Teachers can’t rest on their laurels; in addition to the never-ending work of planning, grading, teaching, and building relationships with kids, educators must constantly commit to their own learning, staying abreast of new research and best practices that will help them be more effective. Recognizing the importance of professional development for both student success and teacher job satisfaction, Gateway has long prioritized these opportunities, weaving them into the annual, monthly, and daily academic schedules. In fact, Gateway teachers receive considerably more hours of professional development than the national average for public school teachers. But how do you support teachers when they’re asked to teach in a completely different way, on very short notice, while managing their own health and safety amid a pandemic?
“It was like that African proverb: ‘if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,” said Suzanne Herko, Student Agency Coordinator and 7th grade Humanities/Learning Seminar Teacher at Gateway Middle. “It was clear that the most urgent need was to somehow get all of us on the same page despite the fact that we would all be teaching from our homes. We took a lot of time at first to establish our shared values for distance learning, our expectations for students and each other, and then figuring out the best way to communicate that to families.”
Teachers all have personal instructional styles, from totally high tech to lo-fi and everything in between, but in order for distance learning to be successful, it would require the entire faculty to become really comfortable in the virtual space, really quickly. In many ways, being a teacher required one specific skill set on March 11, 2020, and a completely new one on March 18.
“In the first several weeks, the greatest need was around simply discovering and learning the technology: how to work with a padlet, or a flipgrid, how to set up your Google Classroom so that it’s a consistent experience for students,” said Therese Arsenault, GMS’ Math and Science Instructional Leader. “But the real challenge is about using technology intentionally, not just because it’s there.”
Many of the trainings required teachers to take on the role of their students, such as one activity in which teachers were enrolled in a Google Classroom and experienced their professional development through a student's eyes. Being able to experience a real students’ eye-view of distance learning allowed teachers to quickly respond to rough spots and streamline how students access materials each day.
“We decided to start using Google Classroom for our professional development meetings instead of Zoom, so that teachers would have the experience of logging in, interacting with documents, turning in assignments, just as their students would,” said Suzanne. “Every meeting became an opportunity for us all to practice being in and running a virtual classroom, which in turn informs how we worked with our students.”
Teaching adults virtually entails many of the same challenges as teaching children virtually: figuring out how to make learning interactive, finding ways to make small group discussion work, or simply not having the opportunity to “read the room” and get an informal sense of whether your students are distracted. But after several months of virtual PD, it’s possible to identify what went well and even some upsides that faculty will be looking to capitalize on in the next school year.
“Making (distance learning) work has required so much collaboration that I’ve heard teachers say they spent more time talking to colleagues virtually than they ever have, even when they were right down the hall from each other,” said Suzanne. “And that communication has really allowed us to learn from one another, and quickly address problems when they arise. If we can keep that momentum going as we start the next school year, we’re going to be in great shape.”
“Distance learning forced us to become highly responsive to changes from week to week, and to be incredibly focused on the skills we wanted to master,” said Therese. “Whatever school looks like in the fall, we know now that we can adapt to new ways of doing things and new ways of working with students and families.”