad. I thought you had such unique perspective. So I really wanted to bring you on for this episode. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your career in education? Yes, of course. So I used to teach in Washington, DC, where I taught middle and high school science. I started with high school, moved completely to middle school and then I moved all the way across the country during a pandemic, which was so fun, to California. So I am now teaching in Santa Barbara, California and I am teaching both middle and high school science. So top science my whole teaching career. And like I said, I've been utilizing the modern classrooms instruction model for the past three years. Yeah, you've done it all in this. You not only have done middle and high school, but you have really seen the three styles that we have seen educators teaching over the last year and a half. So with that unique perspective of modern classrooms in person, before covid 19 began completely virtual and hybrid. So can you talk a little bit about your school itself just to kind of give our listeners some context about the operation of your school. From what I understand, your students experienced some of their classes hybrid and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the way your school operates. Can you just tell us a little bit about how that works and I guess kind of what the reasoning for that is? Yeah, of course. So I am at a public charter school here in Santa Barbara and they have specific classes which at my school is Science, Ela and History, which gives students have the opportunity, they can take it in person or online. I am the in person science teacher this year. That was originally my role too. But of course there's COVID, so we were actually virtually teaching them as well. And then they can take option to take math or predominantly math, foreign languages and then electives. Not all electives, but think of like drivers essentially for our high schoolers is taught online. So even prepandemic, let's say they go to math Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that is online. Our parents can of course choose to also order a curriculum, like a math curriculum from the school and parents can choose to home school them interested, they can run it that way. But we have teachers who are just fully distance learning teachers. So like, I always refer back to math because it's like always math, but they could take the same process. They log into Canvas, they've always been virtual. So the reasoning behind it is just really meeting students where they are and just you could be taking calculus but be in science one in person or whatever the case may be depending on where you are. So just meeting students individual needs was kind of the driving force behind the model of this charter school. So this is only my second year here, so I'm still definitely learning. I learn a new thing every day at the school, but so far it's been really interesting and it's just so crazy for me teaching five days a week to teaching only in person. I only teach a person two times a week. Okay. Wow. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about that? So kind of you're in person two days a week? Yes. And you're teaching virtually three days a week? Actually, no. So last year yes. When we moved to Hybrid, I was teaching on those other days. But this year, since I'm just an in person teacher now, let me remind everyone before it sounds like all glory. She only teaches two days a week. As a full time teacher, I teach grades six to twelve. Okay. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday are a lot of my prep days, right. Making I have all of those grades to conquer for science. So I'm doing a lot of that and working with what they call kind of my roster. So I have a set of high schoolers making sure they're on track to graduate. How are they doing in that online driver's ed class that I have no idea about. So taking the time during on Monday, Wednesday and Friday to check in on them, have meetings, and mostly prep for grades six to twelve. Okay. So this is a really interesting set up that you have. To be honest, I haven't talked with another teacher, and I've talked to a lot of teachers, and I haven't talked to someone who has a schedule like this. I'm curious, what are you most looking forward to? Just about being back in your building, teaching in person, seeing all of your kids in person? Oh, my goodness. I feel like there's so many things. First of all, just going back in person and seeing my students face to face. It was hard for me last year, being at a new school and being online for the majority of the year, that took a lot of it's challenging for me to make sure I was building those relationships via a computer. So I'm really excited to work on those relationships and just to be with my kids in person. But also, personally, I need it. I need to get out of my house and have somewhere to go and take more than 100 steps in one day. It's very healthy for me. I used to think, like, I love to work from home, this looks so nice, but it's not for me. I know. I used to joke that because I would have friends who weren't teachers who could work from home. And I used to joke, like, oh, when can we get teacher holograms? When will we perfect that technology where I can just be a hologram and, I don't know, stay home and grade every Friday or something, and then I'm right there with you. I need the energy of a school building. I need that movement. So you were Hybrid last year, you said. So you did get to go in towards the end of the year, is that correct? Yeah, so I went back in April. Okay. And so I think I had about ten classes because again, this is only two days a week, so I did ten classes in person and then also taught online in the mornings. So yeah, that was interesting. That for me was the most difficult to do. Both shout out to all the teachers