3 ms·

One would think teaching 20 5-year olds online would be an insurmountable task but it's actually been my wife's best year teaching after 6 years of in person te

One would think teaching 20 5-year olds online would be an insurmountable task but it's actually been my wife's best year teaching after 6 years of in person teaching at one of the best schools in the county. The parents have been extraordinarily nice and have gone out of their way to share gratitude and one family even sent a bottle of wine. She went from in person teaching kindergarten last year to doing the districts virtual program this year. The district has 72,000 students in K-12 and around 15% of them signed up to do all virtual this year. To give you an idea of scale, just the kindergarten teachers the virtual program has would've been more teachers than an entire traditional school would have (over 40). Most elementary schools have around 4-5 K5 teachers. The teachers still had a similar number of students as normal (around 20) and they primarily use Google Meet for live classes and Seesaw for assigning and turning in work. Most of her students have shown improvements throughout the year so far during assessments which is promising and means teaching small children online is actually possible. She meets with the whole class at 7:45 for around 15 minutes and then does small groups from 8-10 with groups of 3-4 kids. Sometimes that goes into individual instruction as well while she gives a task to the small group and then meets 1on1 with a student individually. She meets back up with all the kids at 10 for another class lesson. From around 10:30 - 12:30 the students have PE/Art/Music with another teacher and then she does another group lesson, and then small groups, etc. until 1:30 when instruction is done for the day. There was a learning curve at first but now most of the students are able to login to their correct classes at the right times which blows me away. The fact 5-year olds are able to more or less keep their own schedule and do assignments on their Chromebook should not be a surprise I guess but it still blows my mind. This format has really allowed her to get way more done than she normally would during a regular school day. In person she would be at school from 7am-3pm most days plus a 20 minute commute. Having breaks during the day to do planning has been a great gift that would normally be taken up by other things in person. I can also get into the curriculum and how that worked going from 0 but this is already getting long. Happy to answer any questions if there are any.

bshimmin 6y ago
There was a learning curve at first but now most of the students are able to login to their correct classes at the right times which blows me away. The fact 5-year olds are able to more or less keep their own schedule and do assignments on their Chromebook should not be a surprise I guess but it still blows my mind. I don't want to doubt you, but... really? My experience of 5-year-olds is they don't have any meaningful concept of time at all; surely the parents must be plonking them in front of the computers at the right time and nagging them to complete their assignments, right? It sounds like your wife is doing a fantastic job!
- joshmlewis 6y ago
  From what I've gathered it's all about routine. There was definitely a lot of adult help earlier in the year for the first couple weeks but once they got into a routine the kids now are mostly doing things on their own. Their grown up is usually nearby if needed as well. She's even told me some stories about kids being clever and trying to pretend there are issues so they can watch TV (the only problem being while they turned video off they didn't mute the microphone so she could hear cartoons in the background).
tannhaeuser 6y ago
That's great to hear but I'm guessing your wife's school is located in an upper class neighborhood where there's plenty of room and time for homeschooling, at least one member of the household can take care of the kids at any time, and in general education problems are no issue. The reality for not-so-well-doing families is a very different one, starting from there being no quiet place in the apartment, let alone for multiple kids at the same time, no equipment for home schooling, and parents being busy with work and not able to take care or help. These problems being amplified by the pandemic is tragic, to say the least, for a whole generation. It's also extremely frustrating for those who've fought for inclusion and against social determination in elementary schools for all their professional life. This problem will definitely come back biting society. There's no lack of schooling software. In fact, preparing high quality digital materials for education in a "literal" style such that attendees could comprehend and change those themselves has been a major use case for 1990s (HyTime and SGML) media authoring systems, with high profile figures (TechnoTeacher/Dr Macro) being editors or sitting on the board of said standards. But the truth is that as long as public schooling doesn't get properly funded to pay many more teachers, there's no chance to maintain education standards. Right now, in my country teachers are expected (or at least were expected in the latter half of last year) to be present in school and organize home schooling at the same time, all the while being exposed to Covid, which can't possibly work. The priority of the school administration/government seems to be to avoid giving any legal reason for a right to repeat years or appeal final exams because that would break HR and financial means.
- joshmlewis 6y ago
  > That's great to hear but I'm guessing your wife's school is located in an upper class neighborhood where there's plenty of room and time for homeschooling Nope. She has a good number of students from low income families and the school where most of her kids came from before virtual is a Title 1 school. All the students doing the virtual program get a Chromebook and access to an internet connection (meaning they worked with Spectrum to get internet to families who didn't have it or they get a wifi hotspot or they have community locations with wifi access). Some of these students are at a daycare, with family, etc. during the day while the parents work. Now there are definitely inequalities in the school system don't get me wrong but for my wife at least she cares deeply about that subject and tries her best to make sure each student has everything they need to succeed.
8bitsrule 6y ago
>teachers the virtual program has would've been more teachers than an entire traditional school would have ... She meets with the whole class at 7:45 for around 15 minutes and then does small groups from 8-10 with groups of 3-4 kids ... then meets 1on1 That sounds close to an ideal learning situation. Small-group individual attention (as close to tutoring as possible) allows teachers to constantly evaluate who's getting it/needs help, and to tailor the rate of presentation for best results. Congratulations, and I hope you're able to share that news of success, and the details, widely.

