Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! We Are Going To The Moon!

“Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! We are going to the Moon!” Remember that song as a kid? Isn’t that the truth for the times right now! As distance learning teachers and leaders it feels like all we do is Zoom through lessons that we do with our students or in our meetings. The thing is sometimes it feels like it is herding cats and by cats, I mean both us adults and the students!

So what do we do with the time that we have in Zoom with our kids? We make the absolute most of it but the key word is value. How can we add value to the zoom structure and value to the people that we are serving?

Here are some questions to consider when you are planning your Zoom lessons.

• How can we use feedback and zoom to move the learning forward in an online environment?
• How do we workshop in Zoom?
• How do we add value to our Zoom classes?

Our staff has been looking deeper into how we can use our time more effectively in Zoom. We found that using a workshop structures with assessment for learning strategies infused into the lesson worked the best. We also found that getting the students to do more of the work and talking helped to keep them engaged. Even in Kindergarten!

The key actions that we found were the most effective is having mini lessons, independent work time, conferencing through breakout rooms, and action steps to include in the Zoom structure. The students needed to go to breakout rooms with an expectation, such as one student is explaining their strategies with how they solved the problem, and then the other students were to give feedback using reflection stems like “I noticed that you…” Next they gave them a goal to work on for next time. This example came from Sandra Herbst, Brenda Augusta, and Anne Davies in a webinar I recently attended.

Another teacher in our school used the time to do a mini lesson and then have them write in the zoom workshop for twenty minutes with their videos on and audio muted. While they were working, she took one student to a breakout room and conferenced with them. She repeated this with two other students. To take it a step further, have the students take a picture of the work they did in independent work time and submit it right after the Zoom lesson. This gives the teacher a clear snapshot of what they are doing without any support and helps to determine next steps.

Click here for an example of the templates of the two lessons I mentioned above.

The really cool thing about diving into what we do with students, is that we, as leaders found we had to do the same thing. We had to structure our meetings in the same way, through a workshop structure. We also had to infuse assessment for learning strategies into our meetings and get the staff talking more and showcasing their work. For example, we went through their product (their lesson) and wrote about things that we noticed. We might give them next steps or resources to support them in their distance learning planning. We also get them talking and sharing about what they wanted the staff to notice about their lessons and we showcase any struggles, success, or next steps. Within our mini lessons in staff meetings, we make sure the information is relevant, tangible and something they can apply right away. We save the housekeeping for a short warmup and post it on our staff Google Classroom if they need further information or resources. We also post our mini lessons and evidence of content that teachers are doing within their online teaching.

This has been a huge learning curve for all of us. The most amazing thing is we have come together even more. We see our work more visibly because we share everything on Zoom and not behind the walls of our classroom. Each teacher has access to other teacher’s lessons as well.

Our next step as leaders is to look at how we can continue to make our teachers in our school’s craft more visible (like we are now) in order to learn from each other once we are back in our classrooms. Powerful learning from the masters right inside your walls of your school!

Again, click here for the link to the sample lessons! Happy Zooming!