who have been doing both for a year and a half at this point now. Like, shout out to you, because that is very challenging to switch. I would go through my morning virtual teaching classes and then get to school to teach in person. I was like, It's not 07:00 p.m., it's eleven in the morning. Yeah, hybrid teaching really felt like two jobs. Can I pick your brain a little bit about this? Some of your students, you taught them fully, remotely, and some of your students, you taught them fully in person last year, right? Yes. So as you were planning, let's say, as you were thinking about just teaching best practices, let's start with collaboration. What did collaboration look like for you when you were in a socially distanced classroom where students were wearing masks? Because some of us are going back into the building for the first time, and we know we didn't do hybrid last year, and we're kind of thinking like, oh, I remember people talking about this, but what did they do? How did they have kids work together? All in the desk had to be a certain way apart or the kids were wearing masks. What did you do on those in person days when you were hybrid last year? Yes. This is a difficult question because I feel like my answer is never completely concrete because everything's changing every day. But I did find some things last year for sure that I was like, okay, we're making this work. So a few things are as simple as playing games. Even with my high schoolers, you can think of a simple cahoot or charade, right? We're all working towards one goal. It was fun. Nothing too high stakes is happening. But we were all working towards one goal, shouting across the room with our masks at times, all of that going on. Another thing I did was, if it's possible for you and this all depends on your school and administration, all kinds of things. But sometimes if I could, it's only like once, maybe twice, go to a larger section of the school, so the gym or outside even, we still have those same measures in place. But we've changed up the scenery and maybe we're working on our computers on a shared dock outside, which is also, of course, a tech tool of collaboration. Right? I really fostered a lot of those. Like, easy, if it could be shared. We're all going to share and work on this together. One thing I did actually, I had to have my high schoolers kind of make this poster board, but we wanted to do it in groups. I physically cut them in half. We worked on them at our socially distanced tables. We presented them cut in half and then I taped them together. I really like that. It was really fun to see them. Like, there's a lot that has to go, a lot of planning that has to go into that. Like, wait, where are you drawing your lines from a distance? And be like, that looks like it might line up correctly for that. Yeah, so we did do that. That was fun. And definitely it took a lot of collaboration in minor ways because, like I said, the planning for that one is a little extreme. But it was fun. Yeah. And I think I'm a teacher where I kind of struggle to let go of some of those tactile elements. Unlike a lot of my modern classrooms colleagues, I'm still going to prefer a text printed off, I think kids, so she's struggling readers, they can annotate that easier. I'm still going to want paper mastery checks. I love manipulative some of those things as I wrap my head around how I'm going to go back into classrooms and keep everyone safe. I have a lot to think about too, but I love that idea. We're still going to do the group project. We are literally just splitting the poster board. Yeah, you each get one piece. There's four of us. We're going to put these together at the end. It was abstract. We had an artistic spin on it all. I really liked that. And then so you also taught distance learning. You had students where you only ever met them virtually. Can you talk a little bit about now? And the reason I ask, of course, is because I think that as a Delta variant hangs over us. I think it's interesting because the teachers I've gotten to hang out with a little bit, it's almost like a whisper, like, is this going to happen again? Will we need to shift to remote instruction again? So I guess I asked some of these questions just to keep those virtual teaching muscles sharp. What did you do to foster collaboration in your distance learning classroom? Yeah, distance learning, I'm the same as you. I always want those paper things and, like, paper mastery checks. And I feel like, but if I can sit down, be close to them with their paper mastery check and do the reteach, it's so much more effective. So this was challenging for me, as I think it was for a lot of people. I did a lot of beginning zoom sessions of like, let's talk about our needs physically and mentally. A lot of that. As a modern classroom mentor, a common question I get is, okay, they want us to teach virtually now, but I feel like I'm not with my students if I just let them go into their group, like, I'm not really doing anything right. And I can agree with that. It kind of feels like when you're teaching virtually all of a sudden, if you just break kids off into groups, you're like, not there. So my advice is, like, trust yourself. Do what you normally would do. Start class. Maybe you have a warm up together. Maybe you're talking about common misconceptions. Maybe you're having a discussion about something going on in life. And then display your tracker or whatever you use so students know where they are and put them in breakout rooms, do something shift in between breakout rooms, etc. So that's kind of how we did that. I always use the tracker, or in my class, we call it the grouper. It's not the fish, it's not the grouper. Fisher, take a look at that. Allow students to get comfortable with moving in and out of breakout rooms. And then I always had, like, a break breakout room or a question breakout room. So hop in