My school has offered a great deal of training this summer, and I’ve found it to be incredibly helpful. Now that I’m prepared, I’m excited to teach virtually in the fall. I truly hope your children’s teachers have had similar opportunities and the distance learning improves for them!

Anonymous wrote:Rather than training (I'm a professor, I had to pivot too, and this is not rocket science), all districts need to hold teachers accountable: x hours synchronous each day, mandatory individual check-ins with students x times per week, less busywork, more content and rigor, one app.

Stop posting Instagram shots of your garden projects during work hours, etc.

This. 100%. I have no doubt some teachers were working very hard, but many were not, at least from our experience in MCPS. Some were doing private tutoring during school hours. Some of my HS kid's teachers never held a single class from March onwards - zero instruction and only a few perfunctory assignments for 3 months of the school year. My elementary kid had 2 teachers, one of whom really did post hot tub and gardening photos on days when he cancelled class. That teacher also did not grade (or even review) a single assignment. And the elementary kid had zero science or social studies instruction after the schools were closed. How is that acceptable? And if this was the experience in schools w/mostly higher income families, who can be intensely demanding about their kids' education, how do you think things went elsewhere in the county with less privileged students?

I understand DL is hard, most of us had little familiarity with the tech before March, but we're all adapting because our jobs and our organizations demand it. There seems to be zero accountability in the public schools whatsoever.

DCPS teacher here. I think DL in the fall will be much better. Those who did a great job will continue. Those that didn't, will have had PD and better guidelines on how to be successful at DL. DCPS teachers had a day and a week to come up with a plan. Thankfully all members on my team agreed on what DL was going to look like. Each teacher had at least one hour of live zoom calls every day. Videos were created to guide literacy, social studies, and science. Math already had them youtube and in the online program. Extra zoom calls were made for small groups. It was hard to come up with DL with no guidelines or even conflicting announcements liek can we use zoom or not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rather than training (I'm a professor, I had to pivot too, and this is not rocket science), all districts need to hold teachers accountable: x hours synchronous each day, mandatory individual check-ins with students x times per week, less busywork, more content and rigor, one app.

Stop posting Instagram shots of your garden projects during work hours, etc.

Many at my school were working 18 hour days to deliver a few decent hours of synchronous learning and more asynchronous content. As the spring went on, we could scale it back some. The grading/feedback loop was a challenge because we were asked not to penalize kids in case they didn't have access. I'll see my garden when I retire. Looking at the risk factor, animosity directed at us and family worry about my returning to the classroom, that retirement may be sooner than I'd planned.

I see this comment from teachers on this forum frequently. I don't know whether to be amazed by the hours, or embarrassed for this poster. 90% of parents were unhappy with DL. So if teachers were spending 18 hours a day working, and that's the results we got.... jeez, it seems like teachers are really, really bad at working. Every other professional that had to immediately shift to working from home had around a 2 week learning curve, and then most were up and running. How come at 3 months, teachers were apparently working 18 hour days and still producing shit work product? Our experience with DL teachers made me think far less of our teachers' competence. Like, can you really not come up with a bulleted email list of weekly to-do items? Do you not know how to email a website link? It was shocking to me how much less professional and competent they seemed than other professionals. I feel like it would be better to just admit you only worked 2-3 hours a day, than to claim you were working nonstop.

Anonymous wrote:Rather than training (I'm a professor, I had to pivot too, and this is not rocket science), all districts need to hold teachers accountable: x hours synchronous each day, mandatory individual check-ins with students x times per week, less busywork, more content and rigor, one app.

Stop posting Instagram shots of your garden projects during work hours, etc.

I am a professor and was a HS teacher before this. My brother is a teacher for MCPS. It's totally different teaching kids (even high school) than college aged students. You have to be way, way more engaging with high schoolers, you have to assume far less independent work, and the resources are far more stretched.

My brother has a masters in educational technology and totally knocked it out of the park with the distance learning. I tried my best to keep up. He has gotten exactly zero guidance from his school on what he's supposed to be doing to prepare for Fall. Some of his colleagues don't even know which classes they're teaching. We're trying to prepare for Fall as best we can now and assuming we will be all online.

Anonymous wrote:I’m in MCPS.

I taught online six years ago, but it was a) adults and b) asynchronous. I was not prepared to teach 160 middle schoolers online synchronously. I had never done Zoom before late March. I have a teaching style that didn’t easily translate to posting two assignments on Monday and then trying to instruct. I wish my school had the independent work day on Friday.

I took a few webinars on my own during the two week emergency period and then I took the MCPS trainings, but they mainly focused on MyMCPS. My dept decided we would not use MyMCPS because our students were already used to Google Classroom. It didn’t matter too much because the main course I teach didn’t get push outs from central office.

Parents and students who came seemed happy with what we’re able to do. I did have one deranged mom, but she was deranged all year with everyone. I feel confident that I can do an even better job via Zoom this year, though I would prefer to be five days face to face if it was safe.

Since school ended, I’ve completed about 2/3 of the MyMCPS trainings. I also took a one week course on at a university and am taking a second one that last four weeks. Both are about blended learning. I don’t feel very confident yet about blended learning because I don’t see how anyone can teach simultaneously in person and online. I need a lot more info about how that can be done effectively and equitably. No one in MCPS wants to answer that.

I am the OP - thank you PP, this is helpful. I know it is not guaranteed every teacher did this or will do it in the future, but it sounds like you had good resources available. Hope this school year goes well for you.

