Tag: pedagogy

Virtual Learning Day Review

The Portly Politico36 Comments

After a glorious Labor Day weekend and a scenic drive, my school opted to hold a virtual learning rehearsal day, intoning the usual incantation of “out of an abundance of caution” due to the possibility of holiday-related viral spread.  The decision to do a day of virtual learning also came with the insistent emphasis that we are not planning on going to virtual or distance learning on a long-term basis, but merely wanted to practice in order to prepare for the worst.

Thank goodness!  While I very much appreciated the more relaxed pace of the day—and by extension the cancellation of Back-to-School Night—I was also reminded of the shortcomings of distance learning.

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The Learning Bug

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Well, Spring Break has come to a close, with distance learning, it doesn’t quite feel the same, for both good and ill.  At about the time of this writing (shortly after 8:30 AM EST), I’d be about twenty minutes into an AP US History class under normal circumstances.  Instead, I’m sipping coffee and grading student responses to a pre-recorded lecture (on George F. Kennan’s containment policy) as they roll in.

I’ve found that, personally, I’m far more productive and focused since the transition to distance learning.  The incentives are in place for me to be so, in that I can just laser-focus in on building out online versions of my classes.  I’ve also been adjunct teaching online for a local technical college for about five years now, so I’ve gotten good at the management side of it.  Indeed, most of distance learning, after the creation of the actual content, is shepherding students through it.

That’s the other key to my productivity:  I know that the more idiot-proof and user-friendly I make the process, the less confusion for the students.  That also makes for less work for me on the back-end, which requires a good bit of planning and work on the front-end.  I pretty much stay at my computer from about 7:30 AM to 3:30 or 4 PM EST most days, so I can facilitate any student queries as they arrive, but the workflow is more flexible—instead of being locked-in to a series of hour-long performances, I’m able to complete tasks in a more organic fashion.

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Phone it in Friday IV: Conferencing

The Portly Politico5 Comments

It’s been a very busy week, and with a slew of lessons and some open mic nighting yesterday—plus an early start this morning—I was unable to get a post written last night to go live this morning.  Further, I attended a teachers’ conference in a city about 90 minutes from my school, so I was unable to sneak in any surreptitious blogging amid sessions.

For tomorrow’s SubscribeStar Saturday post, I’m going to write more about one of the conference sessions I attended, which was about the importance of faculty culture to the functioning of an independent school.  I think it holds within it some important lessons about culture more broadly, and is worth discussing in more detail.

For this evening, though, my time is quite limited, so I thought I would share some general reflections on today’s conference.  I’m scooting off to a very cold pressbox for the evening, from which I’ll be announcing a playoff football game, and getting some hastily-rehearsed singers out onto the field for a brief Veterans’ Day presentation.  When the head of your Board of Directors wants something, he gets it.

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