Taylor Whitney

EDUC 540 - Student Teaching

Teacher Interview - Online Learning Platform during COVID-19

I had the pleasure of interviewing my mentor teacher, Katie Slessinger, for the additional

EDUC 540 assignments. Mrs. Slessinger, a half-day kindergarten teacher at Red Lion Area

School District, has recently moved to an online learning platform with the onset of the COVID-

19 pandemic. Activities and instruction have been reduced per the school district policies and

procedures to best support and engage students that are learning at home during these

unprecedented times. Throughout our interview, I asked Mrs. Slessinger a variety of questions to

decipher the accomplishments and shortcomings of the online platform and to see if online

learning is adequately supporting the learning environment of our students.

Q. How has the teaching instruction changed with the online format?

A. Red Lion Area School District, at least for the primary grades, is not providing direct

instruction at this time, meaning teachers are responsible for finding instructional videos

that fit the required assignment/activity or sending instructional materials home that

students already know how to complete (like how-to writing, skip counting, CVC word

activities, etc). To provide face-to-face interaction, Mrs. Slessinger does send home

filmed read-alouds that students can access via the Seesaw application.

Q. What resources have you found or implemented during this time?

A. Mrs. Slessinger still implements and utilizes an application called Seesaw. Seesaw, an

online application that provides communication between parents and teachers, showcases

student work, and houses a multitude of instructional activities for students to access at
 school, recently expanded their application to allow students to access from home for free

while schools have adopted an online learning platform. Mrs. Slessinger uses Seesaw

daily to send reminders, updates, and instructional materials to students and families

during this time. Razkids is another online application where students can read books

online, record themselves reading, and take follow-up quizzes about the story they read.

Wide Open School (wideopenschool.org) is a website that features information about

digital citizenship, but with the onset of online learning, they have branched out to

include additional instructional activities geared towards students learning at home.

Scholastic Kids has also upgraded to include a daily read-aloud with a followup activity

that encompasses a specific theme or topic. Additionally, the school district sends home

paper copies to those families that do not have internet access or an online device to use.

Q. Obviously you have instructional guidelines, but how do you plan your instruction and

instructional activities?

A. For Kindergarten, all half-day kindergarten teachers are responsible for meeting to

discuss and decide the instructional activities to send home. The kindergarten teachers

must send home the same assignments for each class. Generally speaking, the teachers

discuss the upcoming assignments on Tuesday and share their assignment ideas and

activities in a meeting with their supervisor on Wednesday. Materials are due on Friday,

critiqued by a district supervisor, edited by the kindergarten teachers, and sent home to

families Friday evening. In order to streamline the process, the nine half-day kindergarten

teachers have split into teams to decide on activities for a specific subject area; for

instance, three teachers form the math team, three teachers form the writing team, and

three teachers form the reading team. The kindergarten teachers try to incorporate science
 and social studies when they can. Mrs. Slessinger also holds office hours daily - an hour

in the morning and an hour in the evening.

Q. What has been the most challenging aspect of a virtual classroom?

A. Mrs. Slessinger describes how online teaching has almost created a barrier between her

and her students. While she has office hours twice a day for students and families to

contact her, she hasn’t had many meaningful interactions with her students. There are

even a couple of families she hasn’t heard from for several days. In addition, finding an

online and offline assignment option that covers the same instructional objective has been

difficult. From a personal standpoint, Mrs. Slessinger details how it’s been hard to not

actively teach her students and regularly check-in with them and their academic progress.

In conjunction with online teaching, Mrs. Slessinger has two young children that she

must care for at home.

Q. Have you noticed a shift in student engagement?

A. Yes, there is even one student that Mrs. Slessinger hasn’t heard from in over three weeks.

Both herself and the school district have been trying to contact the family. Mrs.

Slessinger does host a weekly class activity during Zoom once a week and says about

half the class attends. In a positive twist, Mrs. Slessinger stated that a student that

struggled in the physical classroom has been very active with the online assignments; he

has completed every assignment and seems to really enjoy the online learning format.

Q. What do you enjoy or particularly like about the online format?

A. The online application of Seesaw! Seesaw was utilized in the physical classroom, but it

has expanded its functions to reach students learning from home. Because the students

are already familiar with this platform, it makes sending and receiving assignments very
 easy and accessible. The flexibility of scheduling office hours, meeting with colleagues

via Zoom, and having the extra time with her own family has been beneficial as well.

Q. Do you feel confident about reaching your students and guiding them academically?

What’s missing?

A. Mrs. Slessinger said no. She states being in the physical classroom creating those face-to-

face, personal interactions cannot be replaced by a screen. It’s not as simple as just

sending home materials. These are kindergarten students that are still honing their ability

to read and write fluently. The difference in growth level is hard to witness and it’s

difficult not to compare where these students should be developmentally in relation to

students from previous years.

Q. How will this online format impact the next school year?

A. Sports and celebrations have been cancelled or postponed for this school year. Teachers

are already preparing for big academic gaps for next school year. Even now, teachers are

just trying to stay afloat and bridge the gap. With incoming kindergartens, she mentioned

that separation anxiety may be prominent as students have been home with parents for a

prolonged period of time. She wouldn’t be surprised to see more online instruction and

technology integration within the district. The transition back to academic independence

will also be longer and more challenging as students are now adjusted to getting

additional instructional assistance from family members.

Q. How are you able to assess students’ knowledge and application of content material?

How will you fill out report cards?

A. Assessment isn’t achievable or realistic since teachers don’t have the ability to

authentically assess students in a controlled environment. Mrs. Slessinger describes

 instructional assignments that feature parents’ handwriting, answers audibly given in the

background, and answers that don’t seem generated by the student. In this setting and

with limited contact, a teacher can’t differentiate what a student can do on his/her own

versus what a student has been told by a parent or sibling. There’s no way of truly

knowing if a student completed the assignment independently or had additional

assistance from a family member. Meanwhile, Mrs. Slessinger still has students that

haven’t turned in a single assignment. She hinted that Red Lion may adopt a pass/fail

approach for the third trimester of this academic school year.

Q. What changes would you make to better accommodate and reach your students?

A. Mrs. Slessinger would have liked to have the opportunity to create her own instructional

videos for the learning activities assignments, rather than constantly using Brainpop or

other well known mainstream instructional videos. Additionally, Mrs. Slessinger would

have liked to have more ownership of the materials that were sent home to students; with

the shift to online learning, the current curriculum was immediately thrown out. Mrs.

Slessinger stated she could have found easy ways to still integrate the curriculum into the

weekly instructional assignments. In many ways, the individualized and personalized

instruction that students were receiving in the physical classroom has gone by the

wayside. Teachers, like Mrs. Slessinger, were told to streamline instruction, work

together with grade-level teachers, and create uniform online learning that can fit the

need for multiple classrooms.

Overall, the interview shed light specifically on the downfalls and shortcomings of online

learning. And while teachers scramble to try to provide adequate instruction, it’s clear that

students will need intense and individualized instruction next year to bridge the academic gap
due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One thing remains clear; teachers, schools, and administration

have not forgotten about their students and their focus remains on building and fostering

academic instruction to better support students and families during this difficult time.