(upbeat music) - Welcome to At Issue I'm H Wayne Wilson thank you so much for joining us.

We have a change in the way we teach Not everything has changed, but we've kind of added new dimensions to the way we handle classroom instruction because of the pandemic.

We have a Professor from Bradley University and three teachers to talk about what has changed both good and maybe a little bit of the what happened.

Let me introduce first, Dr. Dean Cantu he is the Associate Dean and Director of the Department of Education, Counseling and Leadership at Bradley University, thank you for being with us.

- Thank you H great to be here.

- [H] Also with us is Deb Hasselbacher Deb is an English Teacher at Limestone High School.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- [H] Joining us from Olympia High School is Rebecca Meissner.

She's the Chair of the Language Arts Department there, thank you.

- Thank you, nice to be here.

- [H] And Linda Wilson is here.

Linda is a Music Teacher at Trewyn School in District 150 Peoria Public Schools.

And prior to that Social, Emotional Learning Teacher.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you, glad to be here.

- Let me start with you, Dr. Cantu, because I wanna look at, we'll get into the weeds in a little bit, and there's lots of weeds, but from the 30,000 foot level, what has changed?

What is there a new normal in the way classrooms are handled?

- Education as you know H, is always been a dynamic profession and a lot of what we see in the classroom is a reflection of the society in which we find ourselves.

And without a doubt, the global pandemic had a tremendous impact on K-12 education and it was caused for a shift if you will, in how we approach teaching and learning.

And we really see over the course of the last, a year and a half an evolution, even within that shift, if you will, as you know, K-12 education was impacted in the spring of 2020, when we started to see the coronavirus here in the United States, and we started to see an increase in the number of individuals that were contracting COVID 19 and K-12 education quickly shifted to remote learning in the spring and did an outstanding job of taking their in-class instruction and converting that and transitioning to an online teaching an learning environment.

And then as we prepared for the school year of 2020, 2021, a lot of professional development took place.

A lot of investment in the resources that were needed to continue to teach in an online environment were infused into education.

And we saw with the 2020, '21 school year, a variety of different modality of instruction that was taking place in K-12 education, everything from face-to-face teaching and learning to online or remote learning, as well as hybrid education.

And again, teachers step forward they took on that challenge and we were able to continue that education deliver the education to our K-12 students.

And a lot of lessons were learned along the way in many educators and scholars in the field feel that those lessons that we learned, the takeaway, if you will, which we're still applying in the current context within the pandemic, but even on the other side of the pandemic, whenever that might be a lot of those are gonna have a presence in K-12 education.

So to a certain degree, we are truly redefining education in the 21st century.

- We wanna talk about lessons learned in just a moment, but first for all three of you, are you back to all classroom education?

- Yes.

- Yes we are.

- Yes across the board.

So let me just start with a general idea of, from your perspective, what were the lessons learned?

We'll start with you at Olympia.

- I think if you do any research in education or sit through any PD, you hear that the teacher relationship with the students is the most impactful thing, is among the most impactful things that can happen in education.

And I think despite all the difficulties of the pandemic that I'm coming through it, knowing that that is absolutely true.

It's caused me to think about knowing my students in different ways and how they might know me because the situation has changed so dramatically since we first went into lockdown in 2020.

- An example of how you might know students a little bit differently.

- I think it's mostly trying not to jump to conclusions about why a student may or may not be doing something because there are myriad reasons why a student may not be engaged and taking the time to really get to know your students as people.

And to understand that they have to have a trusting relationship with you and know that you care about them, and that's the foundation of what you should be doing in the classroom at any time.

And I think the pandemic has really just brought that home for me that, that is about most importance.

- Linda Wilson Trewyn School lessons learned because we have two high school teachers, but you're a elementary teacher lessons learned.

- I think one of the lessons that most teachers have learned is that education is very fluid.

And we know that we can pivot students have the ability to learn under extreme circumstances.

They have the ability to learn in great environments and they took on the challenge as well as the teachers took on the challenge and did the very best that they could.

And just knowing that education is ever changing and kids did a really good job with adapting into whatever modality that they received, their education.

- Deb, was it easier for teachers or easier for students to adapt to the new method of teaching?

- I would say there were eases and difficulties on both sides and I have to agree that it solidified what I already believed in that is that building relationships are at the hallmark of what we do in education.

And I think that for me being in-person and remote at the same time, I felt like I was really sometimes missing that relationship piece with some of my students online.

And because of that, I sometimes felt like maybe I wasn't doing my best to serve them because I believe high engagement, those relationships.

And I've had a lot of students tell me that they actually, if they were quarantined, they said, I hated that I want to be back in school.

