Shawna Rothgeb-Bird Start of the year

How I Approach the First Days and Weeks of School

It’s the end of July and I think I’m ready to start thinking about next year now. I haven’t fully shaken off last year yet – I’m not sure I ever will, to be honest – but it’s time, now, to start looking forward and thinking about the 2021-22 school year.

Ten years into my career, I’ve developed a few things I like to do to kick off the year and get to know my students.

Some context, before I share some of my start-up routines: I teach Middle French Immersion, which starts in grade 4. The students in this program come from many different schools (and occasionally from out-of-province/country). Some have been at my school since kindergarten, others come in as the only one from their previous school. Some of my routines are about getting to know a new school, feeling comfortable with new classmates, and settling some nerves at the beginning of an immersion program.

So. Here we go. A small taste of how I like to start off the year. I’m not going to take you minute-for-minute through my first day because I’m not that consistent, but I’ll share the things I find really helpful and important in the early days.

 

Before School Starts

Typically, my board doesn’t give information to families about their new teachers or classes before the first day of school. That said, if I were able to reach out to families ahead of time, as I know some boards do this, I would want to record a short video introducing myself and giving a quick look at the classroom.

The morning of the first day of school, I print off a final class list along with student photos so that I can easily recognize them on the yard when they arrive.

With respect to class decor, I absolutely do not overdecorate my classroom before school starts. In fact, if you look at this photo, you’ll note that my classroom is actually pretty bare bones on day 1:

That’s because our walls are typically full of student work and co-created anchor charts. No point in putting up decorations for the first day only to replace them a few days later! I also find that too much on the walls is very distracting and overwhelming for students, especially when they’re just starting out in a second language program.

 

First Day of School

I put small nameplates on student desks so they can find a spot and sit down. These are not permanent nametags. I usually just use cardstock or bristol board to make a folded stand-up card. On students’ desks are all of the supplies they’ll be getting – notebooks, duotangs, etc. (My board provides these to students rather than asking families to purchase them.)

Our very first activity as a class is to go around and introduce ourselves. I never read names from the class list on the first day. It’s important that everyone learn how to say everyone else’s name properly and the best way to do that is to have students say their names themselves.

Two things to note on student intros: I invite students to share their pronouns if they’re comfortable but make it clear that they are not required to. I also make sure to tell them that they can pass on the intro if they are very uncomfortable speaking in front of everyone first thing. It is very rare that anyone is unwilling to share their name, though.

 

Boîte de moi

Early in the day on the first day of school, I like to do this activity to give students a little idea of who I am. Many of my students come from feeder schools and haven’t met me before, and the others have likely only seen me as a duty teacher or maybe their Core French teacher in the past.

The idea behind this activity is simple: I fill a shoebox with items that represent me, then share what I brought with the class and tell them a little about what those items mean to me. For example, I’m an avid reader, so I often include a favourite book. I play a lot of board games, so I may include dice. I love coffee, so I’ll often stick a favourite coffee mug into the box, too. A photo of my family, of course.

Over the first two weeks, students then bring in their own shoeboxes of personal items (or photos/drawings of them) to share. Students are usually really engaged in this task. Very occasionally, I have a student or two who may be uncomfortable with this task, so I make sure to tell everyone at the outset that they can let me know (with a note on my desk, an e-mail from a parent, a private convo during recess, etc.) if they would prefer an alternative.

Some alternative options I provide:

  • Recording a video from home with Flipgrid that will only be visible to me.
  • Presenting at recess in front of just me or one or two peers they’re comfortable with.
  • Creating a different kind of presentation, e.g. Slides, that accomplishes the same thing.

Note for fellow FSL teachers: We spend the first week learning and practicing the language they’ll need to be able to share their boxes in French. It’s a great way to get a quick sense of what their rehearsed language level is.

 

Student Info Forms

I try not to overload students or their families with paperwork in the first week, but there is one set of forms that I always make sure to do: a set of questions for students to complete at school on the first day and a general info questionnaire for parents/guardians.

