Diary of a teacher on lockdown

The long awaited return back to school for all schools in Aotearoa especially in Auckland has been announced. When this news was announced I was so over the moon. I have been battling an ongoing battle of trying to bring all my 27 students to our class meets but as the days turned into weeks, weeks into months we started to lose numbers. We had a committed group who diligently attended everyday, then the group who would join a few times a week then there is a small group who we have not seen much at all on the meets. 

When I asked my students on the meet if they were excited to come back to school, the answer was a resounding YES! They are eager to return back to school, to socialise, to be with their friends, be out of the house and hopefully seeing their teacher in person in on that list too.

For me as their teacher, it is an emotional return in a way. Why? Because I have wanted for so long to return back to school. Term 4 is a busy term with assessments, end of year activities such as prize giving and also graduation for my Year 8 students as they will be leaving our home nest of Glenbrae School and going on to college. It is also my last term before I am to go on maternity leave so I feel a bit deprived of my precious weeks with my tamariki before we finish off the year. Regardless, I am grateful to have the next four weeks to be with my class before we close off for the year.

In our staff hui, it was discussed the main focus for students returning is to reconnect and enjoy being back to school after learning from home for some time. We have to take into consideration the safety aspects of returning back to school while this pandemic is still in the community. 

As a teacher, my planning will be around reconnecting, socialising, learning and reflecting on what has been a very challenging year. I am just so proud of my students and their resilience and perseverance. These students will look back to this time when they are adults and realise just how challenging these times are for them and for the community and country. He waka eke noa is our school theme for this year and it truly plays a huge part in how we have been living through this lockdown. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel now. We are returning back to school what a wonderful feeling. See you soon Room 7.

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

The challenge for today in our Fun Week Challenges was our cooking challenge. Our class had a meet at 9.30 am in the morning to discuss what we were going to do and also the recording/videoing aspects of our challenge. After the 9.30 am meet, all students and teachers then set off to do their cooking or baking. 

I had a staff meeting right after the meet so I did not make a start on my baking until after the meeting. It was definitely a challenge to bake pineapple pies before our 1.30 online shared lunch meet but I was able to finish with 15 minutes to spare for lunch and to catch my breath. 

While baking, I also knew that my class were cooking or baking and probably rushing around the kitchen like I was. I had a little help from my son and after hearing the students share, I also realised they too had help from whanau at home. Collaboration in the home at its best. 

My entry for today's challenge were Pineapple Pies. I have had the recipe for more than 10 years. It was passed on to me from some sister missionaries and I have made so many modifications to the recipe to suit my liking. I am very fussy with my pastry. I like the pastry very flaky and bakes until very golden brown. The filling is custard which has to be Edmonds custard with crushed pineapples and pineapple chunks also because I like eating pineapples. That is why I use the pineapple chunks as well. The end product were delicious, flaky and light pineapple pies. Probably the best I have made so far even though I was in a rush when I was making them.

Our online shared lunch meet was fun. The students shared their cooking and baking.  Other food entires were: frooze balls, hash browns, cookies, chicken curry, donuts, burgers, Maori bread, chocolate cake, mini curry pies. 

It was a great way to end the day sharing our cooking and baking. I am so proud of the effort my students are putting into these challenges and also grateful to their parents for their support in their children's activities. 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

Term 3, Week 10. My class were meant to be on camp this week but due to alert levels, we have had to change our dates to Term 4. Regardless I still wanted my students to have some fun this week. Therefore the Room 7 Fun Week came into action.

Totally understanding the need for my tamariki to have some other type of learning activities while learning from home. We finished off our Project Based Learning for our current unit in Week 9 and kick started our Fun Week today. 

The objective is to have some hands on fun activities to do from home and be creative and innovative. Each day, there is a different activity to do but the goal is to give it a go and of course blog about your fun idea and creation. 

A while ago, I shared a poster with my class which emphasised the positive effects lockdown learning can have on our tamariki. There is often the discussion that students are not learning as much while learning from home. That not physically being at school and learning in school will have negative effects on their learning. However, this poster opened up another perspective.

Here it is: WHAT IF THEY ARE AHEAD?

would be very keen to have a discussion with any of my fellow teaching colleagues around the motu about how you have found the engagement of your learners during this lockdown. What innovative ideas did you put into action to engage your learners during your class meets? 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

We are now several weeks into this lockdown. The daily meets are happening, the normal attendees are attending and then there are some who we are trying to engage with to attend the meets. 

One of my non attendees is a lovely student in my class. On the first week of lockdown, this student attended some of the meets then she stopped. I was getting very worried and phone calls were made, emails sent and the reply was "Yes Miss, I will come on". That didn't really happen. However, although this student is not attending the daily meets, she is actually doing the required work. She is sending through work that we are currently working on. Blogging her tasks and its almost as if she is getting information from the meets without being there.