I like seeing people, I like talking to people.

And I think there was a sort of a little preconceived notion that just because in my case, teenagers have social media and they're great with TikTOK and Instagram and Facebook.

That doesn't mean that they know how to do everything with technology.

It doesn't mean they like to read on a computer screen, it doesn't mean they know how to compress and upload files.

So it was also that they think that they're very much of the digital age, but they also had to learn how to do some things that they had never done before.

- Rebecca challenges in terms of the technology you indicated before we taped that you were using school buses for WiFi.

- Yeah, so Olympia is a rural consolidated district and so it's pretty far flung.

And so there were a lot of challenges not everybody had great WiFi connections, but I felt that our district really stepped up to the plate.

We had buses that helped provide WiFi for students.

Those would sometimes be parked strategically.

We made sure that students got hotspots if they didn't have a connection at home.

And we did our best to make sure everybody had working internet, even though it wasn't always quite as fast as we would've liked.

- Dr. Cantu, one of the challenges for you as the Professors at Bradley University, or I suppose, for any other university that is teaching education, they had to change the way they taught the college students who were interested in becoming teachers.

- Absolutely the same shift or pivot that was taking place in P 12 education was occurring in higher education as well.

And while there were certainly professors that were already engaged in online teaching and learning and or hybrid approaches to teaching and learning, there were others that had to make that shift.

And, they did so just as our P 12 teachers did in terms of those of us that are in teacher preparation, our teacher education, our students were not only in the classroom, but they were also out there in the field.

So they were in those same classrooms with the P-12 teachers that were out there and delivering, in class or in person education as well as online education.

And they got to see the strategies that were being integrated into the teaching and learning process and how teachers were responding to the challenge.

So for them, like I said before, it's not the situation that they would have wanted, but they actually, I think came away with a lot greater breadth in terms of their experience out there in the field, working with P-12 educators than they would have had otherwise.

- Let me turn to Deb for a moment to talk and actually all three of you, I'd like to talk to you about in your particular instance, how difficult was it to teach your particular subject?

We have someone who teaches music, we have someone who teaches German, we have someone who teaches English.

- I would say probably the music and the German boat would be probably harder than the English boat.

I think when you're learning a language, when you're learning music, it's important to see, especially language, to see the mouth, in order to make the letters to make the sound come out.

So I would say, my job as far as that was a little bit easier, but again, I think it's challenging no matter what you do.

And we were saying earlier that I think if a student is a very self-motivated student, they are going to log on, they're going to pay attention.

They're going to sit there and you'll have their focus for 45 minutes or an hour and 10 minutes.

But sometimes I think it's hard, whatever subject you teach, because I realize that sometimes they can't hear me and I'm pretty loud.

And sometimes they can't see the board or there's a glare or something happens with their hotspot or they are babysitting or something happens at home.

There were so many more things that distracted their education, but I don't think my subject per se was necessarily one that would be more challenging to teach more so than foreign language or music.

- Well let's ask about foreign language in particular German.

- Correct, yeah it definitely was a challenge I think already in the classroom, you're faced with trying to do communication with students that in some way mimics authenticity, but that's really hard as you're just a beginning learner.

And I think when you don't have that ability to do face-to-face or the little interactions in the classroom where you're giving the kinds of instructions, everyone get out your notebooks, or we need to close our computers.

Those sorts of things were much harder to try to mimic in the onscreen world.

But I think in the pivot, even though that would be ideal education is to stay in language more and to try to make that work.

Like I said at the beginning, part of what I had to do is readjust some of my expectations in that regard and say, hey there's a kid here trying to connect with the world.

And it may not be ideal we may hear a little bit more English at moments than I'd like, but sometimes that was just what was necessary.

Especially since last year in a hybrid situation, I had students in the classroom wearing masks.

I had a couple of students online, not wearing masks, but I was masked in front of the computer.

And so that made it a real challenge for everyone to be able to hear and those students, I think will still be able to say a few things at the end of the day.

- And for you Linda.

- Well, at the time I was teaching on social emotional learning and I thrive off of a challenge and it was challenging, but it was also very rewarding learning how to use the different ways to communicate with my students.

So they were using the chat, we had kindergartners and first graders using the chats and emojis and utilizing breakout rooms and whiteboards and Padlet and Quizlets.

So using a variety of technology and apps and technology programs with younger students, I think that may have put them in advantage for the future because they had a lot of that experience.

And so while everything was a challenge and communicating with students sometimes because having to mute was sometimes an issue because of environmental noise.

I always look at challenges as there is a reward on the other side of that challenge.

And just to think about some of the things that our students were learning during that time.