there if you just need a break, or hop in there if you got questions, because I have so and so leading the question, breakout room and can be in there to answer as needed. Yeah, and I think that's really interesting, the fact that you call your public progress tracker the grouper, because I've seen yours, and it is one that skews towards it emphasizes collaboration. Can you explain a little bit how it's set up? And we'll be sure to include it in the show notes. I'm curious, do you have the same one for both distance learning and in person learning? So I actually have two, but this just developed over like, each class of mine has two, but this just developed over time. So for distance learning, they just see a simple PowerPoint slide. It says what each student, wherever you are, whatever task you're on, it has your name or nickname, whatever the kids are using. It has the colors yellow revised. So that's displayed. I just display that virtually. And then they also have one on their learning management system. We use Canvas, which I call the official tracker, which is just a Google Sheets. And it just says mastered. It's essentially the same thing. It just has a little bit more. For me as a teacher, I can hide and unhide grades, so I can easily transfer grades. It's the one that goes out to parents, all of those things. And in the in person classroom, the same thing happens. I have the one that displays, and then I have my official one on the learning management system. The only difference is, in person, they move themselves. I just display it onto the whiteboard, and they use an expo marker and cross out their name and move it over. I really like that. We get a lot of questions about what are my options for doing a physical tracker, because I think the kids do kind of feel a sense of accomplishment when they get to get up and physically move something, be it a clothes pin, be it a magnet or whatever, but I really like this. You've combined them. It wasn't another thing to create. You just projected your regular tracker against a whiteboard. They got to do it with marker. That's really cool. Yeah, they seem to really like I actually tried to get rid of it, so I was like, okay, this is great, but let's move to this one because it's going to be so much easier for me. And I got major pushback, so I was like, Okay, people have spoken. I was like, I'll just run these two and I just snap a picture on my phone at the end of each class where each student has moved themselves just to double check with my official tracker so I can look through their notebook or whatever it is that I had them. Like, Oh, yes, they're there. Which, I'll be honest, almost 100% of the time, they are right on. No one's moving themselves. Just to move themselves. Yeah, that's really interesting. So another nitty gritty question, if you will, that I have is we have a lot of people asking, okay, so I have only done this virtually. What should the role of paper be in my physical classroom or people even going to use paper? I mentioned earlier, honestly, it's something I'm thinking through myself. I'm going to be coaching a majority of my time, but I really wanted to teach a section or two because I kind of want to test kitchen. I want to stay grounded. And I'm struggling with this myself. About prepandemic, I was definitely a paper teacher. I'm curious now that you taught virtually, you taught hybrid. Now you're teaching fully in person. What are you going to do? How much are the kids going to do digitally? How much paper are you going to use? Yeah, this is a great question. I definitely had that shift when I went back to teaching also in person last year of like, oh, no, there's germs everywhere. How do we do this? Do you sanitize papers? Like, what exactly goes on? So I am making a majority shift back to paper. We've talked. This is my third type thing. I love paper mastery checks. That little kind of like secluded area where they take their mastery checks and basically just like giving the students all the control. Pick up the mastery check, turn it in. It doesn't have to go through me if it's a distance thing. Now, I will say I did have a few students last year and I'm expecting some this year who just aren't comfortable with that. So building the relationship so we can have that discussion and having online resources. If we have to do a mastery check in Google form, let's do it. I don't want to push any of those boundaries. And also just kind of thinking about those for yourself as well as there's the Delta variation and everything's changing. What are you comfortable with doing in the classroom? I think that's really important and I really love that idea about student choice here because I definitely agree that's the third time I'm saying it. I do really like paper. I particularly like paper for struggling readers. I like that they can take their pencil, follow along annotate as we go. I also just really like it if listeners were I did an episode with Zach and with Moira Mazi, another modern classroom mentor, science teacher, actually. And we were discussing how much we loved to do our paper mastery checks on different color paper for each lesson and how oh my gosh, it just made it makes everything you can sort, you can identify them faster. It really does speed up the time we spend grading. To me, I really like that system also for myself going in and I know that lesson one are all the yellow mastery checks. So I grabbed those lessons. Two are all the orange. Yeah. I really like this idea of choice and depending on the comfort of the student and you mentioned the mastery check table. I think we obviously have limitations this year with how we can set up our classroom. We do want our desks following guidance to be spaced apart. How are you having students take mastery checks in the classroom? So, yeah, I'm dealing with the same space depart all of that. Essentially my school