I reflected on this and realised. This student is able to do all the required work because of the way the Home Learning page is set up with the required work and I am also sending email reminders to students of the work they are required to work on every day. I also add screencast recordings at the end of the day to wrap up the day and just reflect and acknowledge the students for their dedication and effort in our meets and work. 

I suppose the objective of this post is to remind ourselves as teachers about the importance of having a class site which is easy to navigate and while we like to play website designer and make our sites flash, we also have to keep in mind that the site should be easily navigated by the students and their parents. There is already a lot of anxiety attached to being on lockdown and adding more anxiety by having to navigate a complicated class site is not helpful for our learners and their whanau. 

Site tips:

On the landing page of your class site, have a very visible HOME LEARNING button which links to your Home Learning page 

Keep the site simple and easy to navigate

Have visuals to guide the students (too much text is uninviting)

Be present on the Home Learning page. What I mean by this is, have photos of yourself or recordings of you talking. I believe it helps with connecting with our tamariki while we are not seeing them face to face

Update the Home Learning Page daily. Some people might think, this is too repetitive and I am having to copy the same thing. For me, updating daily with announcements, meet times, recordings of myself keeps the Home Learning page active. The students will visit the Home Learning page and be updated if there is a change of meet times, or there is an assembly...

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

 Engaging our learners and whanau during lockdown

Our school from the first week of lockdown have been setting challenges for our students and their whanau to participate in this week the challenge was a Baking Challenge. It is great to see our students participating and our parents in the background lending a helping hand. 

Here is a movie for our students challenge this week. What talented students we are blessed to have at Glenbrae School. 

As well as challenging our students to take part, we also set the challenge for staff. Here is the movie for our Staff Challenge this week. 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

Through all the lockdown teaching I have been doing, I have been learning to adjust to what is the norm when teaching from home and students are learning from home. 

I have come to realise that, it is harder to engage the students when they are not sitting right in front of you. At the beginning of our meets, I have always had to remind students to have their cameras on because personally, I prefer talking to my students when they are visible on my screen. When their cameras are off, I do not know if they are still lying in bed and I feel it is part of respecting themselves, others and their learning when they are on the meet ready to learn. 

How did I attack this challenge of the cameras being on during the meet? 

I assigned one of the students, one who is always the first to join the meets to be the monitor for the cameras. When this student was assigned, he gladly took the role and would remind people to have their cameras on. Quite funny though, because the monitor is one who I also had to remind a few times to have his camera on. It is quite pleasing to see the respect that the students have for each other. When ever my monitor would ask his peers to have their cameras on, they would comply. I have to admit the meets are much better with everyone's cameras on. 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

We have had a good run since last year and life almost felt normal again. At the beginning of this month, the news, social media and communication in schools started pre warning that it was a matter of time before Covid's Delta Variant will affect New Zealand. I was sitting in a Manaiakalani leader's meeting when our principal sent through an email from the ministry asking teachers to start preparing just in case we have to go into an urgent lockdown. 

Today, we heard the update from the Prime Minister that there as been a positive case of Covid in the community and it is Auckland. It is unsure if it is the Delta variant but genome testing is being conducted to determine if it is the Delta variant. 

Here we go again. We are going into teaching from home and students learning from home. We got communication from our principal that we can access school devices tonight and hand them to students in preparation for learning from home. Luckily for me, most of my students take their devices home and also VERY LUCKILY, my class had a practice lockdown drill in class yesterday. YES! Just yesterday we had another lockdown drill. 

What does a LOCKDOWN DRILL look like? 

In my best Jacinda Ardern voice, I announced to the class that there is now a positive case of Covid in the community and in an hour New Zealand will go into Alert Level 4

The students sit at their tables with their devices and chargers

We check all devices and chargers have labels with the students names on it

All students go on to the class site and go into our Home Learning page

On the Home Learning page, the students join the class meet using the link on the Home Learning page

I then accept all the students and we smile at each other while I take a screenshot to capture our beautiful faces on screen 

Benefits of a Lockdown Drill

I have peace of mind that all students have a working device and charger

All students are able to go on to the Home Learning page and access the class meet

Our new students to our class and Manaiakalani are taught how to access the class meet link 

I am confident our class site is easily navigated by students and parents to access the meet link

All devices are chargers are labelled 

Therefore, tonight, it took me about three minutes to take the devices out of the lock up cupboard and put them on the table. It took about 30 minutes to wait for my students to arrive and pick up their devices and that was it. Done! I left school confident that in the morning I will be seeing my tamariki on our first meet in this August 2021 Alert Level 4 Lockdown.

Engaging my learners and whanau from home

What would lockdown teaching look like without digital technology? 

Tonnes of worksheets sent home

A book sent home for students to read

Phone calls to student homes to check if students are doing their work

Can't give feedback to student work because I can't see their work

Limited interactions with my students

NO THANKS!

