Going the Distance

Going the Distance
Going the Distance
By Kristen Page

The coronavirus closed the Sidwell Friends campus—but not its classrooms. 

A few months ago, masks were for surgeons, “Zoom” was a noise a toy car made, the unemployment rate was less than 4 percent, “social distancing” was strictly a teenage phenomenon, and schools were very much held in person. At first, the coronavirus came in like a whisper. With word of a Wuhan outbreak, the Sidwell Friends School canceled a minimester trip to China. But then news of the coronavirus got louder. The virus’s tendrils crept across the United States, and the School canceled all minimesters and travel in total. Finally, the coronavirus hit the East Coast, and suddenly travel precautions expanded to include journeys from home to campus, and new safety precautions restricted movement just about everywhere else because gathering in groups put the entire community at risk. In a matter of weeks, the whisper had turned into a siren.

“There was enough time for me to meet with all the faculty and get them what they needed,” says Darby Thompson, the director of Upper School technology and the computer science program. “What’s cool is we started at a place of emergency, and we made some really good decisions early.” For example, the School studied plans in nations like Singapore and Japan, which had experience with previous pandemics, such as SARS and H1N1. Director of Health Services Jasmin Whitfield provided her expertise and guidance, playing a vital part in monitoring the public health crisis in the region (see “The Nurse Will See You Now” on page 11). As a result, the School was one of the first independent schools to close its campuses in the region.

Naturally, moving to the Distance Learning Plan required teachers and students to be flexible, to get used to new means of instruction, and to learn to use new technologies. Together with Holly Kinnamont, the Middle School academic technology coordinator, and Jenni Voorhees, the Lower School technology director and academic dean, and a team of IT professionals led by Chief Information Officer Dan McCarriar, the technologists trained teachers, administrators, and staff in every division in the particular intricacies of taking their days, their careers, and their responsibilities 100 percent online.

That meant dashing to recreate classrooms at home. All of the teachers, of course, made sure they had what they needed to implement the Distance Learning Plan. They grabbed computers, textbooks, and lesson plans. But a few teachers needed some specialty items: Lower School music teacher Matthew Stensrud, for one, made sure to get drums, maracas, a few posters, and anything else he could use to turn part of his home into an impromptu music classroom. For physics teacher Chris Ritacco, it was laboratory equipment. Just before the 

chris

School switched to the Distance Learning Plan, says Ritacco, “I remember scrambling, trying to figure out how we were going to approximate a classroom from home.” Ritacco, along with Julie Langenbrunner, another physics teacher, decided to take advantage of their labs while they still could. “Julie and I went in after the kids went home and just started recording ourselves doing a bunch of labs,” says Ritacco. “And we took a bunch of equipment home. It wasn’t panic; it was just, ‘Let’s do as much as we can while we can do it in the building, and we’ll figure out the rest later.’” Now, says Langenbrunner, “Chris has a whole physics lab in his basement.” 

The teachers weren’t the only ones taking home analog items. “We realized we wanted to send home a lot of physical materials—not only iPads,” says 1st grade teacher Jane Legg. “We remembered that the Fox Den had these great bags with the Sidwell logo on them, so they seemed ideal.” Ideal for packing up educational materials for the prekindergartners and 1st graders. They packed books—some chosen by students, others chosen by teachers for some shared reading time via Zoom—writing supplies, art and Spanish activities, handwriting and sketch books, and a new box of watercolors for each student. In the end, the bags were a way for teachers to send a little bit of Sidwell Friends home with the students. “It was great to focus on a positive side to Distance Learning—what might be fun about it, as opposed to what we would all be missing,” Legg said. “Filling a bag and thinking about what would be useful was a very tangible project at a time when everything seemed very uncertain.”

“Letting teachers play to their strengths, that’s what we needed to get through,” says Thompson. “I’m really excited because we’ve gotten to a place where we’re getting the hang of it. Our teachers have got a system and things are working. The teachers are actually inspired at this point.”