puts the tables in there and that's it. They've faced out the distance, which is a great thing for me. I don't have to go in there and physically measure it out and be like, oh my goodness, is this fair enough? But I still have my mastery check station. It's just kind of in this larger corner. I'd say like corner of the room, but larger corner of the room. I put up a disco ball, actually, a little mini disco ball. So it's not listen to a little song while you're there. That's cool. I'm trying to make it. I'm like, I don't even know. Probably know what a disco ball is. But we'll find out. We'll find out anyways. So just that foster take their mastery check. Now, what I am going to have to work on, which I haven't quite encountered yet, is if I have five students who need to take said mastery check at the same time because I need to be physically distant. So it might be like bring it back to your death situation. To be honest, I'm unsure if you have ideas tweet me. Well, first of all, thank you for your vulnerability with that because I think that we're all doing the same thing right now. Well, in the old days, I would have done that. Now that I'm walking back into my classroom again, I suppose I have to think about an alternative and it feels like the name of the game. I really like this. I know that you use a lot of boards. I know I'm ready for a check or I need help boards can you talk about that real quick? I wonder if there's a way that you could incorporate like, I'm ready for my Mastery Check. Or like the Mastery Check station is full so they add their name and their next like a queue. I don't know. That's a really good idea. Yeah. Can you talk about your boards? I think they're so cool. Yeah. So for those who don't know, we call it a question policy. In my rooms, that's pretty simple. There's a red box, yellow box, green box, and then there's like a column that says Need Check and it just has a line under it. So red box would be like, I have a question, I can't move on until you answer this question. If they have a question of that level, they put their name there. Yellow box would be like, I have a pretty important question, but I have these few tasks I could probably tackle until you get to me. And then a green question would be like, I have a question, but I can do a whole bunch of other stuff. Get to me when you get to me. And then the check would be like, I just finished my Mastery Check, can you come grade it? Or I need initials to move onto the next task. So my students physically get up and write their name on their side note. It's really fun to watch 6th graders try and decide what level of question they have. It's always red. It's always going to be red. It's always red. It's an opportunity to talk about yes, it's always a nice question. It is a very fun thing to talk about and it's fun to see some students grow too and be like, I'm pretty sure this is a green. And I'll be like, no, that was definitely a red. But we're still getting there, so yeah, it's okay. I like the idea of maybe having a section of that board of like Mastery Check station line or something like that because they can always move on to the next thing until they go and try and conquer the Mastery Check. As long as it's not getting too far ahead of me. Like, oh, that we checked with eight lessons ago. Sorry. It's so interesting how we're just needing to rethink and rework so much. I just want to acknowledge again, we have a lot of uncertainty with the Delta variant. What's going to happen is, are we going to be going remote again? Let's just talk about this. And I think you have such a unique perspective. What would your advice be to teachers if we need to shift completely virtual again? Yeah, my advice is to trust yourself, right? Trust your base, trust those things that you know and take the shifts as they come because we just can't prepare for who knows? Like, who knows what could really happen? So my word is advice is just to trust yourself, right? We talked about how I commonly get the question, like, oh, no, do I have to be in the Zoom session with them for the 80 minutes? Do what you would usually do. I'm going to just say it again because I'm being redundant, but just trust yourself, trust your base. Reach out too. That was my biggest thing, is like, reaching out to other educators who have maybe had more experience in that area or you need help building even just breakout rooms, whatever it may be. Yeah. So it sounds like you definitely used a lot of breakout rooms, and did you find yourself so kind of that was a feature where you maybe shifted a bit and got to be comfortable with the breakout room feature. How much could you use the base that you had created, like your library of instructional videos or mastery checks? When we had to shift, what were you able to take with you and use virtually? Oh, my goodness. I was so thankful when we made the shift back in March of 2020. I mean, I'm very thankful for the modern classrooms projects, but this is my time to be the most thankful because I felt very ready. I know this isn't everyone's experience, but my shift was very smooth. I mean, I met with my kids, right? We got on, we were like, okay, this is our new class schedule. Let's practice it. We learned breakout rooms. That was one of our major things. And I will say, too, just like adjusting to breakout rooms, sometimes I would go into one and it would just be dead silent. So learning to be comfortable, talking over a mic because it's a lot just to turn on your I'm at home. There's just so many things going on. So that was a big learning curve and respecting people's boundaries in that sense. But my shift I was able to use my plan essentially went as normal. Other than labs. I had to go and edit either my labs to be virtual or kind of just nix them completely. But the instructional videos, they had access to that tracker on Canvas, they couldn't move