TRANSCRIPT: What It’s Really Like to Be An Online Teacher (feat. Amy Smith from Michigan Virtual)
9:32PM Oct 1, +0000
Speakers:
Nikki
Amy
Keywords:
students
teacher
online
teaching
michigan
learning
classroom
french
educators
face
important
virtual
share
curriculum
day
education
discover
year
discipline
big
I remember the first year going from seeing, I don't know, 150 or more students throughout the day to all of a sudden it was just me at home and I really missed seeing students. I had to kind of work through: Am I still a teacher? Am I still impacting students? Because it feels a lot different when you're teaching totally online. And I've come to find that yes, you do still reach students, but it does look a little different.
I’m Nikki Herta, and this is BRIGHT: Stories of Hope & Innovation in Michigan Classrooms, a podcast where we celebrate our state’s educators and explore the future of learning.
This past year, many teachers got a taste of online teaching. But while some liked having the ability to work from home, many others expressed a deep longing to be back in the classroom with their students. One teacher described the transition as moving from “teaching in 3D” to “teaching in 2D.”
But the truth is that the way seasoned online learning institutions conduct their virtual classrooms looks quite different from what many teachers and students experienced during “emergency remote teaching.”
In today’s episode, I chat with Amy Smith, a French and Health teacher for Michigan Virtual, who was recognized as our 2020 Online Teacher of the Year. Amy shares her honest insights into a day-in-the-life of an online teacher, how it compares to face-to-face teaching, and what advice she has for those who are new to teaching in an online environment.
Let's see. During high school, I found I wanted to be a whole variety of different things, so I became a nurse's aide to see if I liked the healthcare setting. A lot of people in my family work in the healthcare setting, and I liked certain aspects of it, but wasn't totally sold on it. And I really enjoyed studying abroad. I studied abroad in France, my junior year I majored in French. Then, after coming home from France, I worked as a camp counselor at a little camp, Portage Lake Bible Camp, up in Onekama, Michigan. And that's where I found I really, really liked working with young people. That's also when I met my husband, he was a camp counselor as well. And I remember sharing about studying abroad with another college class and realizing, Oh, I really liked that. And I didn't expect that. And I remember saying to my husband, I really enjoyed sharing something that I knew and cared about. And he said have you ever thought about being a teacher? Then, that's that's kind of how I got started and I ended up doing the graduate teacher certification program through Grand Valley and minoring in health education. So from there, I did a variety of jobs, both in and out of education, and then I worked my first full-time teaching job was in Battle Creek at Lakeview High School. And then, my husband and I moved out to Utah to the Salt Lake region and taught in the same school district but different high schools. And we really enjoyed our experience out there, but knew that we wanted to have a family and wanted to be closer to our families. And so we ended up moving back to Michigan, and that's when that's when I started working for Michigan Virtual.
What did you find were the most significant differences from being fac-to-face teacher and being an online teacher?
I remember the first year going from seeing, I don't know, 150 or more students throughout the day to all of a sudden it was just me at home and I really missed seeing students. I had to kind of work through: Am I still a teacher? Am I still impacting students? Because it feels a lot different when you're teaching totally online. And I've come to find that yes, you do still reach students, but it does look a little different. And you do it through technology, so it feels different as well. But I really think that there's room for both for both the face-to-face and the online learning and that it's important to have both as options for students and for their families.
What do you think is most beneficial for students? You know, what makes you hold firm to that belief that having some of both is important for students?
I think about my French students first, and so many schools are getting rid of world language programs, and if they do have world language classes, they're usually not French. So, I get a lot of students from small towns all over Michigan who are really excited to take French, and they wouldn't have that opportunity if it weren't for online classes. And I'm really proud of the work that Michigan Virtual has done to create quality world language courses. It's not something that's a given, even if a school has a program, you know, sometimes the quality is there, but sometimes it's not. To be able to offer that opportunity to students who otherwise wouldn't have it is is so important.