Many teachers were already ahead of the game. The Middle School language department, for instance, has been using a digital system for several years now that easily moves between the classrooms and students’ homes. “We used to have a free-standing language lab,” says Spanish teacher Nan Pickens. “There was a lot of thought about how to replace it, and the School was committed to finding us a replacement.” Ultimately, the School went with a product called the Digital Learning Lab, or “DiLL.”

nan

DiLL allows language teachers not only to provide instruction, but to chat live (either in a group, with partners, or with a teacher) and note students’ answers to prerecorded questions. The students and teachers were used to the software, and that continuity has provided some unexpected benefits. “It’s nice to be able to do something that the kids were already familiar with, because they’ve had to learn so much in such a short time,” Pickens says. “It’s refreshing to be able to go back to old habits and have it work for us.”

Another old habit that’s thriving is using audio and video in nearly the same way they would in a classroom. “We’re doing all the Google Suite things but pumping ours up with a lot of video content,” Pickens says. “It’s critical to continue to hear what we call ‘authentic resources,’ which means real people speaking real language.” That means Pickens can play a conversation between two people in Spain and then ask the students to answer questions about it. The most important continuity, says Pickens, is speaking the language. “I create these chats for the whole section, and I can see them chatting in Spanish with one another,” Pickens says. “They’re craving that kind of informal communication. It’s just so nice to hear their voices.” 

Continuity has been vital to Stensrud, too. His students are among the youngest, for whom routine can be paramount. “When they told us about the Distance Learning Plan, the wheels in my brain started turning,” Stensrud says. “How can this best benefit the students and what kind of consistency I can bring to the students?” Stensrud created a template for his digital lessons. Each 10-minute video starts with a song, then kicks into a dance break, and ends with an activity the students complete at home. The song and the activity vary according to the grade level; he also introduced some synchronous learning, including meeting with the 70-member 4th grade chorus. “When I make video lessons, I try to teach them as if the kids were there,” he says. “That’s going to create that kind of consistency that students will appreciate. That’s probably what they’re yearning for right now, when everything is so upside down.”

There are other ways Stensrud is keeping things the same—even when it’s accidental. “There was one time I knocked the piano behind me, so all the books I had on top all came crashing down in the middle of the video,” he says. “And I was like, ‘Well, okay. Let’s just keep going.’ I think it gave the kids a little bit of a reminder of what the classroom is like—things like that happened in the classroom all the time. If we make these pristine videos that show everything is perfect, I’m not sure that’s what’s best for the kids’ learning and growth.” When real life intrudes on the videos, it adds a certain authenticity.

The Distance Learning Plan has also given parents and others who are home with students a sneak peek into what goes on in the music classroom. “In music, parents are going to see the performance—the winter concert or something,” Stensrud says. “When you see the finished product in a concert, parents think perhaps that’s most of what happens in music, that we’re standing there tall and singing.” And while that’s a part of learning music, it’s only a small part. “It’s mostly exploring and creating in a more raw way,” he says. “I’m sure the parents see more of that now.”

Parents can also help create a community of music at home. Family members can be an active participant in the kids’ learning, whether it’s by joining their child for a dance break or playing a music-based game with them. It gives cooped-up kids an opportunity to get their wiggles out. “We’re going to be singing, and we’re going to be making patterns on our body, and then we’re going to be moving around and dancing,” Stensrud says. “The kids are constantly engaging their bodies. And I’ve heard from some parents that the kids will watch the video three or four times because it’s a fun 10-minute thing. They’ll watch the lesson and then later in the day they say, ‘Ooh, I want to go back and do that again.’”

They’ll watch the lesson and then later in the day
they say, ‘Ooh, I want to go back and do that again.
—Matthew Stensrud
Not every subject translates so easily to digital platforms. Part of the joy and wonder of studying, say, science is experiential. Whether it’s a pungent smell, changes in color, an old-school volcanic reaction, or an outright explosion, science is meant to be hands-on. And teaching and learning science from a safe distance presents a new set of challenges. There’s room to be wrong in the classroom, says chemistry teacher Tom Donley. At home, well, not so much. “You’re not going to be asking students to take out certain types of chemicals,” he says. Let alone mix them up. All the teachers agree that there are still irreplaceable classroom experiences—like the team spirit they feel in their classrooms. 