themselves anymore, which was the whole conversation. But we worked around it. So, yeah, I was very thankful. Yeah, I really love this. Like, trust yourself, trust your base. And we have so many teachers out there who myself included for teaching this section, this new thing that I'm doing. But yeah, where I'm building my base. And I think it's really comforting to hear that. If we would need to go remote again, that what we are creating now for in person learning. We really can use this space to 100%. Yeah. To shift. I love that. This year, individual teachers, schools and districts are emphasizing the need to recognize and educate the whole child. We're seeing this like we haven't, and I think it's a really, really great shift to ground our practice in. And we see this manifest in our August professional developments through recommendations to include social emotional learning to teach with traumainformed practices or trainings and cultural competence or antibiotics, antiracist education demi, what practices are you planning to use to recognize and educate the whole child this year as we go back in person again? Yes. So first I want to start by saying I'm in no way an expert in this area. And actually what I am planning on doing is continuing to practice now that's practicing outside and inside my classroom. So I am obviously continuing to do a lot of growth in this area. And something I actually wanted to bring up is recently I was a part of a Modern Classrooms book club ran by Tony Rose, shout out to Tony Rose where we all read Why Do All the Black Kids Sit Together in the Cafeteria? By Dr. Tana. And that was just so important for me. It really changed the shift from doing this work to practicing and implementing this work. So me being a white female educator, right, I was really nervous about having these conversations, and I was like, Oh, I can't go into a classroom with my students and being nervous about these conversations because I'm not going to execute it well. So during this book club, which is just one thing I'm pinpointing, too, I was able to have these conversations with my peers, and I just can't even really describe how much I learned. But the increase in confidence it gave me to implement these conversations in my classroom right. To have these very thoughtful interactions, these thoughtful conversations with my students, which I will definitely be doing. Yeah, I also agree. I read excerpts of Dr. Tatum's book in grad school, and it was so special to go back and revisit that text after being a practicing teacher and to do it with other modern classroom educators. And yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that, the Modern Classroom Book Club especially because I think Dr. Tatum came out with like I said, I read that one in grad school, and she updated it in 2017, I believe, for the 20th anniversary. And I thought her updates were fantastic. Listeners, if you haven't read this book, why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? It's really a classic education text that I think every educator should read. I also picked up a newer one that came out a few years ago. Over the summer, I was finishing Zaratha Hammond's Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Brain, and that kind of made my wheels turning about what I can do differently in my classroom this time around. And I'm really going to it's a personal practice in regards to pedagogy that I'm really going to try to emphasize this year is Activating Students Prior knowledge. You can be my accountability friend on this because I really like the idea of starting a topic with acknowledging that our kids are not blank slates they come to us with so much rich life experience and knowledge, and that needs to be honored. And I need to do a better job this year of turning over voice to them. Not only to form questions, which I feel like I've been teaching with inquiry and really trying to do that and getting kids to ask higher order thinking questions to guide our learning, but I really was neglecting this part about activating their prior knowledge and starting there. That's been one of those teaching practices that I have been letting marinate in my head this summer. Yeah, I really like that. I feel just from being a part of that book club and reading the book, there's so many just marinating in my head, which I think is a good thing. I'm really excited to start practicing them, implementing them, you know, relationship building on a whole new level. Oh my goodness. There's just so many things that I'm really excited about, but also just so lucky to have had the practice and the time to be really prepared. That's like my big my big thing. If anyone is nervous or you just feel like, you know, how do I even begin to tackle it? Just practice it. Maybe practice it at home. Practice it with your accountability, buddy. Zoom someone. I don't know. But that helps me so, so much. Yeah. This point about relationships and really being more intentional about those relationships, I think that I'm also going to try to keep this up, not just as a let's build relationships, especially in these first few weeks of school. I want to know your favorite things. I want to know what last year was like for you. I want to do a better job of building more relationships, revisiting those relationships, making them deeper, and not just doing it with those students who I really hit it off with, the more outgoing students or the students who I just maybe have something in common with. I'm definitely going to try to be more intentional about continually revisiting relationships. Okay. If it's November and I don't have a particularly good or bad relationship with the kid, it's just there. I feel like I was very guilty in the past. Maybe just keep going and we're in November and we got to double down on the learning, everybody. And that was so counterproductive as I look back and