So you were selected as the 2020 Online Teacher of the Year, which is a really cool honor. So congratulations! I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share what it is that you've found is most important when it comes to reaching students in an online teaching environment?
You know, going back to the difference between face-to-face and online. You know, a big reason I became a teacher was to share with students what I know and who I am and to help them discover who it is that they are and their interests and what they're capable of. And that looks a little bit different online. And I found that to build that relationship, it takes trust, just as it does in a face-to-face classroom. But in an online environment, that trust is built through reliable communication. Are you reaching out to students? When they reach out to you, do you respond? And then, also through effective feedback on their work as a face-to-face teacher, I often felt like I didn't have time to really give students the feedback that I wanted on the work that they were completing. Now, in an online environment, that's my primary focus. And so that's exciting to be able to have the time and the energy to really help them see what it is they understand, areas that they still can grow, and possible ways to extend upon their learning. For me, those are the most important: communication and effective and quality feedback.
I've heard this from some other online instructors, and I'm curious if it resonates as true for you. Do you find that in some cases that you have, maybe not deeper, but perhaps you have more time to develop those relationships? Are you able to develop some surprisingly deep relationships with students as a result?
Yes, I would say definitely. In some of my face-to-face classes, I had close to 40 students at a time, and you can't possibly have as much one-on-one time as every student needs, especially in a language class, where there's a lot of anxiety about speaking that language in front of peers. Having the time and the space needed to really take your timeand help a student just isn't always feasible in an in a face-to-face environment. So, yeah, I found that students are more willing to share sometimes in the online environment. That there's less pressure from their peers and even from the teacher. You know, we're not standing there thinking about all the other students we have to get to in that one-hour time period. But the student is able to go more at their own pace, and, yeah, you just have more energy as a teacher to be able to respond to each student.
That was the thing that surprised me the most when I started working here. I heard that, and I was like, oh, I think that's a pretty common misconception about online teaching.
Definitely, yeah.
How would you describe a day in the life of an online teacher? What does it look like? I feel like some people wouldn't know what it would look like if they were used to standing in front of a classroom every day.
Yes. That's an excellent question. I still have acquaintances or even family members who ask if I video myself and if all my students are on at the same time. And I realize that for some programs, especially during the last year during the pandemic, that's what they had to do. But that's not what Michigan Virtual's model is. And that's another piece about teacher energy and time. At least with Michigan Virtual, you don't have to wear all the hats at one time. I'm not creating the curriculum and also presenting it and also doing feedback. It's been so nice that the curriculum is there. Students can access it on their own time when they're when they have the time to. And then, as a teacher, I have some of that flexibility as well. So, working looks like: When I have the time and the space to do it in a day. And sometimes that can vary throughout a day. And, you know, as a mom, that looks different than before we had kids. But that's really nice to be able to go and spend the time and energy when you have it each day and know that that's an option for your students as well.
I imagine that's almost incomprehensible for some teachers when they're used to having to wear all those hats. The change to: Oh, the curriculum's there, and maybe I'll create some things to supplement it, but I don't have to do all the lesson planning everyday, and I don't need to be in front presenting it.
Right. Yep.
I was curious if it was hard at first, as a teacher, to use somebody else's curriculum. Even if you liked it, was that kind of challenging? What advice would you give to other teachers that might have similar reservations?
I think after not seeing students that was one of the biggest challenges from going full-time face-to-face to full-time online. Yeah, it was really challenging at first. You know, I kind of tried to to think about: How can I still show students my own unique spin on this material while using the material that's already there? And that's a continued process of trying and failing and trying again. But also talking to to my team of fellow educators at Michigan Virtual and saying, you know, I think I think there is a lot of room for improvement. And it's been really cool to see that some courses have been totally redone with feedback from Michigan Virtual instructors. So I think that's a really good testament to the communication between educators and the rest of the staff at Michigan Virtual of how to work together to really give the best experience to students.