But a more basic obstacle the School had to overcome when it moved to the Distance Learning Plan was equity. “I think the number one thing that has been on my plate the last couple of years has been about student devices,” says Thompson. Right now, Upper School students have to have a device, but there are no restrictions on what that device is. “We’ve gotten everything from the fanciest top-of-the-line Mac, to the fanciest top-of-the-line gaming PC, to something that’s 10 years old and barely turns on, to things that don’t have much battery,” Thompson says. “We’ve got Chromebooks, we’ve got iPads. We have every device imaginable, and it’s a struggle for me to support them.” She knew the School ensured that every kid had access to internet—but not what were they connecting to it with. That’s why Thompson was so relieved when the administration decided to implement a School-purchased laptop program for Upper School students, supplying each with a MacBook Air to ensure an equal platform and support capability from IT staff. The program starts in September (see “What Happens in the Fall?” on page 23). When students don’t have the same devices, it is harder to troubleshoot, harder to streamline security protocols, and harder to ensure everyone has a similar experience. That’s why getting all teachers and staff fluent in the same software programs was so critical.
Thompson was also particularly worried about younger students who do not typically rely on computers. “I was thinking about handwriting,” says Thompson. Whether it was writing out math problems or a paragraph, some students just aren’t fluid typists yet. “I was thinking, How can I get equipment into my teachers’ hands as fast as possible that will let them use document cameras, and iPads, and handwriting stuff at home?” says Thompson. “And how can I make sure that every single person has a way to get work back from the students and then give them feedback? I was really concerned about student equity.”

One of the coolest things about what has happened in the last couple months, is that teachers have discovered new techniques and tools they want to take back to the in-person classroom.
—DARBY THOMPSON

Equity was top of mind for the teachers, too. Even when preparing bags for the Lower Schoolers to take home, “we wanted to make sure all children had the same access to all the same supplies,” Legg says. “We try not to set any assignments that use materials we’re not sure everyone has.” The teachers at every division had to remember that each student lives in a different environment and may not have access to the same materials. It’s a reminder that flexibility is vital for distance learning. “It’s about respecting what other people have.” Ritacco agrees. “One time, we said everyone had to have a spoon,” he says. “We were fairly confident that we could rely on the kids to find a spoon somewhere.” The physics teachers also created a new assignment that asked the students to build a musical instrument out of anything they could get their hands on in order to demonstrate how soundwaves work. “They got really creative with it,” says Langenbrunner. “One made an instrument out of a plastic ruler; they pushed it down on the edge of the table with the end hanging off and just thwacked it. They changed the frequency based on how much of it was hanging off.”

While nothing can replace in-person teaching, perhaps the greatest upside of the Distance Learning Plan has been the innovations that have come out of asking teachers to reconceive their practices. Upheaval has led to new and better ways of doing things. Watching the students complete their assigned activities from afar, for example, has raised some possibilities in Stensrud’s mind for when he and his students are together again. “I recently did an activity where I found patterns in my house and in my yard,” he says. “I took some bowls from my kitchen and made them into music patterns; then I went outside and found pieces of bark and made patterns. Then I asked the kids to see what they could find.” The idea was to get the children to explore their own homes for makeshift instruments. “Some of them used little pebbles, and some of them used nail-polish containers, and some of them used different markers,” Stensrud says. “It was a fun way for the kids to realize that you can make music out of anything.” He says that when everyone returns to School, he plans on using some of the activities that went really well in distance learning and incorporate them into his curriculum. “It’s exciting if we, as teachers, can be teaching the content and curriculum,” he says, “but also giving kids these avenues to be explorative back at home and still using their imaginations.”

Some of the tools and techniques the foreign-language department has developed will continue after students and teachers return to campus, too. “We’ll take with us some of the things we’ve learned,” says Pickens. “Sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh! Why wasn’t I always doing this?’” Donley had a similar epiphany. Distance learning has shifted how he thinks about long-held processes. “I feel very fortunate that I work with some very creative and very energetic people, and getting different perspectives on what might work and what might not work is great,” he says. “This is a very creative time right now, not just for chemistry, but for all teaching and learning.” 