that's another goal of mine is to really keep the emphasis on that all year. I really like that. I was actually thinking about that the other day before we're going to do this podcast because I was like, oh, I really want to do that as well. Like, re emphasize these relationships and build them throughout the whole year because you want to know what the pandemic taught me. It goes away in a second. All of a sudden, I didn't have the opportunity really anymore. Right. And so the kids who I had built these stronger relationships with because I had something in common or whatever was going on. They were online in my class and those ones that were kind of dwindling that I was, quote unquote, working on. But so many things were happening. I was having a really difficult time reaching them. I think we so often we say things like build relationships, and I think for some educators, some educators, I think that comes fairly naturally. And then I think other educators could use a bit more support on that. I know that the free course, the modern costume free course, does have some ideas about challenging yourself to meet with four students every day until you get through the class and then kind of start over again. That's one suggestion they make. It was interesting because I remember in grad school needing to write when I was working on my Masters in Education, needing to write a paper. It was a very unique paper, just writing a paper, frankly, on a student who could have been presented as a, quote, classroom management problem. I hate to say that, but that's how it was presented to us. And I remember at the time being like, all right, so I'm going to write a paper about the student, about what I see and about when I see it, and just in my observations of the students in the classroom. And it was really interesting when you take intentional time to really think about a kid. You know, a child is a human being, a child with people who love them, a child with a very unique and individual background. I really felt my heart softening to this child. He was the 7th grader who I knew through student teaching, and I've been thinking about that a bit more as I reenter the classroom, about really focusing on kind of what I can do in my alone time to strengthen relationships. And I think that has to start with the way I think about kids and even the kids who can be really challenging. Yeah, I agree with you. I think those challenging kids, too, sometimes come home and I'll be like, you'll never believe what's so and so did in class today. But I really like your perspective of maybe taking a broader look at that intentionally. Right. Because I tell myself to do it, but intentionally, as you said, this is a human. This is a human with people whose lesson yeah. And why do we yes. Why do we think he's doing this behavior? What does he gain from it? What's going on in the class? At the time he does this, it sounded so simple. I was like, Man, I can't believe this is working. Yeah, right. It does. You're right. It sounds so simple. It's like, where was that in my brain there. I know you and I are both very passionate about teacher wellness, and I really love and respect that about you. And I think that we're both people who we emphasize that as teachers, we need to be at our best so we can serve kids, and we need to be checking in on our colleagues and their social emotional needs as well. This creates stronger schools. I don't know if anyone else is feeling this, but August always reminds me that there's no anxiety like back to school anxiety. And this year is very unique. Many of us, we feel a little rusty after teaching remotely last year. Covet has ushered in life changes for so many of us. I've talked to many teachers who are starting at a new school year this year. How are you doing? And what would you tell teachers like me cough, cough, who are facing change, entering a new job, uncertainty, and who are a little nervous about this school year? Yes. I always get the August anxiety. Mine is also accompanied by procrastination. Those are my two. I feel you all in the August anxiety, like, oh my goodness. Yeah. And especially this year if you haven't been in person and all of a sudden you're like, oh, my goodness, we're going completely back in person. I learned all of these new tech skills online, and now, like, what happened to those in person skills? I'm going to go back to what I said earlier. Trust yourself, trust your base. I think too, if I could create a list of myself with like, 50 plus things that I'm going to be kind of rusty at, let's just get rid of that list and take them as they come. Let's say you go into your first day. Oh, my gosh, I was so rusty on, I don't know, the warm up. All right, well, let's just fix that as they pop up rather than a fault of mine, and I will look at it and be like, okay, let me practice all these things before the first day tomorrow so I'm not as rusty, and there's going to be some I don't even know about that. Take them as they come. Those are challenges for future Demi and Kate and all the other teachers out there. Yeah. And I think modern classroom educators need to hear that one of the challenges, especially the first time that you're teaching with the modern classroom instructional model, is first of all, I would argue that you cannot plan a mastery based, self paced unit unless you're planning backwards. That takes a lot of work. And we don't just plan backwards often. We have the materials prepared in advance. There's not really a, like, lesson to lesson. It's like, no, we know that one kid is going to be on lesson four. Well, one kid is on lesson two. So we have a lot of materials that we front load in our prep and creation. So I think people who reimagine their classrooms and do this voluntarily were ambitious educators, and we really love this, and I think that thank you for that. Reminder of grace and kind of