bshimmin 6y ago

There was a learning curve at first but now most of the students are able to login to their correct classes at the right times which blows me away. The fact 5-year olds are able to more or less keep their own schedule and do assignments on their Chromebook should not be a surprise I guess but it still blows my mind. I don't want to doubt you, but... really? My experience of 5-year-olds is they don't have any meaningful concept of time at all; surely the parents must be plonking them in front of the computers at the right time and nagging them to complete their assignments, right? It sounds like your wife is doing a fantastic job!

joshmlewis 6y ago
From what I've gathered it's all about routine. There was definitely a lot of adult help earlier in the year for the first couple weeks but once they got into a routine the kids now are mostly doing things on their own. Their grown up is usually nearby if needed as well. She's even told me some stories about kids being clever and trying to pretend there are issues so they can watch TV (the only problem being while they turned video off they didn't mute the microphone so she could hear cartoons in the background).

tannhaeuser 6y ago

That's great to hear but I'm guessing your wife's school is located in an upper class neighborhood where there's plenty of room and time for homeschooling, at least one member of the household can take care of the kids at any time, and in general education problems are no issue. The reality for not-so-well-doing families is a very different one, starting from there being no quiet place in the apartment, let alone for multiple kids at the same time, no equipment for home schooling, and parents being busy with work and not able to take care or help. These problems being amplified by the pandemic is tragic, to say the least, for a whole generation. It's also extremely frustrating for those who've fought for inclusion and against social determination in elementary schools for all their professional life. This problem will definitely come back biting society. There's no lack of schooling software. In fact, preparing high quality digital materials for education in a "literal" style such that attendees could comprehend and change those themselves has been a major use case for 1990s (HyTime and SGML) media authoring systems, with high profile figures (TechnoTeacher/Dr Macro) being editors or sitting on the board of said standards. But the truth is that as long as public schooling doesn't get properly funded to pay many more teachers, there's no chance to maintain education standards. Right now, in my country teachers are expected (or at least were expected in the latter half of last year) to be present in school and organize home schooling at the same time, all the while being exposed to Covid, which can't possibly work. The priority of the school administration/government seems to be to avoid giving any legal reason for a right to repeat years or appeal final exams because that would break HR and financial means.

joshmlewis 6y ago
> That's great to hear but I'm guessing your wife's school is located in an upper class neighborhood where there's plenty of room and time for homeschooling Nope. She has a good number of students from low income families and the school where most of her kids came from before virtual is a Title 1 school. All the students doing the virtual program get a Chromebook and access to an internet connection (meaning they worked with Spectrum to get internet to families who didn't have it or they get a wifi hotspot or they have community locations with wifi access). Some of these students are at a daycare, with family, etc. during the day while the parents work. Now there are definitely inequalities in the school system don't get me wrong but for my wife at least she cares deeply about that subject and tries her best to make sure each student has everything they need to succeed.

8bitsrule 6y ago

>teachers the virtual program has would've been more teachers than an entire traditional school would have ... She meets with the whole class at 7:45 for around 15 minutes and then does small groups from 8-10 with groups of 3-4 kids ... then meets 1on1 That sounds close to an ideal learning situation. Small-group individual attention (as close to tutoring as possible) allows teachers to constantly evaluate who's getting it/needs help, and to tailor the rate of presentation for best results. Congratulations, and I hope you're able to share that news of success, and the details, widely.