Building Engagement No Matter Where We End Up #engaginglitminds
Our school rocked remote learning, especially in the beginning. The teachers pivoted quickly to an online platform, adopted new online resources quickly, and kept an open, positive mind for the “new normal”, all within a matter of a week (albeit that week was filled with some loooooong days of preparation). We were ZOOMing!
While remote learning overall went well, by the end the engagement was waning. It became obvious, even though the teachers didn’t miss a beat making sure our students were getting what they needed to be academically ready. It was a bittersweet final day - sad that this was how we had to end an amazing school year with our friends, but so grateful it was over because we were all DONE! Literally and figuratively...
So what happens now? I’m feeling like there is this heavy blanket of angst and worry that I can’t quite get off of me this summer. My heart and soul tells me to relax and be present in these beautiful, unstructured summer days. But my brain (especially at night) keeps me up with those “What if...?” thoughts:
What if we can’t get back to school?
What if remote learning continues?
What if there has to be a hybrid of both?
Most schools at this point have plans A, B, and C. What are these kids going to need to keep them engaged and excited about learning in any of these situations? How will I support teachers to do this work?
To quell that anxiety, I’m looking to the experts to help me as a coach have the knowledge to help the teachers I work with develop plans A, B, and C for student engagement no matter where we end up in August. To avoid the DONE feeling that overtook us all. The book, Engaging Literate Minds, grabbed me just from the title. My brain said, “Yes! Show us how.” As I read, I thought about how this work would look if we were back and school and how we might adapt some ideas to a remote learning setting.
Chapter Two was all about having kids make books. We already do this in our physical school setting but the one thought I took away was helping the kids to take more ownership about what THEY notice in the mentor text. We do a great job of using mentor text to help illustrate strategies kids can use in their writing in our mini-lessons but haven’t gotten the kids to the point where they can lead that inquiry work. If back at school, that would be an idea I will bring to the teachers to take their amazing work even deeper. I would invite teachers to help me answer the question, How can we get the kids to use mentor text as writers more independently and begin to lead others in that work? I’m excited to see what we can come up with.
In a remote learning situation we can still make books.With our kindergarten class we had them stay on Zoom to write as a group while the teacher observed. They would check on each child periodically and help them get their writing done. Parents would then take photos to upload to Seesaw so when they met with the child during their one on one time, the writing could be put on screen and the child could read it aloud to the teacher. The student would also have the hard copy in front of them so they could revise based on teacher feedback during the conference and then upload the revised writing. One problem solved.
Chapter Three, “We Are All Teachers Here”, talks about the ways the authors help the kids in their classrooms understand that they are teachers as well. They strive to “ensure that the children experience learning with and from each other” (32). In a physical classroom space, we can use their idea of co-creating anchor charts to help build community and solve problems. We can group kids (with masks on) to collaborate as readers and writers and help each other solve problems plus dig deeper into their learning by asking each other questions and listening to answers.
In a remote learning setting, we found this collaboration to be a bit trickier. One idea I’m thinking about is enlisting the help of adult volunteers to help monitor break out rooms in Zoom. We would train the parent volunteers to just be the accountability and let the kids lead the learning. I had two girls ask me if they could stay on after one of my read alouds so they could work on a song they were writing together. I sat quietly and prepared my next lesson, while they created and wrote together. It was magical to watch and the engagement was sky high. This flexibility would bring back some of the collaboration we were missing in whole group Zoom sessions. Teachers can also pull small group Zooms and let the kids collaborate with teacher feedback. We are also going to have to enable the chat box and work together as a class to make sure it becomes a place for sharing thinking appropriately. A collaborative class anchor chart could help with that as well. Those are just a few ideas we are thinking about to help build collaboration remotely.
Chapter Six explores how classroom dialogue builds the student’s abilities to “explore problems with openness to different perspectives, producing increasingly complex understandings and solving increasingly complex problems.” (75). I would like to explore with teachers the idea of taking on books from different perspectives of the characters. I have had conversations around how a character might feel but never thought to look at all of the different perspectives that come into play. The example of Laurie using the book Fine, Fine School and then thinking about how not only how the kids would feel, but taking the principal’s perspective, the teacher’s perspectives, and the perspectives of the students’ families takes the dialogue much deeper.
In a remote learning situation, the problem we were having was getting the kids to talk in whole group Zoom situations. In an activity like above we could think about breaking the kids into groups with the different perspectives and having them first collect their thoughts in their thinking journals, then use supervised break out rooms for the groups to share, and then come back to the whole group. The kids would hopefully be less intimidated to share this way.
Chapter Ten focuses on inquiry. As a proponent for celebrating the questions and wonders of children, I know all too well how important this work is for student engagement. Let the kids lead the learning by asking questions to get them thinking. For example, instead of telling them to use a period, help them discover “punctuation power” (150).
In a remote learning situation, inquiry projects could be just the thing to keep learning interesting. Co-create the learning outcomes with the students and then give them a choice on what they want to learn and how to show what they have learned. We are going to have to start trusting that our students can and will do the work with support, guidance, and a lot of choice.
These are just a few ideas I’m thinking about to help my teachers support students to be less consumers of information and move towards being the creators no matter what the situation is in August.
This post is part of our 2020 Summer Book Study. Find all previous posts and more information here. Also, we will discuss Engaging Literate Minds every Wednesday at 4:30 P.M.at the newsletter. Sign up below – it’s free!