The questions on the student form change slightly from year to year, but here are some things that I always ask:

  • Name they’d like me to call them in class
  • Pronouns they’d like me to use in class
  • Something they feel really good about at school
  • Something they find challenging at school
  • Something they’re looking forward to or want to do this year

For parents/guardians, it’s a bit more standard from year to year:

  • Contact info and preferences (yes, even if the office has this info, because there is ALWAYS someone whose number/e-mail has changed and they’ve forgotten to inform the office)
  • Access to technology/internet at home (useful to know during COVID, mainly)
  • If the student has an updated hearing/eyesight test (this is always question #1 when bringing a student to team, so I like to just ask everyone right at the start of the year)
  • Whether the family has any particularly busy or late nights with extracurriculars (I then try to avoid planning big assessments or events on the day after these late nights, if possible)
  • What they’d like to see as part of their child’s education for the year

 

Nametags and Labels

In the first few days of school, I ask students to create their own nametag that will be their permanent nametag throughout the year. This gives them an opportunity to have some agency with what name is on it, what it looks like, etc. It’s also a really interesting insight into who they are, as I typically see a range of styles from plain printing in black marker to elaborate designs in full colour.

In years where I’ve had assigned seating, like last year, the nametags get attached to the visible side/front of the desk so that they’re visible to educators in the room. In years where I’ve used flexible seating (which is honestly every non-COVID year at this point in my career!), we make them stand-up nametags on cardstock. They’re used, then, to denote where students have chosen to sit for the period and can be moved around as needed.

Because I teach FSL, I also like to have students label key parts of the classroom in French to facilitate oral communication – la porte, le tableau, l’horloge, les fenêtres, etc. It sounds like nothing, but it honestly makes SUCH a difference for them to have the word right there on the object in front of them – and at the junior level, they seem way more likely to pay attention if they’re the ones who made it, not me.

 

Unstructured Outdoor Play Time

I always, always make a point of scheduling a little bit of unstructured time outside on the first two days of school. I try to keep it short – going out 10-15 minutes early for recess, for example, or heading out early at the end of the day and playing in the yard.

It’s important that this time is unstructured because I want to see what students do with the time. I provide some equipment for them, but otherwise they have free choice of activity. While they’re playing, I make notes.

  • Who already has a social group?
  • Who doesn’t seem to have many connections in the class?
  • What kinds of activities do they choose?
  • Who prefers to hang out with me and chat?
  • Who ignores all of the equipment and opts to sit down and read, walk and talk, etc. instead?

It’s an incredibly useful exercise and informs many of my early decisions on groupings for class activities. The reason why I say to keep it short is because in my program, there are always students who don’t have any connections in the class, so I don’t want to put them through half an hour of not knowing what to do with themselves and feeling uncomfortable.

 

Hopefully that gives you all a little idea of some things you could do in the first few days with your class to get to know them and gather some key info for your early planning. If you have any questions or are looking to bounce ideas off of someone, you’re always welcome to contact me! I can be reached on Twitter @rollforlearning or by e-mail at srothgeb@gmail.com – and I’m always open to chatting about teaching.

Deb Weston e-learning, Remote Learning, teacher efficacy, Teaching online

Myth of Hybrid Multitasking

woman with multiple arms holds several pieces of paper

I decided to write this blog after reading an article in the Globe and Mail about getting off our cell phones. According to the article “Phone use depraves us of the quality of our sleep, our productivity, and our creativity. It is linked to heightened levels of anxiety and depression, diminished sexual satisfaction, compromised child-parent relationships and so much more.” (Leszcz, July 24th, 2021, Globe and Mail, Technology Section, p. 6-7). With phone in hand, we have established multitasking in our lives.

This got me thinking about how distracting teaching is during the hybrid model. Here, teachers must attend to students in class, students online, technology to run the class, and the lesson taught. In hybrid multitasking, teachers’ attention is pulled in many directions. The question is “How effective can teachers be in this environment?”

