(by Don Meador, Allen County Schools)
Allen County educators are learning as their students continue to learn.
Despite school buildings closed to at least April 20, and perhaps
longer, the education of the school district’s 3,000 students continues. Even
though educators are teaching in the traditional way, educators are teaching,
inspiring, and enlightening young minds through the avenue of modern
technology. James E. Bazzell Middle School mathematics educator Rachel Davis
has taken to the Zoom classroom to continue to help her students capture math concepts.
“I have been meeting with my
eight grade students who are trying to earn their Algebra 1 credit three times
a week by using Zoom,” Davis said. “They can either download the app or enter a
meeting number, or if they want to use their computer, they follow a private
link. Using Zoom has been amazing.”
Davis admitted her concern for
how to continue to help her students with the closing of school.
“When the District told us that we would be out for an extended amount of time, I immediately was worried for that particular class (Algebra I),” Davis added. “Most of our nClass work is review work for students to keep the math material fresh while we are out. But, my eighth grade Algebra students have a different need. I have to teach them not only the 8th grade material, but also the Algebra 1 material for high school. It is imperative that teaching new material doesn't end for them since they will move straight into pre-AP Geometry. Two weeks of no new instruction would be devastating for them and their success in their future math classes. I asked for special permission to continue teaching them their material as part of their nClass@Home. I held my first zoom class on the first day we were out.
Educating through the
technology available through Zoom online was new to Davis and to her students
thus requiring learning by the teacher and the student.
“It has been an amazing
experience for me and definitely a huge learning curve both with the technology
and with learning how to conduct an online class,” Davis explained. “Although
25 of my 29 students attended the first day, I had literally no participation
from the students on day one. They were there taking notes, but I
felt like I was teaching to myself. So the next class I grabbed my jar of
names that I use to randomly call on students, started pulling out names
and the participation was amazing. Now, students will unmute their own
mics and talk to me, ask questions, and participate in the discussion; it
really is a fantastic teaching tool.”
Davis notes that she is fortunate
to have a portable document camera and can hook that up to her computer so that
she can give notes or work out problems.
“Zoom has a feature that
allows split screens so that I use a second source for a screen, and splits the
screen so that I can still see my students and what I am doing on the document
camera,” Davis said. “ They can learn much more complicated material with me
teaching them instead of them trying to figure it out completely on their
own. There are so many features of Zoom that makes it easy to use. I
can save the video and post it to my Google classroom board for students who
have missed the class. There is also an ability to post audio only clips
for cell phones which generally have trouble downloading the videos due to the
size.”
The class participation has
been solid.
“I usually have around 20 or so students that attend on a regular basis and 99% of my Algebra students are able to access the internet,” Davis noted. “For those few who cannot, I make phone calls to them and go over the same material so that they are not behind just because they don't have the technology.”
This week, all students in the
District will be introduced to new material. Davis is excited to expand her
online teaching to the remainder of her students.
“I am going to start holding regular meetings
with my Pre-Algebra students starting on Thursday to begin teaching new
material to them as well,” Davis added. “It was great to get my feet wet with
my Algebra students before bringing along all the other classes.”
Looking forward, Davis hopes
that one day, Allen County will be able to see that all students have a greater
access to technology.
“I would love to see the
district become a 1:1 Chromebook school one day,” Davis noted. “The amount of
technology that is out there for students to use is amazing and having that 1:1
ratio would be so great should we have snow days, or something such as this
epidemic in which schools have to close for an extended amount of time.”
(This is the first of a series of stories on how education is
continuing during the COVID-19 pandemic.)