- Rebecca had you brought anything from the remote learning experience to the in class experience that improved your classroom instruction.

Did you learn a lesson, so to speak on how better to do in face-to-face education?

- I would say in my other teaching assignment, which is dual credit for Heartland College, that yes, absolutely.

It taught me how I needed to better prepare slides presentations and send a discussion questions for students to be able to access from a variety of different points so that they were being interactive.

And that was something that last year when I was teaching, it felt like a lot of additional work too, because it wasn't that you could just put something up there and then you were going to go through and explain everything and do some of that life.

You had to do a lot more preparation and so I did recorded segments using Loom, and I worked to make things that were more interactive through the slides presentations and breakout rooms.

And I would say, yes, I've been able to utilize that face-to-face.

And I think it's been very good too for students who continue to be absent because we're really not quarantining students in the same way that we were last year, but it's also not uncommon to have students absent.

And so I would say that that type of preparation is really beneficial in any sort of circumstance when you have a student absent, if they say, what did I miss today?

It's pretty easy to point them to what they missed and it makes I think more sense to them than it did prior to the pandemic when we didn't have those kinds of materials prepared.

- Deb, you were shaking your head in agreement.

- So as a speech teacher, a speech comm teacher as well, that was kinda interesting to do some of those speeches remotely, because you have to like,, you have to adjust and you have to say they're at home.

They might not be able to get their camera in the right space so they can speak in front of it.

There are certain things that you just can't look for when they're speaking from home, but also we've used now in comm class, we use a lot of examples for nonverbal communication and different things like that that happened last year both that went well and some things that maybe didn't go so well, and we talk about communication breakdown.

So it really has enhanced that class, definitely.

- I've been hearing a lot of terms that I am not familiar with some of them your chat room, yes Deb and you were taking me on a different path.

So I wanted to turn to Dr. Cantu and ask, how do you prepare these budding teachers to at least be able to handle that hybrid teaching moment?

Because it looks like remote learning might be at least to a degree part of our future education program.

- Absolutely and a lot of teacher preparation programs including at Bradley University, we always have integrated into our curriculum courses on technology, both standalone courses, as well as within the context of of our methods courses, for example, in social studies education, science education, math and reading and writing.

So that's always been a part of the preparation of our teachers.

And what's great as well is that authentic learning that takes place out there in the field.

So from their freshman year, all the way through their senior year, they're out there in the field working with P 12 teachers who are doing just that, they're integrating technology into the teaching and learning process even before the pandemic.

So they're able to see and apply their skillset and their knowledge that they gain in the classroom out there in the field, in those P 12 classrooms.

What the pandemic has allowed though, is for them to see it on a much larger scale than ever before.

I mean, this is an unprecedented time in terms of K-12 education what we're experiencing.

And so they're seeing that, and they're seeing it in the moment and they're seeing, the challenges that presents, but also the different approaches that teachers are using to overcome those challenges.

The other thing that they're seeing is the critical role within that environment, that online teaching and learning environment, that state of the art technology plays as well as access to a broadband internet.

And I know that was discussed here just a moment ago, the digital divide, the fact that it's for so many students, they did not and some still do not have access to that state of the art technology into the reliable broadband internet that existed before the pandemic.

But what the pandemic did is it shed light on that and it allowed for an infusion of revenue to schools so that they could provide those resources to their students, but we're still not where we need to be yet.

And that's, I think that's another potential legacy of the pandemic is the need to ensure well technology is ubiquitous in society.

It needs to be likewise in terms of P-12 education and that's both within the classroom, but also within the homes.

- Linda, was it more difficult to track the progress of students in a remote scenario, as opposed to in the classroom.

- Definitely it was a challenge.

If you have younger students that are engaged in the platform, and you always kinda wonder if, if they're getting some additional help from parents or other siblings, but there was a divide when it came to education and students that were able to use technology successfully versus other students that were not able to use technology as well.

And so there's this huge education piece that was involved not only for young students but for their parents to help them to log on to our various educational online programs.

So that was a definite plus for them to learn how to do, but it was definitely at an accelerated pace.

So it required a lot of patience and working with students outside of school hours, as a teacher during that time, you were kinda always on, because it wasn't uncommon for you to get a phone call or a text message from parents or families trying to figure out, how do I get logged on to this?

Or how do I work this program?

So it was a challenge, but there was this educational piece that was involved too, that kind of helped parents to have a glimpse of what students were experiencing also.

- Rebecca difficult to track progress especially if we had a hybrid model and you had some students in front of you and some at home.

- Absolutely, and that was one of the things that I had to let go a little bit and say sometimes learning is still taking place, even if I don't track every little thing.

