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Teachers Taking on Hybrid Learning

COVID-19 hit and teachers had to learn a new way of teaching and many of them are taking it totally different ways. Teachers have to prepare for class unlike they are used to, in order to stay organized. 

“I have five different checklists. I have all the papers that need to be collected from students on their block and day,” stated Krystle Kelly, a math teacher at Woodland Regional High School. 

Kelly confirms that hybrid learning has been a difficult transition because she is not able to assign group activities or anything hands on. Kelly also changed all her lesson plans so the in-school students and the online students all have the same experience. Kelly wants to have her students work together on problems but social distance requirements and hybrid learning doesn’t allow it. Google Meet is one department with which she isn’t struggling.

“Yes, I can do a Google Meet,” Kelly states. “I got it all down.” 

Having multiple monitors in the classroom doesn’t affect her teaching because both computers have specific tasks; however, coming into work and having to set everything up is a hassle. There are also some difficulties with the Google Meet program throughout the day, but she works them out fairly quickly.

One student, Gillian Armstrong, has been observing her teachers closely during hybrid learning. “And some need to work on things like talking and working with both the kids in class and online because some teachers seem to forget about the online students.” 

Armstrong has noticed that most teachers are still working on how to tackle hybrid learning. She also said on a scale of one to ten- ten being absolutely fantastic- her teacher’s performances are at a seven. 

“Some of my teachers are really good at hybrid learning,” Armstrong claims. 

Science teacher, Tom Feige, has been adjusting to distance learning in his own way as well.

“It’s been a challenge,” Feige claims. “You have to make sure you’re planning for activities and labs to reach all the online students as well as the ones in class.”

He’s been giving tests over two days so kids at home will be working on another assignment while the rest take the test. This way, students will be able to ask questions on the test they couldn’t ask at home. For Feige, assigning classwork has been a struggle because he has to make sure all documents are available online. Along with this, Feige still has to learn his way around the Google Meet program. 

“Before the start of the school year, we had to figure out how to connect to the Google Meet and how we were going to present the information. So, I mean once we figured out where the cables go and how to set that up it’s been okay,” Feige stated. 

Feige was given two computers and Chromebox to help organize distance learning in the classroom. However, he isn’t using the Chromebox but he is connecting one of his computers to it. This helps with presenting information to the online and in-school students. Feige says he’s doing okay with the Google Meet but hasn’t learned any of the “hidden tricks” that it has to offer. 

“We have to adapt,” Feige said. “We’re figuring it out. ”

Hannah Mudry

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