I’m Nikki Herta, and you’re listening to BRIGHT, a podcast that is made possible by Michigan Virtual, a nonprofit organization that’s leading and collaborating to build learning environments for tomorrow.
Today, I’m chatting with Amy Smith, a French and Health teacher for Michigan Virtual, who was recognized as our 2020 Online Teacher of the Year.
Up next, we chat about the differences between what Amy does with Michigan Virtual and the version of online learning that many teachers and students experienced during “emergency remote teaching.”
We also explore three kinds of students who tend to thrive in online learning, Amy’s favorite teacher, her vision for student learning, and what advice she has to offer her fellow educators right now.
So you kind of alluded to this a bit already, but this past year, many students experienced online learning for the first time, and many teachers, too, experienced online teaching for the first time. While this experience was stressful for some, I think a lot of teachers discovered maybe that they like it in a way that they didn't before, and many students drew benefits from it, too. And I'm just wondering if you would want to share any reflections that you have on what so many of your peers went through in this past year?
Yeah, you know, I had the opportunity to talk with some of the administrators at my husband's face-to-face school about: What is online learning and teaching? Because for so many, they've been doing it one way, and so they think to effectively teach, you have to meet synchronously online and you have to meet for a certain amount of time every day. And so, getting around to the mindset of: There are different models that are just as effective online.
And also, shifting the focus from the teacher. Sometimes lecture has a place online, but most often it's more student-directed, and I think that's a really good and needed change. To put the students more in charge of their own learning and to help them develop the discipline to manage their time. To say you have flexibility when you turn in these assignments. You're giving that trust to the students, which also can be very motivating. But then there needs to be a framework to help them develop that discipline to log into that class every day and to complete their work. But when you give more of the control back to the students with support, I think that goes a long way in terms of helping them be more self motivated and to discover that, oh, I can do this and I am capable of learning, and I can be more in charge of when I learn and how I learned versus being in a seat for X number of hours every day at a school.
Making that mindset shift, I think, is the most important barrier. It's really hard if you've been teaching in a classroom for so many years, it's easy to look at online teaching, oh, okay, so I just have to shift what I do and just make it available online. Versus really kind of rethinking your delivery mode. How are students going to interact with this material?And it takes some some coaching and support for teachers as well. When that's there, I think it's a lot more effective and enjoyable for everyone. But if that's not there, and teachers are being asked to do all of it themselves, all the curriculum, all the presentation, then then it is overwhelming for the teacher and the student.
Yeah, I found it really interesting the way you just described the different skills that a student gets out of online learning, at least in an asynchronous online learning model, that they might not get as readily if they're in a seat-time model. I guess the reflection that I'm making is that. . . those are all skills that I need now in a remote workplace. And that was kind of challenging at first when everybody went remote. You're not sitting in an office with everyone else. You're at your own house. I wonder if you think online learning helps prepare students for careers and life beyond the classroom and in our new world?
Yeah, it definitely does, and I think with so many more people working remote, a lot more people are realizing that. So, I tell students, you may not, you may not use French again. Even though I French and health are both both so readily applicable to everyday life and everyday skills, and that's really important to me. But I also try to emphasize to them that whatever job you do, you're going to need to be disciplined. Motivation isn't some magical thing that just strikes you some days and some days not. It's built through that discipline and experiencing some degree of success. And then, keeping that consistent and continued effort, that's so important.
Well said. Can you think of any examples of students that you've worked with in your own online classroom who ended up really thriving in this new environment? Maybe who was new to online learning, but thrived in ways that either you didn't expect or they didn't expect?
Yeah, I was thinking about this question. And I think there are really kind of three categories of students that I've seen being really successful. The first one isn't a surprise. It's the the students who are already self motivated, who are already self disciplined. I get a lot of those students in my summer health classes who want to get ahead and free up their schedule for other classes during the school year. And I think it's really refreshing for those students to be able to be so much more independent and to move at their own pace. And it still teaches them some self discipline and time management as well.
