Teacher Q&A:
Overcoming the online instruction learning curve

Ron Danielewicz has been teaching biology at Palmyra High School in the Palmyra Area School District for 23 years. But he’s never encountered anything like the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, neither has anyone else.

“Information changes almost every day, so it’s tough to plan,” Danielewicz said. “So, we’re just staying with that mindset and just getting the next day planned and then go from there.”

Danielewicz’s wife, Sue, a fourth-grade teacher in the nearby Lebanon School District, has also had to make the rapid transition to online teaching, facing a whole slate of challenges and considerations unique to her grade and district. Their experiences mirror countless others in homes across the commonwealth right now: educators thrown into a new reality, trying to make the best of it, and do the best by their students with the tools and information at hand.

*The following interview with Ron Danielewicz has been edited for length and clarity.

PSEA: Tell us about your online teaching experience so far.

Ron Danielewicz: On March 13, Friday the 13th, we had an in-service day, which was something we were setting up months prior to that. And our superintendent sent an email to us earlier that week and said, “Plans have changed, you’re going to have to cancel all that because we need to meet and then try to plan out and develop some online learning, because it looks like we are heading that way.”

The assistant superintendent just gave us some structure of what they wanted it to look like. It was really review, not new material, and something that the students could access on Schoology, which is our learning platform that we’ve been using all year.

Luckily, we had that in place so it would be one less new thing that everybody would have to learn. My wife teaches elementary in Lebanon School District, and they have no learning platform. So, they’re really starting from scratch.

PSEA: Can you describe the experience? What is the process like? How do you interact with the technology and with your students?

RD: We went for what we call COE, continuity of education, in that we developed folders for each day as we’re going through this process of remote learning. And how I use it is each folder has directions for the day, and it says on there, “Please read.” I’m not there to put directions on the board or I’m not there to give them verbally. So, I just kind of give [the students] a little introduction of what they should accomplish and then list out, “you should watch this video; you should answer these discussion questions;” and that type of thing.

This past Sunday night, I sent out a “welcome back” email to students and parents, because for two weeks really, they haven’t been doing anything. I just wanted to say, “Here’s what we know, here’s what we’re going to do and move forward. And other questions are still going to remain unanswered and we’re going to have to be OK with that.”

I also put a video together of myself just saying, “Hi” again to the students. And I was hoping that would kind of put their minds a little bit at ease that they see me and I’m in my house; I’m in the similar situation they are.

I like to use humor in my delivery so I made it somewhat humorous to get a laugh and figured it would be a good way to start. I got some replies from students and parents that they definitely did get a laugh and appreciated it.

Honestly, it was unusual to video myself because I’ve never really done that before. Maybe newer teachers, they have YouTube channels and they create videos and then they might use them when they’re out, when a substitute is in. But I don’t know, I’m kind of old school and I never really went down that road.

PSEA: What programs or software have you been using?

RD: Throughout last week, each day we had different trainings that we could attend using Zoom. And they were put on by teachers, by technology staff members. And it was anywhere from how to use Zoom, how to screencast, how to use Google classroom, you name it.

So, I did the screencast Zoom training and he mentioned QuickTime, and I’m like, that seems pretty easy. And it was easy, but still, like anything, first time you do it, there’s a learning curve there.

I would say other things that I’ve used in the classroom and my students have used, is something called Edpuzzle. Edpuzzle is a video that goes over content, but it will also stop at points that they’ll have to answer questions and it’s all done online. So, I definitely will use that.

I teach biology, so obviously we’re not going to be able to do labs because we’re at home, but I’ve come across over the years virtual labs that will give them a similar experience. So, I plan on using those as well. I mean, you just have to think outside the box to try to come up with opportunities that they would potentially get in school, but they’re going to have to do in front of their computer.

PSEA: Aside from labs, are there any other major holes missing from the curriculum so far, or that you anticipate with online teaching?

RD: I think just the face-to-face interaction with the kids. I can check to see that they did the assignment or submitted it. But I’ve noticed there have been some that haven’t.

So, my plan is to reach out via email again and just say, “Hey, I noticed you haven’t submitted anything.” Make sure that everything’s okay at home. Because some students have home lives that are not ideal, and maybe they’re having to work or maybe they don’t have Wi-Fi or other roadblocks. So, try to reach out that way. And then we could get our counselors involved and administration involved too.