taking things as they come. And I think if there's ever a time to just say, like, you know what? Okay, so the first four lessons are done and the last three are not, and that's okay right now, they'll get there. We can remind ourselves of that because I know that there are teachers, whether they're going through the Virtual Summer Institute right now or they took the free course, they've learned more about it on Facebook. This idea that having all of this ready in advance can be really intimidating. So I think that do what you can and just have grace. Yeah. Trust those teacher instincts that we all pretty much have, like, Oh, yes, those aren't ready. That's okay. Today's a come together. We're working on this. I love putting those in it, frankly. I think they're really good for kids, and they need them anyway. And I could make an argument about how self pacing is a lot of work. It's developmentally. It's hard for kids, especially at the beginning of the school year, if this is new and we're changing the way they've done school. So actually, it's really good for us to have those days where we say, like, hey, guys, we're coming together after the first three lessons. And that's kind of like a soft deadline, really. It's like some manageable urgency. So there you go. Teachers, two birds, 1 st come together days when I have labs with a lot of materials, you can bet we're having to Come together day because I can't reset up, like, 1800 materials, like, five times, do a payday a seminar, dive into a text, do, like, concentric circles or a jigsaw or review day. Yeah, they'll love it. It's good for everybody. My last question. I feel like you and I could continue this conversation for a long time, so I can't believe we're at the last question already. It's about framing, I guess. We're very used to hearing about how difficult last year was, and it was there is no question that it presented challenges and frustrations for students, academically and socially, emotionally and for families, and for us, the educators, personally and professionally. We don't often sit back and think about what was revealed to us last school year. What did it teach our kids? What did it teach us? I'm curious about what it gave you as a teacher and kind of big and small, I guess. Kind of philosophically and nitty gritty teaching practices. And I was just like, man, that's why this profession is so beautiful, right? We want the research. We want the theory, we want a guiding philosophy, and yet, oh, my goodness, just give us a strategy, put it in our hands, and let us use it tomorrow. You know, like, give me a graphic organizer. I want it all. Yeah, we really do. So I'm curious, big and small, what do you think it gave you as a teacher? And how will it change your teaching practice moving forward? Being a teacher who taught in the 2020, 2021 school year? First, I really like all of these questions. There's so many I feel like I haven't ever reflected on. So this was really cool for me to think about and reflect on personally, myself. For me, what it just gave me was which I think I hope we continue to build on, is a lot of schools built so many strong support systems outside of school. All of a sudden, schools were having, like, Tech Thursdays and learn how to use your computer, like these things that we never had before. Or, you know, schools have so many support systems, but just a few I had never seen before. Where those, like, oh, all educators can go to this. Learn how to make an instructional video Wednesday. I don't know. They all had catchy names. I don't remember that. But those were so cool. And I was like and I hope they continue to build on that, not only for teachers, but for families, because that was another thing, the pandemic. Right? A lot. All of a sudden, it landed on a family who was moved into a remote learning environment, who maybe needed Tech Thursdays a year ago would have been. So all of these things were just brought to light, and I hope so bad that we can continue to build on those. I think to it, it reinforced the idea of meet students where they are. Oh, my goodness, we have to meet them. We're there because not only just academically, but in life and what's going on in their life. The Pandemic just brought so much more attention to that. And I never want to waver from emphasizing emotional wellness and development as much as their academic achievement. Man, you've given me so much to think about. Thank you for that. You gave me a lot of those questions. What did this Pandemic teach our students? I was like, I have never asked a student that question before. I was like, Oh, my goodness, because the focus everywhere is like, learning loss. Yeah, all of those things. And so I was like, hopefully that asking for support is like a strength. That's like, one thing, maybe some flexibility. But I need to ask my students. Yeah, I can't wait. Teachers, it's almost here. It's almost time. These are wonderful. Next week for me. Yeah, for me. August 20. August 30. But we will soon get to the best part of teaching. All of those kids who are going to walk into our rooms, those vibrant individuals who are going to make us laugh and challenge us and make us think in new ways. They're coming. Friend, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much, Kate. It's so much fun to talk to you about all this. Yeah. Thank you, listeners. Thank you for joining us for 50 episodes. And we'll be back next week. Thanks, everyone. Bye.


Voiceover: Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode. And remember, you can learn more about our work at www.modernclassrooms.org, and you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at Learn.Modernclassrooms.org. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at modernclassproj, that's P-R-O-J. We are so appreciative of all you do for students and schools. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast.