HUMBOLDT — Karen Kennedy-Allin had been using computers as a tool for teaching since 2010, recording lessons or saving the work so her students could access them for help and take notes during any time of the day.
Now, from behind her computer, she teaches all three dozen Grade 9 Horizon School Division students who’ve opted for online learning.
A day in the life of online teaching
“I start my day usually about 7:30,” Kennedy-Allin said. “I have a live session with my students that start at 10:30, so I always want to make sure I’m super prepared and super organized.”
Live sessions, otherwise known as “synchronist sessions,” take up an hour each day.
The other three to four hours are done asynchronously, with the students completing work in a more solo environment at their computer. If they need help, they have full access to emailing, messaging, texting or calling Kennedy-Allin for asking questions.
“That’s one of the advantages to this way of doing things is they have multiple ways of getting a hold of me, and they have the privacy of doing it through a one-to-one chat.”
Due to the solo nature of asynchronistic learning, Kennedy-Allin said this gives the opportunity for the students to do the work at different times throughout the day, with some students texting her questions as late as 8 p.m. with questions. As a result, she set a rule that the limit for students contacting her at 9 p.m., as she goes to bed early.
All synchronist lessons are recorded for the students and posted in Google classroom.
“The synchronist is the part that I like the best because it’s where you really get a chance to connect with the students,” she said.
“I have about three quarters that attend the synchronist session regularly. What that means is if I’m doing a teaching lesson I have to make sure it’s also made available to the students who couldn’t make it that day.”
Kennedy-Allin said that as an online teacher, she relies more heavily on parental and guardian support.
As an in-person teacher, she used to send newsletters updating the families of the students’ work once every week or two.
Now, she finds herself emailing each family about three times a week.
“I’m not there, physically able to encourage them to work, focus on their task. Those responsibilities fall to parents,” she said. “Here you really have to have a symbiotic relationship with the parents.”
These emails typically focus on calendar updates, including due dates and when the live sessions are.
Each day of the week has a unique theme for their synchronist sessions. Monday is “mental health Monday,” and then there are “try it Tuesday,” “world history Wednesday,” and “think Thursday.” For Friday, they alternate between “first chapter Friday,” where the students have a group discussion pertaining to the first chapter of a book, and “famous Friday,” where they have group presentations and do a discussion on a famous person.
“I try to make it valuable for the kids to attend the live sessions because most of their work is done asynchronously with asynchronistic lessons I record beforehand.”
With the online classes, there are three main subjects, English language arts, math, and science.
“We try to bring the other subjects into those three subjects. We do social studies as well, but things like arts, physical education, and we do health quite extensively as well – especially focusing on mental health and mental wellness,” she said.
“With the pandemic and with these students being isolated at home, our principal asked us as homeroom teachers to focus on mental wellness and being able to give the tools to deal with the isolation and deal with the stress. That’s why we always have mental health Monday.”
While she found science the most difficult to adapt, due to the limited number of experiments that can be done at home, math was the easiest since she had already taught it using computers pre-pandemic.
“I love teaching math online. Prior to me getting this job, when I taught math I actually had video lessons,” Kennedy-Allin said. “What it really does is it individualizes the pace of the program for students.”
In the asynchronistic classes, she tries to include learning games.
These include interactive simulations for science and math from both Phet, designed by the University of Colorado, and explorelearning.com.
“The ones from explorelearning are very student oriented,” she said. “They’re literally like a game where they have to figure out how to change an equation around, and I quite often get them to record their score and tell me what their score is so I know how they’re doing.”
Challenges and benefits to a new medium
Kennedy-Allin said one of the challenges faced with teaching online is it takes more of an effort and time to build a relationship to connect with her students.
“One thing that I really noticed is that they’re making connections to each other. So even though we’re remotely in a classroom, they’re getting to know each other, they’re chatting with each other,” she said.
“They really talk to me a lot, they share with me what’s going on in their life and it’s really cool to see, but that took time.”
To build that relationship, Kennedy-Allin said the live sessions are key. Each session is started by an attendance question such as a “would you rather” or “tell me what you did this weekend.”
“Yes, we do learning, and there is a focal point for each of the live sessions, but they’re truly designed for us to make connections, teacher to student and also student to student.”
In each synchronous session, she found “quite a few” of the students will log on 10 minutes early just to hang out. These conversations have been about video games, favourite shows.
“It’s just a great time to get to know each other.”
Another challenge that popped up was the necessity for the students to know when to ask for help.
In a classroom setting, Kennedy-Allin would walk through the rows of students, see the student’s work as they’re doing it and offer help.
With an online classroom, they have to ask for help themselves as their teacher won’t know what they’re struggling with until the work is submitted.
“If they don’t let me know, I really have no idea if they’re struggling or not.”
She said an advantage to the online learning is the nearly unlimited library of supplementary lectures that she can find, but she makes an effort to keep them as supplementary, as the students have come to expect a specific teaching style from her.
“It’s really easy to go to YouTube and find a video on pretty much any topic you want,” she said.
“Often times I’ll record a lesson in my terms, and if a student has trouble understanding the way that I explain it, then I go and can find other resources and say, ‘Here’s a great teacher, he explains it in a different way.’”
Another advantage from online teaching is not requiring the wearing of masks or other protective measures to reduce the risk of contracting the virus. This includes more freedom with group work.
“I can put them in small groups, medium groups, whatever kind of groups I want and they can talk freely to each other,” Kennedy-Allin said. “The disadvantage is they can’t really work together on projects that involve physical objects because they cannot get together.”
One challenge which surprised Kennedy-Allin, is the myth of Gen Z all being masters of technology due to growing up around it – versus the reality of each student having to learn and having different comfort levels.
“Everything isn’t always intuitive with students. Some students are really good with technology, and some aren’t. Sometimes you really need to teach the basics of the technology.”
This is why she introduced “try it Tuesday.”
For try it Tuesday, the students get to try a new technology in a non-competitive environment without grading.
“We’re just trying it out, going to see how it works, that sort of thing.”
Post-pandemic
From her experience as an online teacher, Kennedy-Allin believes there is value in keeping the program going beyond the pandemic.
“If we’re truly providing education for all, there are a number of students facing anxiety and group anxiety, and this is a wonderful platform,” she said.” What we’re discovering is that we can have really good teaching pedagogy online as well as in-person.”
While she believes nothing can replace face-to-face connection, she said this comes as a close second.
“For those students that may or may not be able to do well in a traditional school situation, I believe that there’s a place for them in online learning.”
