{"id":1420,"date":"2020-09-28T10:03:55","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T14:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/?p=1420"},"modified":"2020-11-15T21:33:17","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T02:33:17","slug":"teachers-handling-of-bm-versus-distance-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/28\/teachers-handling-of-bm-versus-distance-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher’s handling of B&M versus Distance learning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Four views from four teacher<\/em>s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Emma Jabbour<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

   This year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, school looks a little different. Students were given the option to come to school, to distance learn from home with Ponte Vedra High School, or to sign up for Florida Virtual classes and homeschool. There are about 300 students from PVHS doing online school, leaving teachers with two different sets of students. Distance learners can log into a conference call during their class period time and watch their class be livestreamed. Having to divide attention with a whole classroom of students, along with a few students at home has already proved to be quite a challenge for most teachers.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Kaitlyn Parker<\/strong> is a Chemistry Honors and Marine Science Honors teacher;\u00a0currently in her third year of teaching at PVHS.\u00a0Ms. Parker says that it has been hard giving equal attention to all students, she is trying to maintain a level of equality, however she knows that virtual students are not getting the same amount of attention. She says, \u201cI know it is unfair, but I do not know of a way to help with balancing out the inequality. By this I mean, in-class I\u00a0am able to\u00a0gauge students when they are struggling with the content\/material, but with distance learners I am having a harder time gauging when they need clarification.\u201d In her opinion, in-school students are getting a more quality education,\u00a0going back to her inability to gauge when students are really struggling to grasp a new concept. Like most teachers and students, Ms. Parker wishes that we could all be in class with each other because she always enjoys meeting students and developing relationships with them in class. She has been using Schoology Conferencing which has been working well for her so far, but there is always\u00a0a learning curve for teachers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know it is unfair, but I do not know of a way to help with balancing out the inequality.”<\/p>Ms. Parker<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Linda Green<\/strong> is an\u00a0Algebra 2 Honors and Liberal Arts Math 2 teacher and is in her fourth year of teaching at PVHS. So far, teaching virtual students as well has been very challenging for Ms. Green because her technology has been spotty and slow. She loves the challenge but having so many things to keep track of has caused her to forget\u00a0and lose track of certain things. Ms. Green says it’s been extremely difficult to divide her time and she\u00a0definitely thinks\u00a0that her brick and mortar students are getting a more quality learning experience. She says,\u00a0\u201cI am trying extremely hard to give all my kids equal access to the information. I’m recording my lessons and posting all the information to Schoology. Now, whether my distance learner students are self-disciplined\/motivated enough to use it and take advantage of it is a different story.\u201d She feels that it has been hard giving equal attention to all students, the participation of distance learners is not as good, even though they are\u00a0joining class, it is still hard to measure their progress virtually. Ms. Green says that the hardest part so far has been stopping and starting conferences every period and making sure the technology is working. She started out using Schoology conferencing but switched over to Zoom which she says is much more user friendly, with higher camera and sound\u00a0quality.\u00a0Although she wishes all her students were in class with her, she completely understands why parents would want to keep their children home and is looking forward to a great year with all her students.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Katilyn Collazo<\/strong> is an\u00a0AP Art History and AP U.S. History teacher at PVHS. She has been teaching at PVHS since it opened 13 years ago.\u00a0Ms. Collazo thinks that online learning has been going okay because she is able to give equal attention to\u00a0all of\u00a0her students. Although she thinks that in school students are generally more comfortable asking questions, she is still able to split up her time and give everyone equal time and attention. Ms. Collazo has been live streaming all her lectures, technology glitches have made class run a little less smooth but having to divide her time has not been too hard. Even though she can divide her time equally and give everyone attention, she still thinks that in school students are always getting a more quality learning experience, it is also more fun for in school kids. As a teacher, Ms. Collazo says that technology has been the most challenging part so far, \u201cI wish that all distance learners had webcams and microphones before being allowed to stay home. Some students have desktop computers that don’t have either and it makes certain things more difficult.\u201d She has been using Schoology Conferencing\u00a0because that is what the district wanted, besides her camera angles always being off, she has not had too many challenges with it. Ms. Collazo wishes that\u00a0all of\u00a0her students could be in class with her but completely understands the situation and is sympathetic with families making that decision.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wish that all distance learners had webcams and microphones before being allowed to stay home.”<\/p>Ms. collazo<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Laura Turner<\/strong> is a Spanish 1 and Spanish 3 Honors teacher, she is currently in her third year of teaching at PVHS. Ms. Turner says that teaching distance learners and in school students has been exhausting because she has so much to do. Having to make sure\u00a0all\u00a0her technology is\u00a0working, taking temperatures, making sure everyone can hear and see, and answering questions has been a lot of work.\u00a0Ms. Turner likes to walk around the class to make sure everyone is understanding and\u00a0to ask questions, but that makes it harder to check in with the chat and make sure everyone at home is understanding.\u00a0She says that it has been hard dividing her time and she\u00a0definitely\u00a0cannot\u00a0give equal attention to all learners. She says, \u201cIt\u2019s just impossible to be both\u00a0places\u00a0at once and to do both well.\u201dMs. Turner thinks that in school students are\u00a0generally getting a more quality learning experience, however, there are some students that really excel in an online environment.\u00a0For Ms. Turner, the most challenging part so far has been not having enough time to get everything done because\u00a0everything\u00a0must\u00a0be changed to a digital copy for the distance learners.\u00a0Ms. Turner enjoyed teaching remotely for the fourth quarter of last\u00a0year but\u00a0could not envision\u00a0herself\u00a0doing that full time because she missed her students so much.\u00a0She wishes that we could all be together in school.\u00a0She has been using\u00a0Schoology conferencing like most\u00a0teachers, it has been working well for her besides the occasional\u00a0technology\u00a0issues.\u00a0Although there has been a lot of\u00a0bumps\u00a0in the road this school year, Ms. Turner is happy to be back in the classroom and is excited for a great year!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   Although this school year is very different from others, all our teachers are doing their best to provide the best experience for all students. Even with live conferences, it has still been hard for distance learners to be given as much attention from their teachers as brick and mortar students. It has been much more difficult for teachers to engage their students in class and monitor their progress. Hopefully as the year progresses, technology will be running smoother and teachers and students can better adjust to this new normal.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four views from four teachers By Emma Jabbour    This year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, school looks a little different. Students were given the option to come to school, to distance learn from home with Ponte Vedra High School,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_3048-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1489,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions\/1489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}