Reimagining the Classroom

RE-IMAGINING .CLASSROOMthe

HOW TO SURVIVE THRIVE AS ON ONLINE EDUCATOR

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 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:

1. What am I hoping to accomplish? 2. Who am I hoping will take part in watching or attending?

In most of my teaching situations, I hope to introduce or review new learning concepts, and provide feedback for my students that will improve their knowledge base and clarify any misunderstandings. Other times I seek to build relationship and foster connection in my (online) classroom environment, to encourage discourse and conceptual understanding of the content. The first question is to establish the “why” in my sequencing and scaffolding.

The second question, — “Who am I hoping will take part in watching or attending?” — drives the “how.” What delivery method, asynchronous (pre-recorded instruction) or synchronous (real time conferencing), is best suited for my purpose?

Almost all of the time, the answer to the second question is that I want all of my students to watch it. And because of that, 99% of the content that I rollout each week is asynchronous, meaning designed to be viewed and watched whenever and wherever the student is logging in to learn. Unlike synchronous methods (such as video conferencing), asynchronous content is designed by default to allow equal and equitable access to all of my students, assuming they have consistent access to the internet. And yes, that assumption is a huge one — if anything, this pandemic experience has taught us how fundamental reliable and relatively fast internet access is for all of our students and further highlights the access inequities and barriers within our systems.

That being said, regardless of what method you choose, how you deliver it must be consistent. Depending on how your district has chosen to rollout online or hybrid, it is fundamental for students to have a suggested structured online routine to work from as a baseline that you communicate and reenforce to both them and the close proximity adults that are guiding them through this shift. One of the biggest benefits of online learning is that it allows the learner more freedom and flexibility of when they want to learn. However, this is also its biggest potential downfall if the learner is unfamiliar with how they best find success and work without relying on direct instruction to tell them what to do.

We often think of remote learning as this brand-new, scary beast to take on, especially if we are not super tech savvy; instead, we must remind ourselves that many of our normal structures are needed here too, just adjusted to fit the digital environment that we are creating. With each of my new classes — in some cases with kids I’ve never met in person— I spend the first weeks doing what I would do if they were physically in front of me: I explain and demonstrate our daily routines so they can work asynchronous or synchronous content. I show them how to navigate through the learning modules, how to submit and record videos, and how to find and organize their Google Drive so it is not overwhelming.

Any and all tools I expect kids to use, I first learn to use myself. For example, FlipGrid is a platform used to receive media for assessments and virtual performance editing. I have never needed it before because I relied on face-to-face ensemble time to accomplish those tasks. I spent some time playing with the different features and setting options to see if it was a viable option for my instructional purpose. I now routinely use it as a way for them to record to meet their peers, explain and demonstrate their growth throughout the quarter, and to capture and export the content that I then take and edit into our virtual concert.

Most importantly, I teach them to advocate for themselves. In online models, I cannot rely on direct instruction to reach every single child because there is not enough time for me to do so. I am simply a facilitator guiding them through their own learning

journey and providing clarification along the way. This requires me to release more responsibility to them while still maintaining a slightly omnipotent presence through my daily announcements and direct messages to let them know they are not alone.

Life Lesson #2: Engagement is not compliance.

Every single time I create and post a new assignment or task for my students, I remind myself of Life Lesson #2. In education, so much of the time we are not really asking our students to engage, even if we perceive it that way, we are simply asking them to comply. Examples that immediately come to mind of systemic compliance include: • Rewards-based systems • Required participation • Not causing a disruption • Answers only when asked directly • Work completion without the personalization • Lack of questioning the credibility or validity of the information

We are all guilty of wanting compliance, because it makes the work’s administrivia easier. And yet, we chose our professions because at some point in our educational pathways we were authentically engaged in our content medium, that is, someone developed our interest, our passions, our innate curiosity to go beyond surface level compliance to understanding. We choose to share our knowledge with others because of that initial authentic engagement to learn and experience something that we truly love deeply.

Life Lesson #3: There is power in allowing choice.

One of my favorite questions for my students (or adult learners if I’m providing professional development to my colleagues) is “What are you interested in that is related to what we are currently doing?”

I often use this as a starting place when I begin to create content for them to explore. As music educators, we have a wide variety of music-related topics and genres to choose from; why not capitalize on providing the opportunity for each individual to delve deeper into a subject that has already piqued their innate curiosity?

The choices can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Perhaps allow students to dig deeper into the history of film score while they learn a soundtrack arrangement alongside it. Maybe your students want to become better technical players, and now, for once, they have more time to practice since they are at home with minimal external activities. Or perhaps you have the kid who just wants to get through this time with their sanity semi-intact and just do the thing and feel okay about it.

