Distance learning for Spanish class was not ideal BUT we made it! Now that the school year is over (yay!) and I have some time to reflect, I have been thinking about next year. Although we do not know what next year will look like, I think we all know it will have some sort of virtual teaching aspect. We may not be full on distance learning, but we may have a hybrid classroom. Or, maybe we go back to our “normal” classes but keep some of the virtual elements. Either way, I think it’s important to look at what worked and what did not. I am including a few strategies for distance learning in my Spanish class that I feel worked really well.
1. Posting assignments weekly.
A lot of the feedback I got from my students was that they felt overwhelmed by all of the posts. They got an announcement every time something was posted, updated, assigned, etc. As we all know, the more notifications we get, the less likely we are to read them. So, what I found that worked for me was: creating ONE document for the week that had all of the necessary resources for my students. Through Google Docs I was able to hyperlink any PDF, website, video, or audio right into the document for my students. They had one place to go to get all of the information they needed for the week. They really appreciated this because they said it helped them to stay organized.
Another positive of posting weekly is: less work for me throughout the week. Upfront, I had to be prepared and have all of my documents, links, and presentations in order but once that was posted I was able to focus on Live Meets and grading for the rest of the week. I found this helpful for my own planning purposes.
To post weekly, I used Choice Boards and had my students choose a certain number of assignments (usually three) each week. If you’d like to learn more about how I used Choice Boards, check out this post on Distance Learning Made Easy with Choice Boards.
2. Pre-recording videos as much as possible
For distance learning we had assigned time blocks where we could meet with our students. We had 3 different times a week and could use the time to connect with students through Google Meets. What I found worked best was using our live sessions for questions, further explanation and discussion. The first few live sessions I tried to teach live and honestly, I did not like it. I felt like I was talking AT my students for our time together and I felt like I was losing them. I took a step back, reflected, and realized that they were craving the conversation. We were all stuck home and missing out on that human connection. So, I switched gears and made my live sessions about connecting with my students through discussions, games, and other engaging activities.
To teach new content I turned to Loom. Loom is a free Google Chrome Extension that allows you to screen record with or without video. I used Powerpoints, Google Slides, Google Docs, PDFs, anything that I had to support my explanation of new material. Loom allowed me to record myself teaching and automatically created a link for me to post to Google Classroom.
Something else that I loved about the video recording was that my students could re-watch the video as many times as they needed to. They could rewind and pause when necessary and they told me that they found the videos really helpful! This is something that I will definitely take into consideration as I plan for the future. Even if we return to our regular classroom setting, it may be worth it to record important concepts that students need more practice with.
3. Be Consistent:
I know that we were all thrown in to distance learning and had to kind of build the bridge as we were crossing it. Schedules were constantly changing, as were our requirements and needs. Something that I will definitely keep in mind for next year is consistency. Every week I posted my assignments on Friday morning. By 8:30am on Friday my students knew that their assignments for the following week were posted. All assignments were due on Friday by 11:59pm. This was the same every single week. Many of my colleagues did a Monday to Friday schedule and that is fine also, the main thing is keeping it consistent.
For next year, I will definitely stick with a consistent posting and collecting schedule. This made planning easier for me and also helped keep my students on track because they knew every Friday they needed to hand something in.
Also helping me with consistency was creating a clear schedule on my Google Classroom Header. This helped my students know exactly when I was available and when things were due. Since it was the class header, there was no way for them to miss the important information.
4. Use Formative:
This one is a GAME CHANGER. My friends Lisa from La Maestra McH and Claudia from Growing with CI introduced me to this amazing tech tool. Formative allows you to create any type of assessment (but can also be an activity) for students to engage virtually. For example, I can create ONE resource where my students have to listen to an audio, complete a matching assignment (of pictures and words/sentences OR words and definitions), complete multiple choice questions, complete a short answer question and record themselves. Yes, all in one place! Even better: it automatically synched my classes from Google Classroom so there was no need for my students to create another account and keep track of another username and password that they will never remember.
Oh, and did I mention that if you create an answer key in Formative for multiple choice, matching or short answer questions, it will AUTOMATICALLY grade your assignments for you!!! I used this for the bulk of my Final Assessments and it made my life 1,000x easier. It is seriously an amazing platform.
Formative made my life easier and it is 100% absolutely something I will use next year, no matter what our classes look like. The possibilities are really endless. I am especially excited to use this in my IB Spanish classes to give my students more Individual Oral Prep. In Formative, I posted an image and asked them to record themselves responding to a few prompts. It worked out great and kept them practicing their speaking during distance learning. I also love that it gives me data to use for planning future instruction.
If you want to learn more about Formative, my friends put together a Webinar on everything you need to know about Formative. The webinar is designed with World Language teachers in mind and they will walk you through how to create your own Formatives from scratch or how to convert a PDF you already have into something usable on Formative. It’s 100% worth your time…I promise!
5. Get Your Students Speaking:
Getting my students to speak Spanish was definitely a little more challenging during distance learning. I had to get really creative! I found that it was easy to give them input (videos of me, videos from the internet, audio, podcasts, etc.) but getting them to speak was hard. I had to shift my mindset and find opportunities for them to speak. I knew that we had our virtual class meets weekly so I dedicated these times to give them the floor and hear them speak Spanish.
First, I always made sure to do a check in with them (in Spanish, of course). I asked them how they were feeling, what they were up to, what they were watching on Netflix, if they went outside, etc. This broke the ice and set the tone for the class. Once we opened up class speaking Spanish, they felt more comfortable participating in Spanish.
I was also able to host a Socratic Seminar virtually and this turned out great! As I normally do, I gave my students the prompts ahead of time and told them to prepare for conversation. Because this was something that we do often in class, they knew the expectations and it was pretty seamless. We were able to have a conversation, albeit virtually, that flowed pretty naturally.
Thinking about next school year can make us all a little anxious and a little crazy. We have to enjoy our summer and our time while we have it but to calm the anxiety it helps to reflect on what worked for your classes and think about how you can transfer that to next year. Sometimes less is more. You do not have to try all the things all of the teachers are the Internet are doing. Stick with what works for you and your students and try to enjoy the process.
