Blog

Emotional Rollercoaster

/ Catherine Cabiness-Atkinson, Ed.D. / Leave a comment
I'm pooped

This has been an emotionally draining week for many of us, and I’m not going to pretend that what I’m experiencing is any more important than what everyone around the world is going through at this moment.

But I’m tired.

This is more than after the first day of school tired. It’s more than the day after packing up my classroom for the summer tired. And it’s certainly more draining than having 150 digital notebooks and essays coming in at the same time with report cards grades due in two days.

This is an emotional kind of tired.

Physical tired can usually be fixed with a good night’s rest (or perhaps a few good nights in a row). I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m also physically tired…but I’m also emotionally exhausted. I am barely able to keep my emotions in check. I feel like I’m on the verge of bursting into tears all.of.the.time.

I think it has to do in large part with the unknown. I mean, who knows how long this crisis is going to last. How many more people are going to be infected? How many more people will lose loved ones? What happens if people don’t follow the “stay-at-home” order given by governor? Will we go into full lock-down mode…will martial law be instituted? If so, how will we get needed things like food? What about my mom who is 74 years old and lives 30 minutes away?

#sigh

And then there’s the unknown of work. How long will my school be closed? How will I get assignments to kids without devices? How are my kids doing? Am I doing right by them with the activities and tasks I’m assigning? Will those grades even count? Am I doing all of this in vain…?

Do you see what I mean?

I mean…the scene from Anchorman aptly sums up my emotional state at this moment…

At the 30 second mark is pretty much where I’ve been existing since my school closed.

Oh, I know…I need to take a break…focus on self-care…

Yes, I know what to do. But it’s not easy. I am finding it very difficult to turn off the 10,000 thoughts going to my head. My only respite is when I sleep. At least then I feel like my mind can finally slow down. My emotions are somewhat subdued.

But then I wake up and the whole vicious cycle starts all over again.

I know I need to be better…if anything I need to be better for my husband since we’re spending quite a bit of time together. We cannot afford to get on each other’s last nerve.

This brings me back to my 2020 #oneword. Present. I need to be present in the moment. I need to be thankful for what I have. I have a roof over my head, a comfortable bed to sleep in, food in the pantry, toilet paper in the garage, and a husband who is hell-bent on taking care of me.

I am lucky. I am blessed.

But I’m also very tired.

Who’s Out There?

/ Catherine Cabiness-Atkinson, Ed.D. / Leave a comment

The sudden closure of our school meant that I spent the better part of last weekend scrambling for how I could continue to provide engaging and meaningful learning activities for my students. I believe I have a good start with the Living History Project. But the problem is how to tell my students about it…

So I posted announcements in our LMS and pushed them out via ParentSquare (messaging system). According to our dashboard, all parents are connected to and set up to receive notifications/message except for one. While I find that hard to believe…I’m going to go with the known data that 99% of parents/students are receiving my messages.

Bitmoji Image

So how does that explain that I haven’t heard from or seen any online activity from 25% of my students? Three parents reached out privately in response to my ParentSquare message about picking up a hard copy of the assignments, so I’m not counting those parents/students among the 25%.

So I decided to take one of the assignments I posted–a Google Form soliciting which type of Living History Project they were going to do…paper versus digital–and I made that a five point summative assessment grade in Aeries. Students who did not complete the Google Form received a zero. Those who did earned five points.

And then I waited…

Before long, I had students emailing me and completing the Google Form. In fact, this was my favorite email:

The student didn’t write anything in the email. They just sent me a screenshot of their grade in Aeries…to which I replied:

“I am so glad you checked in with me! I have been posting announcements in PowerSchool and ParentSquare/StudentSquare about assignments that you need to be working on. We are taking a break from the unit test and digital notebook and you are working on the Living History Project instead. The missing assignment is the Google Form that you need to fill out. Go to PowerSchool > Living History Project.”

And then 30 minutes later, the same student sent me a screenshot of the completed GoogleForm.

Mind you, I am not counting the GoogleForm as a summative assessment. But I needed to figure out a way to reach those students who have been silent since last Friday. I know many of them check their grades…so that was my way to get their attention.

I suspect that over the next day or two more students will come out of the woodwork as they and their parents adjust to a new normal. I know they need to catch their breath. I know that they have other priorities to worry about…but my goal was to see who has online access…who was out there with me. We were not given the opportunity to gather this information before school was closed which would have been more helpful than the data from ParentSquare that listed only one household as having not contact information.

If anyone has other creative ways to get students to respond…my ears are open. In this day and age, we need to band together to share best practices and innovative ways to stay in touch with our students.

#BetterTogether

Living History Project

/ Catherine Cabiness-Atkinson, Ed.D. / Leave a comment
Bitmoji Image

This past weekend I started to put together an independent project for my students (inspired by a Twitter post from another middle school history teacher – see below). At the time, all I knew is that my district made the decision to close our schools until April 13, which meant that I needed to get creative.

The history of the Middle Ages isn’t inherently interesting to most people, let alone middle schoolers. Having said that, I can make history interesting for my kiddoes, but that involves a lot of interaction (face-to-face)–there are stories to be told, simulations to do, and real-time back and forth banter. Going virtual is another story…so I opted to pause our current unit of study and take a broader approach to learning world history while making connections to current events and social-emotional learning.

I decided to do a Living History Project with my 7th graders. The following tweet inspired me, and the Google Doc that Deirdre O’Connor shared was a great starting point:

What is the Living History Project, you ask?

Great question!

The Living History Project is the essence of student-centered learning. Students are creating a primary source (through daily journal posts) about their experience living during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also one task that they have to complete each day that connects history/social science content, current events, and literacy skills. Students need to complete the task and add that to their daily journal entries. The tasks are organized by day/week on the Daily Menu (P.S. This is still very much under construction).

And because I believe in #studentchoice, students have a variety of options for this project:

  • Paper or digital
  • Writing, drawing + writing, video

Students can keep a hard copy journal or they can go completely digital. Some digital options: Google Slides (which I prepared and pushed out), vlogs, or blogs (e.g., Weebly, Wix). All entries will eventually need to be uploaded to the Google Slides for posterity’s sake. NOTE: If you’re wondering what I’m doing for students without Internet access or devices…I left a hard copy of the project and daily menu for parents to pick up from the front office.

I created a Google Form to collect information on how my students planned to record their daily journal entries. I also let them know that I expect them to send me photos or a link to what they’ve been working on by the end of each week. While I don’t want to micro-manage my students, I know that middle schoolers like to err on the side of procrastination, so I’m planning to make sure that they don’t procrastinate themselves out of this project.

Because I also like blogging, I plan to do the Living History Project along side of them. Then when we finally reconvene (anticipated student/teacher return date is April 13), we can share our experiences with each other.

If you are planning to do something similar, please let me know! I would love to see the end products and/or learn about how the process evolved for you and your students.