Then, there are the students who are new to online learning, but who are very coachable and very receptive to my feedback and to tips about time management and the like. I like to see every student be successful, but there's a certain satisfaction in seeing the student who started out really behind but then was able to kind of figure it out and finish the course well and do really well. And that it's possible to make that growth and to make those changes even in the span of a semester. So there are those students.
And then there are also the students who, for a number of reasons, maybe don't have much of a voice in a traditional classroom. Maybe due to personality or other factor, they're uncomfortable speaking up in a traditional classroom. But I've seen time and time again, students will share things with me, and it just surprises me that they feel comfortable sharing. And I think part of that is the format. They're journaling, and they're writing versus speaking in front of their peers. And so that's really exciting to see as well, students who kind of find their voice in unexpected ways.
I really appreciate hearing that perspective of, like, okay, here are the types of students I've tend to see who really get something out of this experience. So I'm going to think about that. Alright, so we're going to do a slight shift here.
Sure.
I'm wondering if you could tell me about your favorite teacher that you had as a student and why they were your favorite.
I had to choose two here. My first favorite teacher was Mrs. Snyder, and she taught kindergarten. We're just about to send our oldest daughter to kindergarten, and so that's a big step as a parent, and it kind of makes you reflect a bit. But yeah, Mrs. Snyder was just the best. She was so warm and welcoming, and I was really shy as a little girl, so for her to make me feel so comfortable at school was just really what I needed at that time. And I remember towards the end of the school year, one of my older sisters saying, "Well, you know, kindergarten is almost done, and you won't have Mrs. Snyder next year." And I think I just cried, and I was just so sad to say goodbye to her. But yeah, so just that warm presence that you could always count on, and she was always there, that was that was really impactful.
And then the second would be my high school French teacher. You know, I never really thought about using French outside of a requirement at school. But she taught so well that I left high school with a with a good degree of of French and was interested in it and really enjoyed it. And so, thanks to her, I pursued it further in college and was able to then use it in my own career, which has been really fulfilling. So thanks to her and her tireless work in helping us learn and actually use the language, she opened my eyes to, oh, I can use this as a real skill, it's not just a school exercise.
Very cool. Thank you for sharing. All right, this is a big question. But I'm going to ask you to describe for me your vision for student learning. And so, the way that I break that down a little bit is if it were up to you, what would you want to see for every student? Or what are some of the most important things that you'd want to see?
Sure. So, my biggest frustration as a teacher, and I think a lot of teachers can relate to this is motivating students and feeling like: How can I possibly motivate students if they're coming to me already disenfranchised about learning or already checked out? But then also being the parent of young kids and seeing how natural learning is to being a human. We're born curious and wanting to learn and discover and try new things. So, that's my vision for student learning. That we don't lose that curiosity, and that we don't lose that love of trying new things, that discovery. And, you know, not that I have the answers of how to do that, but that's my vision. That every student is excited about learning. But I think that part of it is allowing students more choice and more trust. To build that into our system somehow, and to kind of redo our system. Not every student is the same, so the model isn't going to work for every single student. And I think a big draw to online teaching is being able to allow some more individuality in our education and also some more student choice and responsibility. Not to say that it's all up to the student, but to be able to provide more of that one-on-one contact that I think is needed there. If that makes sense.
It does. Yeah, thanks. You hinted at it a bit with at least online learning, but how would you describe the role of technology in helping to facilitate that vision? So, in terms of inciting curiosity and also offering choice?
Yeah, so, you know, living in an age of Google, we don't have to memorize every fact. So, I think to leverage that to move away from education looking like knowing a bunch of facts to education looking like knowing how to synthesize those facts, to make our own opinions, and to evaluate those against the opinions of others. And to be comfortable enough to disagree with others, and to have others disagree with us. Instead of using our brains as a file cabinet, to actually engage with that material and explore it and see how it applies to other concepts. Technology can help us a lot with that. Like, just as an example, my five-year-old really wanted to know how far Antarctica was from South America. And I don't know, so I asked our smart speaker. And, you know, that's so cool that that can be an instant exchange. And so then she's able to kind of tuck that away in her memory and use it to kind of further the map in her head of the world and what that looks like. So, it's kind of like that. We don't have to know all the answers, but to be able to know how to find those answers and how to interpret them, I think technology has a big role in that.
Yeah, I was just talking to somebody else about how when I was a student, I remember our math teachers always saying, "You're not going to have a calculator in your pocket. You got to know how to do this" right? And nothing against them. I mean, how would they have known? But yes, actually, I now constantly have a very advanced computer in my pocket at all times. In what world would we have imagined that. But I think that's probably the best explanation I've heard anybody give of how the internet has changed education fundamentally. That was really very good. Thank you.
Are there any words of advice or encouragement that you'd like to share with fellow educators right now?
Yeah, I recently read a book called Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad. I think that's how you say her name. And in it, she's goes on a journey, and I won't spoil the book, but it's a very good one. It's a memoir. She's diagnosed with leukemia as a 23-year-old, and it's a story of her journey. But she's talking to someone in the book who is talking about travel, and he's saying that anytime we travel we really go on on three trips. The first is preparing for the trip and packing and imagining and being excited about it. The second trip is when you're actually traveling, you're actually in the place. Then the third trip is how you remember that trip and looking back on it. Then, he tells her, the important thing is to not confuse the three and to be fully present wherever you are. And that really stuck with me, and I think it really applies to education as well. As a teacher, you're planning lessons and you're anticipating questions and you're thinking about what you want to share with your students. Then you're also delivering the lesson and fielding student questions and interacting with them. Then, afterward, you're also reflecting on that lesson, you know, how did it go? What would I change for next time? And it's easy to get kind of in a muddle and confused about which stage you're in, but to be able to keep those three separate and to be fully present, wherever you are, I think is such a gift for yourself and also for your students to know that they can they can count on you to be that consistent presence in their life, be that online or be that face-to-face and in person. It goes so far for so many people to be fully present and to show that you care and to build those relationships so that you're able to also also teach them material is so important. So you know, reflecting on the past year of online teaching in terms of: What worked? What pieces can you take from online teaching back into your face-to-face classroom? How can you redo your structure a bit to include those new elements that maybe you didn't know would work but you found that they did? How can you include those in in your face-to-face class?
So there you have it, a day in the life of an online teacher — Well, at least for one working in an asynchronous environment where the curriculum has already been developed by professional instructional designers.
If you’re accustomed to teaching in a face-to-face classroom, it may take some time and a lot of training to learn how to adjust to running an online classroom. But many teachers and students alike find that they thrive in this setting once they get into their groove.
If you’re interested in taking a deeper dive into effective practices for online and blended teaching, check out our series of free and low-cost PD courses on this subject at michiganvirtual.org/remote-teaching.
Without a doubt, it’s challenging to make the transition from teaching all day in a classroom to teaching students from behind a screen. But with leaders like Amy forging our path forward, if there’s one thing we’re certain of: it’s that the future is BRIGHT.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of BRIGHT: Stories of Hope & Innovation in Michigan Classrooms. This is the last episode of season 2, but we’ll be back soon with more episodes for season 3. The BRIGHT podcast is produced by Herbie Gaylord, is hosted by me, Nikki Herta, and is shaped by many of our passionate and talented colleagues. Big thanks to Christa Green, Anne Perez, Anne Craft, and Brandon Bautista for their contributions to this episode.
The BRIGHT podcast is made possible by Michigan Virtual, a nonprofit organization that’s leading and collaborating to build learning environments for tomorrow. Education IS changing faster than ever. Discover new models and resources to move learning forward at your school at michiganvirtual.org.