Michelle

Another week under our belts.  I’ve continued my journey into classroom zooms and have been impressed with what I’ve seen.  It’s inspiring to think how far we've come in such a short amount of time.  But, one glaring missing component in my observations in this virtual world is “learning with others”.  If the kids were in person, I would see students learning and interacting with their peers all over the school;  hearing teachers say “turn and talk to your partner about XYZ” was just as common as hearing the lunch bells. Recess, lunch, Friday fun time, classroom parties, and so on were times where students were able to socialize with each other without teachers orchestrating the dialogue of the group.

Interacting with peers is a huge deal in the elementary setting.  Students need to “click” and make friends with the other students in their class.  The skills we learn from forming friendships in elementary school lay the foundation of how we relate to others for the rest of our lives. 

Can we make up for this lack of socialization?  Not completely, but we need to get them talking to one another.  One tool that can help us address this missing component is breakout sessions.   

I observed a 30-minute session in Michelle’s room where she was teaching the idea of “genre” and incorporated two breakout rooms into her lesson.  In my first breakout session, the students were definitely intimidated by my presence.  They shared a short piece and turned their cameras off almost as soon as we showed up.  I can’t help but wonder what the discussion would've been like had I not been in the breakout room.  The second breakout room was filled with some of her confident and chatty students.  They went on and on about their reading and couldn't wait to be the next to share.  

Michelle zoomed around the different breakout rooms throughout the sessions.  After the lesson she shared with me that she did a lot of pre teaching on behavioral expectations.  Students are encouraged to message Michelle privately if they're having a tough time with something, the group finishes early, or if someone is messing around. She shared that they review procedures regularly and probably will all year.

Michelle’s integration of breakout rooms is impressive. It’s the beginning of the year and she is already addressing the need to have students interact with one another - to build camaraderie with one another - to become a class.

Well done, Michelle.

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