RHS talks distance learning challenges

Schools in Lincoln Parish are now in their third week since distance learning efforts ramped up across the district. At the parish’s largest school, Ruston High Principal Dan Gressett said he has been encouraged by student participation thus far, but he doesn’t expect it to rise to the same level as before schools closed their doors on March 16.

“There’s not a perfect solution,” Gressett said. “You have to figure out week by week, if not day by day, how to make adjustments and figure out what works for our kids and teachers. I think it’s going as well as it can. Anybody who says it’s going perfect, I’d need to lay my eyes on that.”

He estimates that participation in online learning platforms like Google Classroom is around 60-75% and attributes the remainder to a lack of internet access in the home, as well as altered life situations due to the coronavirus closures.

Gov. John Bel Edwards announced his first school closure order on March 13, which later extended to from April 13 to April 30, until last week it was extended again through the rest of the academic year.

A survey released by the Louisiana Department of Education Monday shows that 28% of public school students in the state do not have access to a computer or tablet to assist with distance learning.

That’s why schools across the parish also passed out hard-copy work packets for the third time Wednesday. Hundreds of cars passed through the RHS lot on April 8, the first time the packets were distributed, and while Gressett said that number went down last week, it was still around 200 students.

While the distribution method may differ between online and paper learning, parish English Language Arts Facilitator Emily Howell said her goal is for the content to be the same.

“I told teachers, whatever’s going to be in a paper packet needs to mirror what’s on Google Classroom,” Howell said. “(RHS English teacher Jamie) Gressett has been going into the school library and pulling out hundreds of copies of books for students who don’t have access to read them as e-books.”

While most distance learning in the district is optional and will not factor into final grades, dual enrollment courses are still taking grades, and Advanced Placement students will still take AP tests to determine their final grades.

Perhaps for that reason, Howell said her AP English class at RHS has shown 100% participation during online learning.

“We’ve been using Google Classroom for them to turn in drafts of essays,” she said. “I can give them feedback on their drafts, and then they go in and fix them. I’ve also been making teaching videos through YouTube for my students to watch.”

Google Classroom allows students to post questions and discussion points in a class group chat, and many teachers are also using the Remind app to allow students to message teachers directly.

Despite all the functionality available online, Howell said her biggest challenge has been not being able to “take the temperature of the class” in real time.

“When I’m teaching, I can look up at their faces and measure if they get it or if I need to backtrack,” she said. “I’ve had a couple people email me and say they’re confused about something, but there’s no replacing that human element of seeing their faces and getting their feedback in the moment.”

Aside from the lack of real-time interaction, RHS math teacher Courtney Martin said another challenge was converting curricula built for face-to-face classrooms into something that could work remotely.

“We have a brick-and-mortar curriculum in a brick-and-mortar school,” Martin said. “And trying to, almost overnight, turn a brickand-mortar curriculum into an online curriculum has been a very lofty task. Trying to scan and upload textbook pages, video lessons, extra worksheets, Powerpoints — it has been a challenge to create all of that.”

Martin, who teaches 11th and 12th grade, said participation in her classes has been “hit or miss.”

“You’ve got 120 different students with different home lives,” she said. “A lot of my students who have jobs went immediately into working full time when this happened. Some of them became instant babysitters as well.”

Even for those who are able to participate, she said many students don’t know how to properly manage their time without the usual school schedule.

“At school they’re on a bell schedule,” Martin said. “At home they have this entire day stretched before them, and I’ve found that students don’t know how to manage that time well in order to get it done. I’ve talked to several of them about getting on a schedule. ‘Every day at noon I’m going to do English.’ Whatever that schedule looks like for you and your house, it’s a lot easier to get it done if you have that expectation there.”

Gressett and both teachers said distance learning must be tailored to the needs of each class and student, rather than a one-sizefits-all solution. Howell sticks to one-on-one conversations with students in English to encourage personalized discussion on their essays, while Martin tries to hold live video conference meetings with a whole class at least once a week.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to be fine,” Gressett said. “There will probably be some catching up to do at the beginning of next year, but if that’s what we need to do, that’s what we’re going to do.”

For teachers across the district, a challenge perhaps even greater than distance learning itself is the abrupt manner in which the school year unknowingly ended on March 13.

“We were joking about the toilet paper shortage that morning at school,” Howell said. “I taught first, second and third hour, and I had no idea I’d never see those kids again. I always give a speech at the end of the year to tell them I love them, and I was not able to do that. I feel a sense of grief from not having that closure, and I think every teacher feels the same way.”