Teaching in a hybrid classroom comes with many unique challenges. We have had to get really creative with our classroom activities, assignments, and probably the most difficult task: giving assessments in the hybrid classroom.
To save your sanity, I think it’s important to get in the right mindset. Please remember, we are teaching through a global pandemic. This is not a normal situation and our classrooms are in no way “normal”.
With that being said, we have to take the pressure off of ourselves to make our assessments mirror what we were able to do in a normal classroom setting. Things have changed significantly and we have to adapt our assessment for this insanity called the hybrid classroom.
Step One: Change Your Expectation
As mentioned above, we can’t expect to give assessments the same way that we have in the past. It’s just not possible. We are adapting our curriculum, covering what we absolutely need to, and managing a wide of student (and teacher) emotions.
Start with what is important to you and build your assessments that way. Would you like your students to focus on language output? Do you want them to improve their listening comprehension?
Choose your area of focus and build your assessment around it. Do not feel pressured to give the same assessments as you have in the past.
When designing an assessment, decide what is important to you and focus on that. Forget about the extras and trying to cover everything; once you do this, you will feel a relief.
Step Two: Find Tools that Work
The tricky thing (I know it should be plural- there are MANY tricky things) about teaching in 2020 is we all have different circumstances. It’s really hard to take advice from others because our situations are all slightly different.
Some teachers are in 1:1 schools, some have block schedules, some are synchronous, others asynchronous, the possibilities and combinations are endless.
Assess what is available to you and work with what you have. It’s ok to NOT try all of the shiny things and to stick with the basics. This year is about survival, NOT becoming teacher of the year.
Step Three: Familiarize Your Students with these Tools
Once you find something you like, use it often with your students. The more comfortable they become with the platform, the better their output will become.
If they are stressing over how to screen record, the content in their presentation is probably not the best reflection of their work. Keep it simple for them and allow them to be comfortable and shine.
Step Four: Build The Bridge As You Cross It
Give yourself permission to change things as you go. If you tried a platform because it’s all everyone else is Tweeting about, and it was an epic fail for you- let it go.
This year is all about pivoting and constant change. Keep what works and toss what doesn’t.
So What Tools Are Actually Working for Assessments in the Hybrid Classroom?
My school utilizes Google Classroom. All student work is assigned and collected via Google Classroom.
Two additional tools that I have found that I love are: GoFormative and Loom.
GoFormative is an all in one online platform that allows students to interact with activities and assessments like never before. The possibilities are endless. I use it at least 2-3 times a week and it is what I have been using for assessments in class.
For even more details, you can check out this blog post I wrote. I go in to all the details about what you and your students can do with GoFormative.
Loom is a screen/video recoding Google Chrome extension. I use Loom when I want my students to present something to me or the class. We can create a virtual gallery walk OR they can simply hand in a project or presentation to me.
I know that there are so many options out there but here are three reasons why it’s my favorite:
- 1. Loom offers a free pro membership to students and teachers when you use your school account to sign up.
- 2. While watching a recording you can comment at specific time points or react to the video using emojis (my students love this- it makes presentations interactive between student and teacher OR student and student)
- 3. Once you have finished recording, Loom gives you a link you can share (no downloading or uploading of videos-yayyyy)
To be honest, you have to do what works for you BUT I will remind you- give yourself grace. This is a huge learning curve for all of us and we are learning and improving each day. Do they best that you can and show up for your students- that is all that matters.