I'm a teacher who can teach comfortably both in the classroom and via remote learning. However, my administration offered absolutely minimal guidance for expectations except that we were supposed to accept whatever amount of work was done, even if it was next to nothing. I am truly hoping that my school will create a more uniform and rigorous experience this year.
We need an agreed-upon curriculum and cohesive platforms - it's was very stressful for parents when every teacher chose their own and some families just gave up. We also need grades to mean something again and we need students and parents to understand that there will be consequences for not participating. If a family is experiencing hardship they should be dealt with on an individual basis but the overall expectation needs to be high now that we've all had time to adjust to our new reality. In my school the teachers doing the most took some flak for 'not being understanding enough' but we are EDUCATORS and we all need to be supported from the top down in setting and enforcing an educational experience this school year. At the same time, some teachers will have to balance their own childcare issues - at least in my district, nobody has added teachers to the conversation to find out what individual challenges may be. I have no young kids at home and would be willing to be more flexible than others, remembering that I once had young ones myself. As long as teachers aren't being consulted, you may find that the top-down decisions create disappointing results.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rather than training (I'm a professor, I had to pivot too, and this is not rocket science), all districts need to hold teachers accountable: x hours synchronous each day, mandatory individual check-ins with students x times per week, less busywork, more content and rigor, one app.

Stop posting Instagram shots of your garden projects during work hours, etc.

Many at my school were working 18 hour days to deliver a few decent hours of synchronous learning and more asynchronous content. As the spring went on, we could scale it back some. The grading/feedback loop was a challenge because we were asked not to penalize kids in case they didn't have access. I'll see my garden when I retire. Looking at the risk factor, animosity directed at us and family worry about my returning to the classroom, that retirement may be sooner than I'd planned.

This 100%

Really? I am kind of surprised by this. I had assumed that teachers were in the same boat a lot of us were re: childcare, and that was why it seemed like things went poorly in the spring.

Can you give an example of what was going on 18 hours/day? Those hours are brutal.

This teacher is FOS. 18/24 hours were agent working??? This is why people hate teacher a. They lie lie lie sp they can sit their fat duffs at home all day while we atruggle to feed our kids, teach them and hold down a full time job. Out of my 4 kids, 1 teacher was amazing! My son's third grade teacher was on early every morning with relaxation music, said the pledge with kids, had a chat with them to check in, and them she taught them and then extended the or learning and gave them challenges like an escape room or a real life problem to solve in which they ised Math. She read a novel to them twice a week, actually taught them how to write and then gave them journal entries to do. She explained everything perfectly And had a parent calender so parents knew what was being taught and what was due. Then, she gave the kids an online chat scrapbook and my child loved it! She took them on virtual field trips and they got to see a play online. They Di's not ever want to leave her. My spin never once asked me for help, now complained. He loved DL but still wanted to see friends and teacher in person. Now the other 3 teachers were trash.

an an anonymous forum two questions:

how can you be sure any poster is a teacher or parent?

how can you know PP is even remotely close to MD and lastly, not a hs student screwing with people?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rather than training (I'm a professor, I had to pivot too, and this is not rocket science), all districts need to hold teachers accountable: x hours synchronous each day, mandatory individual check-ins with students x times per week, less busywork, more content and rigor, one app.

Stop posting Instagram shots of your garden projects during work hours, etc.

Many at my school were working 18 hour days to deliver a few decent hours of synchronous learning and more asynchronous content. As the spring went on, we could scale it back some. The grading/feedback loop was a challenge because we were asked not to penalize kids in case they didn't have access. I'll see my garden when I retire. Looking at the risk factor, animosity directed at us and family worry about my returning to the classroom, that retirement may be sooner than I'd planned.

This 100%

Really? I am kind of surprised by this. I had assumed that teachers were in the same boat a lot of us were re: childcare, and that was why it seemed like things went poorly in the spring.

Can you give an example of what was going on 18 hours/day? Those hours are brutal.

This teacher is FOS. 18/24 hours were agent working??? This is why people hate teacher a. They lie lie lie sp they can sit their fat duffs at home all day while we atruggle to feed our kids, teach them and hold down a full time job. Out of my 4 kids, 1 teacher was amazing! My son's third grade teacher was on early every morning with relaxation music, said the pledge with kids, had a chat with them to check in, and them she taught them and then extended the or learning and gave them challenges like an escape room or a real life problem to solve in which they ised Math. She read a novel to them twice a week, actually taught them how to write and then gave them journal entries to do. She explained everything perfectly And had a parent calender so parents knew what was being taught and what was due. Then, she gave the kids an online chat scrapbook and my child loved it! She took them on virtual field trips and they got to see a play online. They Di's not ever want to leave her. My spin never once asked me for help, now complained. He loved DL but still wanted to see friends and teacher in person. Now the other 3 teachers were trash.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rather than training (I'm a professor, I had to pivot too, and this is not rocket science), all districts need to hold teachers accountable: x hours synchronous each day, mandatory individual check-ins with students x times per week, less busywork, more content and rigor, one app.

Stop posting Instagram shots of your garden projects during work hours, etc.

Many at my school were working 18 hour days to deliver a few decent hours of synchronous learning and more asynchronous content. As the spring went on, we could scale it back some. The grading/feedback loop was a challenge because we were asked not to penalize kids in case they didn't have access. I'll see my garden when I retire. Looking at the risk factor, animosity directed at us and family worry about my returning to the classroom, that retirement may be sooner than I'd planned.

This 100%

Really? I am kind of surprised by this. I had assumed that teachers were in the same boat a lot of us were re: childcare, and that was why it seemed like things went poorly in the spring.

Can you give an example of what was going on 18 hours/day? Those hours are brutal.