For example, for our students who suffer from performance and recording anxiety, what if we allowed them to decide whether they want to share their face in a video recording (like FlipGrid), submit audio only (using a browser-based recorder like VirtualSpeech.com), or write a paragraph explaining the techniques they worked during the week? I have experimented with allowing choice in this way for the dreaded playing tests, and lo and behold! I had more students willing to try instead of immediately shutting down because they struggle with being videotaped.

The beauty of choice is that it allows students to pick what works for them with where they are at right now — something we should capitalize on more now than ever. We talk often about differentiation and scaffolding instruction to meet the needs of all learners, and technology can be the means to that end, as it naturally provides so many options for us to demonstrate understanding. Choice is by far the greatest opportunity to provide that to allow every student to find their version of success.

Life Lesson #4: Less is more — work smarter, not harder.

Humans, especially educators, have a bad habit of being complete control freaks and as a result of our unwillingness to let go, we often make things much more difficult than they need to be. Each quarter, I make a list of what skills I want my students to work on over the course of these 10-week cycles. Within that list, I star or highlight the ones I consider to be my non-negotiables, meaning, the ones that I have a specific sequence or approach that I want students to receive directly from me in the structure and way I teach it.

Those non-negotiables become the asynchronous content I usually end up creating over the course of the quarter; these videos hold the content that is specific to my developed structure and pedagogical approach, such as my sight-reading strategies for all grade levels, skill building demonstrations that I am focusing on within our current repertoire, or topics that I get very nitpicky on for ensemble uniformity and sound production.

Anything that is not starred or highlighted on the list become my opportunities for outsourcing. Outsourcing involves curating asynchronous instructional content from other educators, with topics and skills that are taught universally similar to how I would if I created it myself.

When outsourcing, I check my ego at the door. I acknowledge my own areas of weaknesses (like teaching bass – YIKES!) and find the experts to provide and share the highest quality of instruction for my students. The beauty of video streaming and platforms like YouTube is that most of the time I can find an expert on pretty much any topic. I also have learned how to select the content faster (1.5x playback speed is a game changer) to ensure that I am giving them useful information.

Best of all, we already have shifted as learners so that watching and learning from a stranger is not weird — it’s normal. We already google to find solutions to our problems, and we know where to look to find it. Not once have my students even thought about the fact that I am not the one in front of them, because in this digital age, everyone is an instructor.

You can also utilize your social media use to outsource. There are many fantastic Facebook groups for music educators to chat, share, problem-solve, and ask for help when it comes to teaching with technology. I highly recommend checking out “Music Educators Creating Online Learning,” if you have not already done so. By outsourcing, I free up a lot of my time to focus on tasks that often get put to the side as we balance our workload. I have more time to reach out directly to students, to answer emails asking for help or guidance, and to provide feedback on their submitted work, instead of making just another video among thousands that already exist and are just as good (if not better) about topics such as beginning bow hold.

Life Lesson #5: The job doesn’t love you back.

I take zero credit for Life Lesson #5. This one is passed down to me by my first music department chair, a high school choir director named Paul Scott. This is also is the hardest life lesson for me to adhere to because so much of my own identity and life purpose is attached to my identity as a teacher, and I love my job and the work that I do with kids so much.

But I can pour and pour my heart into the job, and the job will never love me back. Yes, it is rewarding to know and acknowledge the impact that I leave behind each day, but that does not provide balance for the rest of my life when I go home.

The last few months have been especially challenging for those in the education field because we, unfortunately, are continually reminded that our work is still just a job at the end of the day. Many of us are working twice our usual workload (which already was hefty) and are somehow managing to stay afloat; others finally hit their limit and stepped away to protect themselves and those they love. And yet we continue to be inundated with messages from others that we are not doing enough and that we are failing. Every day I remind myself that there is more to life than my job, no matter how much love and energy and time I put into it. I intentionally set aside time each day to remind myself of that which can and does love me back — my family, my friends, my colleagues — and to give myself the strength to continue and endure. As humans, we are remarkably resilient and capable of enduring, thriving and continuing to create through the darkness — we can, and we will get through this together.

Nicole Laborte, Epsilon Sigma teaches introductory and advanced choir and orchestra ensembles at Enumclaw Middle School and serves as the orchestra director at Enumclaw High School in Washington state. She has a bachelor’s degree in music education from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and a Master of Science in educational technology from the University of North Texas in Denton. In February 2021, she will present her second professional session, “What the Tech?! Surviving and Thriving as an Online Educator,” at the National Association for Music Educators (NafME) All-Northwest Virtual Conference. Her primary instruments are voice and violin, and she also plays piano, ukulele, and clarinet.