The Myth of Multitasking

There’s a myth that multitasking increases people’s ability to do many things effectively at once. However, after reading some psychology texts, I’ve found this myth is not true in real life.

According to Paul Atchley, Ph.D. (associate professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Kansas), “Based on over a half-century of cognitive science and more recent studies on multitasking, we know that multitaskers do less and miss information. It takes time (an average of 15 minutes) to re-orient to a primary task after a distraction such as an email. Efficiency can drop by as much as 40%. Long-term memory suffers and creativity — a skill associated with keeping in mind multiple, less common, associations — is reduced.”

This means, with multitasking, our ability to do work decreases, making us less effective. Even though the human brain has billions of neurons and many trillions of connections, humans are incapable of doing multiple things at the same time. Instead, what happens, is that human brains switch tasks choosing which information to process (Archley, 2010). When “you listen to speech, your visual cortex becomes less active, so when you talk on the phone to a client and work on your computer at the same time, you literally hear less of what the client is saying” (Archley, 2010.)

Technology Distracts Us from Our Life

Archley states that technological distractions make us unaware of the demands it puts on our information processing capacity. He also states that humans “crave access to more information because it makes us comfortable. People tend to search for information that confirms what they already believe. Multiple sources of confirmation increase our confidence in our choices.” Problems arise as more information “leads to discomfort, because some of it might be conflicting. As a result, we then search for more confirmatory information” (Archley, 2010.)

Multitasking Leads to Memory Problems

Overall, multitasking leads to problems with memory – which would account for the noted decrease in my executive function since teaching synchronously online and in the hybrid model.

What can people do to improve their ability to function? How can we prevent our brains from becoming overloaded?

  1. Do one thing at a time
    • Try to complete one task at a time or until attention fades (which is after about 18 minutes according to Archley)
    • If you need to go back to a task, write a note as a reminder – I do this all the time
  1. Work in a spot that has few distractions so you can focus
    • close the door in the room in which you are working (Archley, 2010)
    • set a time to work and provide yourself breaks as needed
  1. Realize that not all information is useful
    • information includes information sourced from phones, computers, radio, TV, etc. via blogs, posts, texts etc.
    • ask yourself if this information is worth interrupting your work
    • consider your use of social media and the time it takes out of your life and how it uses up your executive function
    • consider how your time on your tablet or phone is impacting your relationships with others
    • “know the difference between social networks, which are likely to confirm your choices and therefore make you feel good, and knowledge networks, which might challenge them, and therefore help you make a better decision” (Archley, 2010)

With regards to using our cell phones prudently, Benjamin Leszcz (2021) makes the following suggestions:

  1. Put down your phone when paying attention to others
    • When talking to someone, make eye contact, listen carefully, be present with the person
    • Leszcz writes “phones don’t just diminish our performance as friends; they also make us inferior parents” (2021) – ask yourself, How is your phone impacting your relationships with your children and partner?
    • During meals, phones should never be at the table, or a bar or even in children’s bedrooms.
    • People in our lives deserve our undivided attention – so put your phone away and pay attention to them!
  1. Put away all phones
    • Phones should be either face down on our desks or in a drawer, a bag, a pocket … away from our attention
    • Best place for a phone is in another room – I do this but then get complaints as to why I have not attended to text or answered calls
    • Don’t check your emails all the time – I also get complaints about not reading and responding to emails immediately … but consider in real life, if something is so critical it needs my attention, then someone will get a hold of me using another vector
    • At staff meetings, teachers should not be on their phones as it distracts them from actually hearing information conveyed
  1. Phones interrupt our capacity to learn and read keeping us in a state of hyperattention (Dr. Turkle cited in Leszcz, 2021)
    • Bite sized information make us weary of actually reading long text like books or newspaper articles
    • Marshall McLuhan wrote “A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace.”
    • Phones distract us from written text and real life conversations, as Leszcz states, “Keeping a phone nearby while reading a book is like putting a plate of fries beside your salad”
  1. “When we are paying attention to nothing at all, we should put our phones away” (Leszcz, 2021)
    • Phones constantly distract us from life by keeping us connected
    • Even in our leisure time phones are present getting us to send another text or take another photo – instead of just enjoying the place we are in
    • “Phones rob us of the moments we can be free, letting our minds rest or wander” (Leszcz, 2021)
    • Phones have us using our executive function all the time and without a break our long-term memory can be diminished (Archley, 2010)

