BY N I COL E L A BOR T E
RE-IMAGINING the .CLASSROOM
H OW TO S U RV I V E T H R I V E A S O N O N L I N E E D U C ATO R
or many, myself included, the end of the calendar year marks a period of reflection before we celebrate and transition into a time of rebirth and begin again. I’m sure I’m also not alone in saying that 2020 was the year that none of us expected or even imagined was possible in our lifetimes. While challenging, I have been fortunate to have been in the metaphorical “right place at the right time.” As a proud millennial, technology is something that has always been present and relevant in my life as a student and as an educator. I have been fortunate to teach in a district where 1:1 devices and connectivity have been in place for the past few years, and have had access to wonderful professional development that sparked my interest to dive deeper. In May, I completed my Master of Science in learning technologies degree, with a focus in teaching and learning technology, from the University of North Texas. When I selected this pathway two years ago, I did so because I had a desire to learn how to implement technology in my classroom in a way that was engaging and impactful. I did not anticipate my degree work and knowledge to be suddenly extremely relevant in this pandemic global apocalypse hellscape that we have found ourselves living and enduring for the past nine months. Like thousands of other educators, I went from teaching in person full time to being told we would be fully remote for three weeks to prevent community spread of COVID-19. Somewhere during this nebulous March/April time frame, our governor announces that schools will remain closed until the end of the academic year. I distinctly remember developing an even stronger aversion to any and all “emergency” staff meetings because it meant something was going to change, yet again. Last spring was crisis mode for the majority of us. For the most part, we were trying to survive navigating the shift online with varied levels of preparedness for rollout and implementation, all while also being also on the frontlines to ensure our students were as okay as they could be in this scenario that even us adults were 12 MuPhiEpsilon.org
struggling to cope with. Every day was triage — we constantly were inundated with a barrage of new information, guidelines, and fires to put out. In an effort to preserve some semblance of mental health and attempt to alleviate that awful burned-out feeling, I used the time in between then and now to radically shift my mindset. I was tired of simply surviving week by week with lots of existential dread over whether my profession and artform would make it through this time in which we are all struggling and fighting our way through. Instead of allowing myself to dwell in that negative headspace, I decided I would acknowledge it as simply different. Really different. And different was okay. I decided to take what I had learned over the course of master’s degree work and this past spring’s trial by fire, and go from surviving into thriving. Life Lessons with Laborte In my first year of teaching, my students adopted what they call “Life Lessons with Laborte,” including the hashtag, #LifeLessonswithLaborte. Basically, anytime I say something particularly real — not necessarily music-related, but more related toward an overall better human being — it ended up being a #LifeLessonswithLaborte example. These #LifeLessonswithLaborte have radically shifted my mindset towards teaching in online spaces and provided me with some much-needed reminders to allow me to be grounded both in my professional and personal life. I hope that at least one or perhaps a few will resonate with you in your own life and current professional situation. Life Lesson #1: It’s all in the delivery. And the delivery should be consistent. How you choose to interact with your audience in the online space you create depends on your purpose. Whenever I create online content, I ask myself these two questions:
