The activities to be completed for this research project are part of the regular curriculum for the Problems of Democracy course. As part of the second unit of study, students will be reviewing the US Constitution through reading type assignments and a project. In order to determine when my students will be completing these activities, I needed to prepare my pacing guide. These activities must be completed by a certain date to allow enough time to collect and synthesize data as well as write the evidence-based conclusion of my paper.
It took longer than usual to complete my pacing guide. Needless to say, the start of this school year has been overwhelming. The additional planning time required to transform my lessons for remote learning is more time consuming than I thought. One comfort came from knowing that all of us teachers share these feelings. Fortunately, there are networks out there to alleviate some of this stress. In an Edutopia article, Stephen Merrill collects a set of crucial emotional and psychological scaffolds that are the results of over 500 teachers collaborating on two Facebook conversations. One that speaks to me is ‘reset your baseline.’ Now is not the time to strictly adhere to regular teaching norms. Another is to scale back. “Students won’t be able to work as productively, anyway” (2020.)
The advice of scaling back helped me focus on the key objectives of my curriculum. As much as I want to include everything I normally do, it is not realistic right now. Once I had the opportunity to plan out the semester and generate a new timeline, I was reassured that the activities would occur in plenty of time to meet my final paper deadline.
When these activities are assigned, students will have an entire week to complete each assignment. This is consistent with my class routine put into operation at the beginning of this school year. All assignments are posted on Monday and are due by the end of the day on Friday. Due to the pandemic, the amount of time for each activity is changed from the initial plan of taking two class periods for each activity.
Another change is that students will primarily work independently and asynchronously. I recommend my students work during their best learning time of day. Many complete their assignments during the evening and night-time hours. This is in line with the research on teen brains and their sleep cycle. The teen brain does not start to feel sleepy until almost 11 pm (2016.) It only makes sense that my students are working later into the night. In contrast, my teaching day is still the same. I often receive their questions after I have already gone to sleep resulting in many answers being sent out the following morning. My school does have remote classes twice a week to help my students synchronously. This year continues to present its share of challenges, but I continue to face each one.
Sources:
Edutopia (19 March 2020.). Teaching Through a Pandemic: A Mindset for This Moment. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-through-pandemic-mindset-moment
Wahlstrom, Kyla (19 Sept. 2016.). Why teen brains need a later school start time. The Conversation. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/why-teen-brains-need-a-later-school-start-time-65308
One overlooked advantage to "scaling back" can be that it creates the space needed for students to truly exercise agency over their own learning. This is a critical component of the type of assessment you are researching this semester. The students need real, meaningful freedom and choice. This requires you to scaffold their success and to really trust your students. In a way, the current times are forcing you to really follow through on this during your study. I remain truly curious as to what the effects will be! You grounded these thoughts very well in the edutopia article and included strong artifacts. Well done!