Leszcz warns us about the consequences of using cell phones and technology less … as withdrawal symptoms are likely. We may find breaks from technology give us the feeling of being on vacation. Technology vacations may result in building deeper relationships and reconnecting with our family and our partners in more ways than just talking.

In the end, this research shows that human beings were never meant to attend to so many things at once. Knowing this, I can make the following statements about hybrid teaching and learning:

  • Teachers should not have to attend to students synchronously at home and at school as it makes us less effective as teachers.
  • Teachers should not have to teach using the hybrid model as it is bad for our brains, our attention, and our relationships.

Collaboratively,

Deb Weston, PhD

References

Atchley, P. (December 21, 2010). You Can’t Multitask, So Stop Trying, Harvard Business Review Downloaded from https://hbr.org/2010/12/you-cant-multi-task-so-stop-tr (July 25, 2021).

Leszcz, B. (July 24, 2021). After the pandemic, let’s deal with our phone addictions. Here are three rules to follow, Globe and Mail, Downloaded from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-after-the-pandemic-lets-deal-with-our-phone-addictions-here-are-three/ (July 25, 2021).

Deb Weston General

Invisible, unpaid, voluntary hours

 

Working long invisible hours

 

2020/2021 has been a very challenging school year for educators. We’ve worked thousands of hours to make the school year work for our students. It was exhausting, working through weekends with few real breaks away from school tasks.

Thousands of teachers worked long, invisible, unpaid, voluntary hours.

Why did teachers work so hard? It was to ensure students had the best possible education during these very challenging times.

After 21+ years in teaching, I’ve learned a great deal about how my work is valued by boards of education and the Ontario government.

  •  Teachers are expected to work long hours with few supports and even larger class sizes.
  •  Teachers are directed, by their boards and ministries of education, to provide supports that are not directly linked to education such as being responsible for students’ well being and mental health. Teachers are expected to deal with students who have significant behaviour needs with few supports while teaching a class of students. Note that teachers are not trained mental health therapists.
  • Teachers’ time is taken up due to the underfunding of students’ needs, resulting in working through breaks and beyond school hours.

During Covid, teachers were expected to make their online and hybrid classrooms function well. Teachers were given few or no resources to run a virtual classroom with teachers using their own money to purchase technology and curriculum materials (I personally spent a great deal of my own money on student workbooks and technology in which I was not reimbursed.)

The challenges of teaching through Covid were downloaded to teachers as we were left to figure it out on our own. The lack of resources went beyond teaching materials as some teachers were given no planning time during their teaching online (part of the collective agreement.)

Of course, administration praised teachers for their work in one breath, then started asking teachers to do more. It is like asking someone to clean the house on their own time and then asking them to do the windows next!
Teaching in the hybrid model was the most taxing job I’ve had in my entire history of work in 40+ years. I had to attend to students in class, students online, technology and the lesson in which I was teaching. With the addition of behaviour management, my skills were so strained that I became ineffective.

Healthy relationships require limits. Teachers’ working conditions are becoming abusive. If these working conditions are sustained, my relationship with teaching needs to end.

Working long, invisible, unpaid, voluntary hours, I will not stay in an abusive relationship.

Collaboratively Yours,
Deborah Weston, PhD

Note: The Covid-19 Pandemic has brought unique and unprecedented challenges to teaching. ETFO’s position on in-person learning remains unchanged. The union firmly believes that in-person instruction and learning in publicly-funded schools provides the best experience for learning, quality delivery and is the most equitable model for all students. In order to support educators during remote learning, several resources have been created to support members.