With remote learning continuing in The District, Urbana School District #116 (USD116) students and teachers are continuing to look for ways to stay engaged during remote learning. Over at Leal Elementary, 5th-grade Dual Language teacher Lena Sacco is working around the clock to give her students the best and most effective learning days possible through engagement tools and balanced learning cycles. Sacco sat down with us this week to briefly speak about her experiences with online teaching so far and how she helps students stay engaged during online learning.
So Lena, how long have you been teaching here at your USD116 school? This is my 10th year!
How would you describe your experience so far as a teacher here? My experience at Leal has been amazing. I have learned from my colleagues more at this school than I ever could have hoped for. I love that we all work together for the common goal of students’ education and emotional well-being.
Of course, we’ve started remote learning earlier in the year and we’ve continued that throughout the semester. As a teacher, what have you found is the most difficult for yourself during remote learning? For me, I have struggled with time management in terms of the fact that it shortens or prevents in-depth back and forth conversations with students individually or in small groups. There is just not enough time for those deep conversations. That being said, there have been days where the content got put on a back burner in order to have a deep conversation about a societal social-emotional topic such as Covid-19 or the election as well as simply devoting time for students to share!
Could you walk us through your day of remote learning as a teacher? Do you have a week? Joking. Kinda. Well, I wake up at 5:25 am three days a week and 4:30 am twice a week (per my partner’s work schedule-I am not good at falling asleep) and drink some cold coffee while I look at TikTok to get my day started with a laugh. Around 6:15 I look at homework and return/grade anything to students. By 7:15 I get myself ready which varies daily from only teeth brushing to actually dressing up! Around 7:30 I make some eggs or protein waffles and eat while finishing my not so cold now coffee. Then, I go outside and check the mail or take a quick walk before logging in at 8:15. Students start arriving and often start by answering a question of the day that is either based on an academic concept or a social-emotional topic. We start our day with a story and a comprehension activity. The story almost always has a connection to the character trait of the month. We take a quick break after our read aloud before we start our breakout rooms for direct literacy instruction. As I have students who are already official “Readers” as well as students that are still learning how to read, small group instruction is necessary. During this time I have two other teachers who come into our Zoom Room. One is a literacy interventionist who works with set students and another teacher who monitors students working on independent literacy activities. We take another break and then students either have fine arts and I take a walk, or we go into a structured writing or math lesson. Then we take another quick break. Lastly, I go over their work for the afternoon and we say so long! I take about a 20-minute break on TikTok once students are released, then I eat a snack/lunch. Around 12:30 I am back on my computer to either meet with students or check work. I hold drop-in office hours every day except Friday (when I meet with my 5th-grade team to plan). At 4 pm I log back into zoom to start our building SPLASH program!
How have you worked past that to make sure that you are still giving your students the best learning experience possible? I encourage students to send messages to me in chat when they have burning comments or questions. I tell them I will try my best to say them to the group, but if not, I ensure I talk to them personally about it.
On the other hand, what have you found that you enjoyed when it comes to remote learning? I have really enjoyed having students come to my home to pick up materials! I have also really enjoyed finding different spaces to learn and teach in my home.
What about your student experiences? What have you seen them both struggle and excel in during this remote learning experience? Keeping up with afternoon work is definitely a struggle for some of them. All of them seem to miss the social interaction and back and forth conversations. However, a lot of them are really trying their best and I love that.
As I’m sure you know, it’s sometimes hard to keep someone’s attention over the computer. How have you kept class fun and engaging during remote learning? I keep activities to 20 minutes straight. Even if we are going to have 40 minutes of math, I break it up with some sort of short activity to break up those 40 minutes. That balance is something really important to keep them engaged. It’s definitely something I recommend to parents who may find that their child is struggling with work for long periods of time.
What about technology and the other tools for engagement? Can you explain how you’ve used technology to elevate the classroom experience during remote learning? I use Kahoot, games that involve video on-off action, shared documents like jamboards, doc, slides, etc. Kids have enjoyed seeing their peers respond “live”.
What advice would you give a teacher, whether inside or outside of our community, who is struggling with keeping students engaged during online learning? Be concise. Keep it short. Give yourself grace as often as you do others.
What about parents and students? What advice would you give them to help them succeed during this time? Just try! Try your best. Keep your work time short and give yourself breaks.
And lastly, we have this campaign called Urbana Better Together. From your perspective, how do you hope to see Urbana become better? I hope to see some of the systemic issues around poverty and generational poverty begin to dissolve and work done as a community to break down systems that are perpetuating poverty in specific neighborhoods in our community. These are things difficult to change, but I know continuing to do that work will help us get there.