julie

In fact, some teachers have found that the Distance Learning Plan has made some things easier—like special guests. At the beginning of the year in 2nd grade, students start with a passion project. “They begin to think about themselves and who they are as a person, and what is it they love to get up in the morning to do,” Joyce Bidi-Olagunju, a 2nd grade teacher, says. Once the students have identified that passion, the students tackle independent research projects. This is where the experts come in, like veterinarian Dr. Amy MacIsaac. Students meeting with MacIsaac online this spring asked her about her favorite animal (dogs), how much training she had to have (lots), and if there were similarities between being an animal doctor and a people doctor (more than you’d think). As the discussion unfolded, Bidi-Olagunju noticed that the online conversations were moving more smoothly than they had in person during previous years. In person, the students often talk at the same time or over each other. But, Bidi-Olagunju says, the online platform means “they actually have to take turns and share their ideas one at a time.” What’s more, getting MacIsaac on board was easier, too. It can be a daunting task to find community experts willing to come to the School and meet with students—leaving work, scheduling convenient times, and transportation issues often made it difficult for an expert to show up. Now, it’s different. “We have more access to people,” Bidi-Olagunju says. “No one said they weren’t able to meet with us.”

distance-3

“One of the coolest things about what has happened in the last couple months,” says Thompson, “is that a number of teachers have discovered new techniques and tools that they want to take back to the in-person classroom.” A lot of the teachers now accept and return homework digitally. “Many used to accept homework digitally, but then they would write up, print it, write it, and hand it back,” Thompson says. “What they’ve discovered is they can annotate student work online and immediately send it back to the student and give them instant feedback. We can do quizzes where kids find out not only what their score is, but they get explanations of where they went wrong and why.” Thompson has even learned a few things herself. “Students need to have technology training even when this isn’t happening,” she says. “Student technology support is something I’ve learned that I will absolutely be embracing more in future years. The coolest parts are what we can do with kids asynchronously.” For example, Thompson says, using technology can make homework more interesting and even fun, it can create videos with quizzes embedded in them, and it  can design discussion boards so students can collaborate more. “If we can get that down really well,” she says, “we’ll be set for anything.”

Clearly the Distance Learning Plan presents new challenges for students, parents, and teachers alike, but as the endeavor continues—and as teachers look toward the beginning of the next academic year—many see a chance to improve not only online teaching techniques, but what happens in the real-life classroom. As Bidi-Olagunju puts it: “Sometimes out of the chaos, great ideas are born.” 
 



What Will the Fall Bring?

Given the uncertainty of the pandemic, the School’s plans for the fall have become a puzzle to solve. The public health agencies and local governments of the District, Maryland, and Virginia each have their own sets of guidelines, the science of COVID-19 transmission is still a work in progress, and a vaccine is still outstanding. So how does the School plan for the fall? 

In June, faculty task forces from each division drafted plans that accounted for variables like age and developmental needs. (These plans are expected to be approved by the Board of Trustees in late July.) Each group relied on specific priorities: protecting the community’s health and well-being; allowing students to engage in meaningful learning; offering students authentic interactions with peers and teachers; and enabling flexibility to allow for possible disruptions. Led by the division principals and Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs Min Kim, the task forces researched effective practices used by international and independent schools around the world, as well as guidance issued by the National Association of Independent Schools and other organizations.
Final plans are still in the works, but here are a few considerations:

Health

  • Physical distance among students and teachers at all times.
  • Requirements for protective gear, face coverings, gloves, etc.
  • Enhanced cleaning routines and rigorous disinfecting procedures.
  • Daily temperature checks and enhanced contact tracing.

Education

  • Hybrid approach that includes in-person and distance learning.
  • Weekly schedules with rotating days on campus.
  • Smaller classes and cohorts.
  • Adjusted classrooms, desks, and community spaces.
  • Redirected hallway traffic with one-way lanes.
  • Modified athletics program focused on building skill and strength. 

Technology

  • New learning management system to improve access to materials.
  • Laptops for all Upper School students to streamline platforms, simplify IT support, and ensure equity. (Lower School and Middle School students already have School-provided devices.)
  • Switch to Zoom for Education for uniformity.
  • iPads for teachers so they can annotate student work and offer handwritten notes.
  • Expanded Wi-Fi for more use of outdoor spaces.

To learn more, go to: sidwell.edu/fall2020.

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