What lockdown teaching and learning looks like for my class

We are on hangouts using Google Meet everyday. I am still doing group teaching with my students through our meets. My students enjoy working in their learning groups. I have observed they like the smaller group discussions and the time I spend with them in discussing learning. I have seen some students really engaged through our meets and learning online. 

Engaging whanau my students' learning 

While my students are learning from home, I thought this is great opportunity to have their whanau participate in their learning activities. Therefore, I launched our Whanau Challenge for this week while we are on lockdown. Also sourced a very kind sponsor Mr Tofa to sponsor the prizes for the Whanau Challenge. Am blessed with a very supportive husband who supports you in your effort to engage your learners in their learning. 

The Whanau Challenge is a hit with my students. A lot of them are participating and getting their families involved. This highlights the value of whanau involvement and support as well as being resilient regardless of the situations we are in. Auckland is in its forth lockdown and it is very important for me to keep my students' learning engaging and meaningful. 

Some challenges by my students 

 

I am really excited everyday to continue working with my students. I know it is the same for them too. How do I know? Attendance 21/24 attending the Google Meets. The amount of work I have emailed to me. The communication from my students asking for feedback on their tasks before they blog. The amount of blog posts coming through. All these would not be possible without digital technology and also the kaupapa of Manaiakalani underpinning our digital learning. 

Teaching in Covid Times

Once again we have received the update Auckland is going into Alert Level 3. I remember last year when the first lockdown was announced. We had a day to prepare ourselves for the lockdown. I felt unsettled anxious of what learning was going to look like for my students. 

Fast forward to 2021. Saturday night I was in my kitchen cooking dinner for my parents when my bishop called me to put an announcement out to the female group I lead at church. "For what bishop?" was my reply. "The Prime Minister has just announced we are going back to Alert Level 3 at 6 am tomorrow". After I hung up, I put out an announcement to the group that there will be no church service. 

Then I got another call from our DP that our staff are going to school on Sunday morning to give out devices for students with no devices at home. I promptly replied I will be there and made a few more calls to inform my church group of having no service. 

Did I feel anxious? Not really. I am confident my students will continue their learning. I know exactly how many students I need to give devices to and what to do in setting up my class hangouts. If more than anything, Covid and the changes in Alert Levels are teaching me about the ability we have in being flexible and adaptable. I have also seen this with my students. Where last year, my students spent some time to get used to being on lockdown and getting back into school routine when they returned, this time I see the students get right back into school routines when they return on the first day. 

How we as teachers react to situations influences how students cope with the changes. In my classroom practice, I ensure the students know our classroom is a safe space physically and emotionally. This is achieved by ensuring the students understand that life can change unexpectedly but we have to cope with changes. We also have to look out for one another. The saying 'The show must go on' is often how I view our return to school after lockdowns. 

My observations of my students is that they appreciate returning to school and classroom routines. Being able to greet your teacher as you walk in and answering some questions she has for you to start a conversation, sharing your latest game hack with your friends, learning in small groups, sharing your ideas and strategies with your friend next to you, having a laugh with your mates in the class over something you find amusing, playing outside...MAKING MEMORIES AS A KID. If you are a teacher reading this post 'Does this just highlight how valuable your role is in the lives of your tamariki?'. 

Back to Hangouts

My Home Learning page has been set up. I have put a screencast of myself talking to the students about what is happening this week starting off with hangouts tomorrow morning at 9 am. The screencast serves a few purposes:

1. My students can see me visually and hear me (hopes of bringing back the security of being in the classroom with their classroom teacher). I am still here.

2. I have been pushing SISOMO with my students. Instead of sending them a long email explaining what is happening, at a click, they can see and hear me explaining.

3. The screencasts are a great memoir for my teaching career. I often look back to the screencasts I made last year and reflect on how far I have come with the teaching from home, also good to see myself a year ago and now as I have been on a healthy living lifestyle change. 

Some tips for Hangouts

Test out your Hangout link ahead of time. Have someone try the hangout with you. Today I tested with a colleague who needed some assistance in setting up her hangout space. Good for mic check and camera check. Can you imagine your students looking at you while you're talking and they can't hear a thing? DISASTER! 

Ensure you have on your Home Learning page the times you will be on hangouts. Make it visible. Help the students by ensuring information are visible and its not in a maze where they have to scroll up and down to find what they need. 

Look presentable. Important because you will have to record your hangouts with the students. Very important you record your hangouts for your safety as well as the safety of your students online. You know how every teacher has a student who acts as their secretary? That student who thrives on reminding you about things or telling you about what everyone else in the class is up to? I usually assign this student to remind me to record in case I forget. 

Teaching from home doesn't mean you are doing half your job. With myself, I find teaching from home requires so much more effort from me in ensuring all my students are on hangouts and doing their work from home. It does take up a lot of energy. Therefore, ensure you look after yourself. Get a break during your day, go outside for some fresh air, exercise, be happy and be positive. Remember how you react to situations will influence how your students feel. You set the vibe :).