And I think that was a little bit freeing to be able to do that in terms of progress.

I also teach advanced placement German so I was a little bit worried about that, given that the students in that class had gone absolutely remote the year prior to that and then we're learning in a different setting for AP, but they are resilient and their scores were good, they passed.

And so, but it is more difficult to track progress and I think it re required extending grace to students because in the regular classroom you can set things up so that students have a chance to be successful.

And also that you can monitor that they're not using sources that they should, not, that you just had to realize you had no control over in that remote in that remote setting.

So I think it caused me to rethink my priorities and what I was actually doing.

And it also made me think that education should be way more about the learning than the final product.

And so I think that that's something that I would like to see carry over and continue.

Ultimately parents really wanna grade and colleges like to see a grade on that transcript, but I think there was something freeing about being able to focus on learning.

- And that might be the challenge Deb is that colleges and parents want a grade, but have you taken a new perspective?

- I think there's a lot of different ways to show what you know, and to show that you're learning and it might be different for different students.

But I think something that you said is extending grace.

And I always tell my students, you can do hard things, but when you have students at home and they're not getting the same exact, if we're doing a group activity and the kids have things they're using, and it's really hard to do that at home by yourself.

And so you kind of have to re-imagine what that student's grade is going to look like, but can they tell me in their own words, what we were doing and can they create their own example at home to show that they have mastery of that lesson.

And if they can, then they deserve the same grade that somebody else in class got.

And I think that's part of it is re-imagining what grades look like and how students show what they know.

That's a big thing.

- A final thought from you, Dr. Cantu get out your crystal ball, if it's possible, what might we see in the future?

- Well, I think some of what we'll see in the future, we've discussed here in terms of the teaching and learning environment.

I don't think we're gonna go back to where it was almost exclusively within the classroom face to face or in person.

I think again, even before the pandemic, certainly there were P 12 educators that were engaged in delivering online education, hybrid education, using approaches such as flip classrooms and so on.

So it was there, but again I think someone mentioned, through the professional development, we see more and more teachers that adopted different strategies for teaching in an online teaching learning environment.

And I think they've developed a comfort level relative to that.

So I don't think that's gonna go away any anytime soon.

And, I think it was discussed earlier too, where there are situations where perhaps traditional in-person education can take place.

for example, we're in the autumn, but we're about to enter into winter, snow days, I think snow days are sort of a thing of the past, schools now realize we just pivot and we're gonna deliver a remote learning on those days, we're not gonna just call off school those days.

So, that taking advantage of that online teaching and learning environment, I think is a big part of it.

Assessment itself, traditional assessments, I think, as was discussed just a moment ago, I think teachers recognize that authentic assessment and performance assessment, those types of approaches I think are gonna find a greater presence in education.

- And with that, we are out of time, but we'll continue the conversation after the cameras turn off and you please continue the conversation at home.

Let me say thank you to Linda Wilson, who is a music teacher at Trewyn School in Peoria, to Deb Hasselbacher a teacher at Limestone High School and the Chair of Language Arts Department at Olympia High school is I'm sorry, Rebecca Meissner.

She teaches German and I'm thinking-- - From my Smith's okay.

- Dr. Dean Cantu at Bradley University thank you all four of you.

Thank you for joining us we'll be back next week with another edition of At Issue when we're going to be talking about not corn, not beans, but vegetables grown right here in Central Illinois.

There are specialty crops that we do really good at growing.

(upbeat music) - Because our region and what our region has meant to the world.

And as we perpetuate our mission at the museum, we seek out stories of inspiration and confidence that often emanate from the Peoria region.

These are stories that often people know about much more often we find they do not know.

As Mary was mentioning about some of the history of Eureka College.

It is our job to provide those opportunities, to learn from those amazing moments of art, science, history, and achievement, to kinda embolden our region and embolden our community with confidence.

- So during the pandemic, you have had to alter significantly the way you serve those multiple roles.

- Yes, early on we, I pride our institution as being one of the earliest to pivot in our region, in our area.

We about three weeks prior to actually closing our doors, we had a plan in place and had established a strategy for opening the virtual museum, which we have engaged our patrons through all types of social media, email.

We've provided interviews, we provided performances, we provided, we have a show called "Objectively Speaking", where we take our objects of art, science and history, and talk about them.

And we've really worked to provide the museum experience as personally and adeptly as we can do with this removal from the intimacy that we're used to having.

- You're thankful for technology being (mumbles).

- It has been very difficult without it, yeah.

- Jonathan, you look at things positively, as far as I can tell, because you said, you know what, yeah we're in a pandemic and yet it's changed the way that we operate, but I've got time to think now, how important is that in terms of the future.