We do use Zoom for potential office hours, and I’ve had a few kids who have popped in over the past couple of days. But the ones that we probably really need to reach are the ones that aren’t turning in stuff. So, just because if they don’t reach back to us then it’s tough to keep that going, but it’s uncharted waters. I mean we just don’t have all the answers so we’re just providing them 30 minutes max of something that might be of interest to them.

PSEA: Have you discovered any benefits to online teaching so far?

RD: I think one that comes to mind is the student that won’t speak up in class just because they’re shy and they’re quiet, they might speak up here because they’re just typing in what they want to say. Another positive is with the Keystones off the board, we don’t have to worry about keeping right to the curriculum, so maybe trying some things that I wanted to try that maybe don’t help with the Keystone, but I think of as good learning opportunity.

PSEA: Do you think this is something you might use more in the future after having this experience?

RD: Yeah, early to tell, but some things. I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Like, I have four sections and I’d say my one section is about 90 percent compliant so far that I’ve heard back, and they’ve completed the two-day assignments. And then the other three, it’s a little lower level class, but I’d say I’m still somewhere around 65-70 percent compliant. So, that’s not a bad start. So, we’ll look to improve on that.

PSEA: With your wife also being a teacher, have you noticed her experience is very different than yours or pretty similar?

RD: Definitely a different situation in a lot of ways, other than just the age of the students. They don’t have devices, where our high school kids have a MacBooks. And they don’t have something they’ve used like Schoology. So, their first challenge was being able to reach out to families to see if they were able to get into this program that they started using called Seesaw.

She was not familiar with it. I’ve never heard of it, but it’s more elementary geared. So, that was like the first hurdle to see if parents received the email and they were able to log in and access it. So, I think she said after the first week, 15 out of 25 were able to do that.

So she’s still is working on getting in touch with the other 10 and the hurdles there are whethre they have a device, tablet or phone? And then, are they able to kind of spend some time to do some of the activities and then as the school closure has been extended indefinitely, all they’re doing is review. We’re able to start some new material. We’re not grading them like we would in school, but their next hurdle is, do they start teaching new material? And in elementary, where do they start? Do they just teach reading or do they then add math?

PSEA: It seems as if a subject like biology would be harder to teach online than, say, English or math. Do you agree?

RD: Yeah, it definitely presents a challenge because in the classroom you can do demonstrations or individual lab activities. I mean I can find videos to show them, or if I got real creative, do one of myself doing them, but it’s not really the same thing. And then, they can’t see it firsthand or touch it per se. So definitely a challenge.

I mean, I guess the only bright side is the content that we have left just doesn’t naturally utilize labs as much. If this happened in the fall, we do microscope labs. How do you do microscope labs online? You can’t really do it. Especially for chemistry teachers – I don’t envy them because they’re in the lab multiple times a week.

PSEA: With Keystones shelved, and the rest of the school year uncertain, how are you incentivizing kids, especially ones who are maybe not as great students?

RD: Well, right now we’re just told we’re not grading anything and we’re framing it as educational opportunities. So maybe students are willing to do some of the work just to learn. I’m not going to give them 30 minutes of listening to me giving notes. They’re not going to want to do that. But they might want to listen to a five-, ten-minute video. Or, another topic that I have next week is we’re going to talk about transgenic organisms that genetic engineering can splice DNA and take a gene out of a jellyfish and put it into a tomato to prevent it from freezing.

And think of something that they might want to make, something creative like, I want to put these two things together. And then if they could draw it or come up with a picture and see if they can make another video on it. So maybe they’d be more inclined to do something like that and learn a little bit, where they have a little more creativity and freedom.

GMOs and transgenic organisms, they’re not huge areas on the Keystone, but it’s interesting, I think. And I think they will think that too.

Ron’s suggestions for helpful online teaching resources:

ClassDojo Helpdesk: classroom setup resources for teachers

PBS Learning Media

WITF: Learning at Home

How to turn a pdf into a digital worksheet

Teach from Home: A temporary hub of information and tools to help teachers during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis