Remote Instruction

Schools out! It's the summer. We survived another year of Remote Instruction. Was it really that bad? Tune into today's episode to find out. 
Listen to 10 Challenges teachers faced with Remote Instruction.

Transcript

Remote Instruction

Oh, is it that time already? Time for another episode of Autism and Education, Science and Me! Cool. Welcome back to class everyone. I hope you are ready to think today, because now is the time! You know who I am, your favorite teacher Thomas Herrera. Enough with the intro, what monologue is awaiting today? Today on Autism and Education, Science and Me, we have Remote Instruction. Today’s monologue will cover the 10 challenges of teaching remotely. This should be fun and long. We got 6-and-a-half pages ahead of. So, brace yourself. Grab your writing apparatus and stationary; here comes 10 Challenges of Remote Instruction. 

Hooh boy. Remote instruction. Do I have an opinion about this. I will let you decide if this is a good opinion or a poor opinion. If you are listening to this podcast today, you should be familiar with this term. But, if you live under a rock, in a cabin in the woods, in a pineapple under the sea, or are listening to this from the future, let me provide some context. Remote Instruction was the world’s answer to the problem, “How do we teach our youth during quarantine?” SARS-CoV-2, or the coronavirus to the masses, bloomed exponentially in the early 2020s. As all viruses do, the coronavirus spread like wildfire among the planet. To prevent massive casualties, a quarantine was put into place. People from all cultures, jobs, and generations stayed home. Eventually we reopened, but until that time, there was a specific age group of humans that needed a little help. Students. 

Quarantine aside, students still needed to get an education. So how do we teach without being in the same physical place as our students? Say it with me now: Remote Instruction. Teachers all over the globe took to video conferencing platforms, such as Google Meet or Zoom. It was a steep learning curve. We had to learn how to use these platforms so we could do what we get paid for: Teach. The two schools I worked out during quarantine used both Zoom and Google Meet for our teaching needs. So, what did teaching remotely actually accomplish? 

Remote instruction allows the students to still get their education, without the risk of being in person with other students. This drastically reduces the chances of spreading disease. No one likes viruses, and we all want to keep safe and stop the spread. Remote instruction is a good alternative to in-person teaching. It allows students to see one another, see their teachers, communicate with both groups, and somewhat socialize. Remote instruction also allowed students to work together on assignments in class. Remote instruction was a safe and easy way to give students a sense of normalcy in a time a time of abnormality. But it was filled with lots of challenges. Now that our context is out of the way, allow me to discuss 10 challenges teachers faced with Remote Instruction. I decided to split up the problems into three distinct flavors: educational problems, technological problems, and emotional problems. And considering this podcast also includes autism, if the problem is made worse due to autism, I will let you know. But for the most part, these are 10 Challenges all teachers faced, be we neurotypical or atypical. 

Education first. Challenge #1: Past expectations vs Current expectations. What was the number one challenge of remote instruction? I would say it was the expectations of virtual instruction. Most schools shut down during February in 2020. After a little break, students hopped on virtually. What were the expectations during this time? At this point in February, students were in school for at least half-a-year. At least two marking periods of work. What should students be expected to do? Not every student has access to the Internet, or even places where they can work at home. Not every student can make it virtually every day. Do teachers count that against them? No, that is not equitable. My last school went with this scenario: show up to class if you can, and if you turn in work it will be graded. This way, it rewards the students that show up, but does not penalize those that do not. Essentially, your grade is on the work you previously completed. My current school on the other hand, basically gave the students a pass. Show up or do not show up, no penalty. You pass. Regardless of their past grade, they would move on to the next year. 

I can hear you cringe from here. I believe this was a mistake. Why do I think so? Because they set a precedent. I have many students now who think that they are just going to pass like last year, even though we have stated numerous times it is different this year. But do they listen, noOoOo? They seem to have it stuck in their minds that they will pass this year without having to do any of the work. There is no need for any completion of any work. They will pass regardless, so why bother. Very few people if any put in work into a hopeless endeavor. Why spend the time and energy when it does not matter? This mindset and decision causes many problems as you can guess, but leads directly to the next challenge: having students actually show up to class. 

Challenge #2: Attendance. In my previous point I discussed that some students expected to just receive credit for no work. After all, if you are going to pass the year anyway, why do any work at all? And if I am going to just pass why show up? I noticed three patterns my last two years on Remote Instruction. I had students that always attended class, students that partially attended class, and students that never attended class. The latter two types were maddening. I would either have students who never attended a single a class, or attended certain classes for some time. For instance, attending my class for maybe five minutes, and then logging of to do who-knows-what. These students seemed to think that just by showing up they could pass the year. But, in most cases, you only passed the year by attending class and completing all assignments. Two things that these students did not even try. I pride myself in being an easy class. You have to try to fail my class. We do a lot of work, but it all adds up. The only way you fail is by not doing anything at all. Which is exactly what these kids did. Some students only attended homeroom, and nothing else. As if somehow attending homeroom equals attending and completing student work. Newsflash: that is not how it works. 

But, Tom. How bad was attendance really? Surely you are exaggerating the absences. Was it really that bad? Oooh, let me give you numbers and facts. Last year over five classes I taught 117 students over two days—an A day and a B day. I had two classes on A days and three classes on B days.  How many kids do you think I taught remotely each day? I will wait. Take a guess. 

If you guessed less than 10 you would be correct. The attendance was atrocious. On my A days, I consistently had two kids the first class, and at most three kids. Averaging these numbers yields 2.5 kids that class. The next class I usually saw three students, for a grand total of 5.5 kids on A days. On B days, my first class usually had two or three kids, for an average of 2.5 kids. The next class had the highest amount of students by far. There was always six students that day, some days seven, or 6.5 on average. The last class always had at least two students, but occasionally three, for another 2.5 on average. Our B Day grand total is 11.5 kids. Over the week, I averaged 17 kids a week. 17/117. or 15%. Atrocious. 

But wait! I hear you cry. That was last year. That was when quarantine was still new. Surely it got better this year right? Oh, you sweet summer child. No. 

This year I had about one-fourth as many students as last year. About 18 students Semester 1, and 14 students Semester 2. So, 32 students. Each semester I had four classes a day. My roster for Semester 1 included two students the first class, 10 students the second class, three students the third class and three students the last class. Semester 2’s roster included three students for the first class, six students the second class, four students the third class, and one lone student the final class. How many students decided to get an education this year? Take a second guess. 

Surprisingly, Semester 1 had a decent following. The first class usually had two students a day, but averaged 1.5. The second class averaged three students consistently, and the third class always had one student show up. The final class usually had at least two kids, but often had three. That rounds to 2.5 kids. Basically, every week for Semester 1 I averaged seven children. 7/18 or 39%. Better than last year. 

Semester 2 was worse than Semester 1 but better than last year. Most of the time the first class had two students, but often had one, for an average of 1.5. My second class was the same, so another 1.5. The third class…where do I begin with the third class. I can count on my hands how many times I saw students. I would go months without a single student only to randomly have a child pop in one day, and then never return. I never consistently had students, so I averaged a zero for this class. I only had one student in my final class, but they never showed all year. Another zero. Semester 2 averaged three students each week in Semester 2. 3/14. 21%. 

Here is a recap: I had an average of 15% attendance last year and about 30% attendance rate this year. Attendance during Remote Instruction sucks. Whether students show up or not, there is no denying the attendance rate was awful. The result? Many students did not pass the year. So far, we only had two challenges, but did you notice something? Education really suffers during Remote Instruction. This is just the beginning. Our next challenge moves onto actual classroom experience. 

Challenge #3: Time Constraint. How long do you think classes should be? Various schools have various lengths of class time. The school I taught at during my internship had 84 minute classes. My first school had 50 minute classes for science and social studies with 100 minute English and Math classes. My last school had 72 minute classes, while my current school has 50 minute classes. So, how long should remote classes last? We were given only 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Not a lot of time. It is barely enough time to actual discuss concepts, let alone actually work on assignments. Not to mention the fact that work is best learned through repetition. There are so many activities teachers do in the class that every second counts. Think attendance, note-taking, in-class discussion, student questions on material, student assignments, and teacher-student feedback. Stop and think for a second. How much can you really teach in a half-hour time frame? 

As always, I will not leave you hanging. I will provide you with an example of a class I have taught both live and virtually. The topic is the characteristics of life. What should be involved in that lesson? I would start with probing the students for background knowledge. Ask them what they think characterizes what makes something living. Go around the room. Try to get as many different answers from as many different students as possible. Does not matter if they are correct or incorrect. Just get them to talk. Then, you would discuss the actual characteristics (there are seven of them in case you were wondering). Go through each one and discuss why they are used to identify living things. Compare and contrast student answers to the actual answers. Do not forget to stop and wait for student comments and questions. All good? Next would be to provide examples of living things and non-living things and why they are living or non-living respectively. I usually use several living things, dogs, cats, trees, myself, and some non-living things such as markers, viruses, rocks, and my good friend Pat the Skeleton who helps me teach. Then it is time for student work. They can complete questions, assignments, or whatever you plan on testing their understanding. I have them write a paragraph explaining why several objects are living or non-living. 

Okay. Lesson’s done. How long does that take? Longer than 30 minutes. The beginning part can take as long as ten minutes if you have a class of students who are inquisitive and participate often. Add in another 10-15 minutes discussing the characteristics. This time includes the note-taking portion of class, and questions students have. We are already 25 minutes in, and we just discussed information. Discussion is half the battle. The other half of the battle is turning discussion into understanding. This is when you take a concept and then apply it elsewhere. After learning why a dog is living, you can discuss why a rock is not. That next part can take anywhere from five minutes to 10 minutes. Then, when students are comfortable on their own, you can give the students some work to complete that tests exactly what they just learned. There is another 10 minutes at least. By my calculations, this lesson takes at least 40 minutes. More time than allotted by remote instruction. It is very hard to get everything done in a single lesson virtually with limited time. In addition, as a science class, my students perform many labs during their yearlong science class. Do you have any idea how hard it is to do a lab virtually? Can you imagine trying to do a lab virtually? I did not even bother trying. It was too much hassle. That was the main appeal of science classes. And I could not do labs. I think this may have also contributed to the low attendance rate, now that I think about it. But despite that, we educators adapted. We shortened lesson plans, changed assignments, did whatever we could to give the students what they needed to pass. 

I think I have run out of time on this challenge. There is no more time to talk about time. The next challenge is a challenge of professional appearance. 

Challenge #4: Professional Appearance. Imagine a student and a teacher. What do they look like? Teachers often are very business formal with ties, jackets, button-up shirts, or formal dresses. Students may wear a uniform or t-shirt and jean. Now think of the video platforms used during Remote Instructions. All these video platforms have a small area built-in where students appear on camera. Now I do have a bunch of stuff to say about this, I will get to that when we discuss technological problems. For now, focus on the professional appearance. When I taught, I always taught in the same location. At a desk sitting up, with the curtain closed to prevent glare. If I had to move away from my desk I would turn my camera off. Now my question is this: where is an acceptable location for you to teach from? The bathroom? Your bed? The couch? Should I be allowed to teach from any of these areas? No. It is not professional. However, I have had students enter my class from these areas. Last year, during my office hours, I was assisting one of my favorite students for her chemistry class. She spent the entire time on her bed. A few times while teaching she rolled over and spoke to me upside down. I was like, "You comfy?". I am not sure about you, but I think it is a little disrespectful for me to teach you when you are lying down and not focused on learning. Our students knew they were supposed to sit up and be ready to learn, but I still had students learn without a care in the world. It was very vexing. When students were in the classroom, they were expected to sit up, focus, and not put their heads down. Just because we are at home does not mean they could show up in their pajamas to class. I mean, if we teachers cannot do that, should we really let our students? 

Do not answer that. I do not want to know your opinions on that. Please let me vent.

Our next challenge deals with a very important part of education. The children. 

            Challenge #5: Children being children. Hold on, do not go anywhere. It is not what it sounds like. When I say children being children, I am talking about the lies and effort my students exhibit. Children lie. It is going to come up. But something I heard a lot during Remote instruction was: 

“My camera’s not working.”. 

“I forgot we had class today.” 

“I did that assignment already.” 

“Mr. Herrera you are not cool.” 

They all lie. Most of these lies make no sense. They just did not want to show up and had no excuse. However, some of the excuses are legitimate, but what I do not like is when I hear, “Oh, I’ll do that assignment. I am going to do it.” I hear that a lot. And the students do not follow through. They say they will do something, and then never do it. This makes me rather sad and disappointed. We have bright students who are not doing what they need to do to further their career. Due to time constraints lots of teachers turned to easy assignments. Assignments so easy that you are guaranteed to pass by just completing assignments. And the students still do not complete their work! The students would rather sleep all day or not do anything. They are lazy. Lazy lazy lazy lazy. It is very hard to justify passing students if they have no work to show for it. Ever heard the phrase, “no shoes no shirt no service”? Well, “no work no grade no pass”. This problem was only made worse by the fact that certain schools passed students for no reason. Problems from the past come back to bite you in the butt. 

Okay. This ends the educational segment. Now we move to technology problems. What is one we can start with off with? Oh right! Internet Problems. 

Challenge #6: Internet Availability. There are a slew of problems with the Internet. These include losing Internet, Internet not connecting, not having any locations with Internet, not having a Hot Spot, slow Internet Speeds, getting kicked out of class meetings, lagging in class meetings, etc.… If my primary method of contacting my students is through the glorious Internet, and the oh so glorious Internet decides to not work, how am I supposed to teach? When you teach through the Internet you are really at the mercy of the Internet. And technology and I do not have the best track record. Technology and I do not get along. Technology does not like me; I do not like technology. There is a reason why my career is working with squishy living things. I can at least make squishy living things like me. Just a little. I have been kicked out of my own class. I have had students kicked out class. I have had times where I lagged in class, or had students lag in class. Some days I cannot share my screen to teach, or some days even open up a new tab without lagging so much. The Internet is great and all, but when you have to teach using it as a reliable navigator, it is not easy. You ever try to teach a 30 minute lesson with lagging issues? Have you ever tried to answer scientific inquiries when students log out of class unexpectedly? I hope you never do. While attendance and youth are problematic, they are certainly exacerbated by the Internet. The Internet may have problems, but do you know who or what else does too? Computers! 

Challenge #7: Computer Problems. Having no Internet is problematic. But do you know what is even worse? Having no computer. Or having a computer that will not turn on. Or having a computer that will not charge. Or having a computer that will not let you log onto class. Or having a computer that will not share your screen. Do I need to continue? Students need a good computer to attend their classes. And many districts had issues with providing said computers. I had a student that went through an entire year without using a computer for class. She used her phone. But she was one of the good ones. A faulty computer is what many students blamed for their problems. 

"I'm not showing on camera? My computer is broken." 

"I dropped out of class? My computer kicked me off." 

“My mike is not working? My computer is broken.” 

“I’m failing your class because I do not do the work? My computers broken.” 

Granted, some of these could be legit problems, it often goes back to Challenge 5. They get kicked out and they do not return. Or there is a problem and they do not bother fixing it. "Oops. Got kicked out. Ah, I do not need to go back. Free day!" The computer aspect of the instruction is just as important as the internet and their attendance. Students really should not be at fault if they do not have Internet, or have a computer to work on. What they are at fault for is not telling anyone or doing anything about it. They are at fault for just coasting through the year with minimum effort. Most schools provided students with their own computers, but various districts are limited in computer availability. And some districts may not be the best at repairing said computers either. There are a plethora of problems schools faced during the Pandemic. But they tried their best. I cannot say the same for my students. 

Do you remember earlier in Challenge 4 where I said I had more to say? No, me either. Was trying to see if you were paying attention. The next challenge has to do with the challenges of having no cameras on during lessons.. Challenge #8: Camera? At this point in this episode, I am on page 5 of the script and on the eighth challenge, and only now will I actually bring in the autism part of “Autism Education Science and Me.” I mentioned before that I have had students come into class without turning their cameras on. This bugs me immensely. There are two main reasons why I hate teaching or tutoring when my students do not have their camera on. 

Reason A: I cannot see them. 

Reason B: I cannot read their expression. 

Reason A comes first alphabetically so I will start with that reason. Why is it important for a teacher to be able to see their student? Why is it important that students are seen? Well, you can learn a lot from a person by watching them. You can hold them accountable. In the class, how does a teacher know if they are droning on too much? Or how do they know if they lost the student’s interest? Or how do they know when they need to change activities to keep the students motivated? You watch them. At a single glance, a teacher can tell if a student is unfocused, bored, tired, or needs more help. At a single glance, a teacher can determine if a change in pace will result in the desired outcome. At a single glance, you can see where people are on a particular topic. 

Do you see how important visual cues are? All these behaviors can be monitored just by watching the students. How are you supposed to do the same thing when you cannot even see your students? You cannot. It is virtually impossible to determine if you droning on too much—in 30 minute classes mind you—from voice alone. It is essentially improbable to determine if you lost a student interest. When my students’ cameras are off, I have no idea if they are even listening to me. Half of my entire teaching time was explaining a few concepts, and then, “Do you understand that? Questions? Are you still with me?” When the cameras off I cannot even tell if my student is present. My only clue that there is someone there is the late reply, “Yes.” I could be teaching my entire lesson to a wall, and I would be none the wiser. 

Of course, I have not even touched the bonding part yet! Students and teachers spend a long time together. Hours upon hours upon days upon days. You tend to form a bond with your students as time progress. And this is helped along the visual aspect. My students know what I look like and how I act. On the other hand, I have no idea what my students look like. I changed schools. I went to a new school during the Fall and ended up teaching 32 new faces. I only know what five of those kids look like. And those were the ones who showed up. The other 27, I would not recognize them if I passed them on the street. Have you ever tried to bond with a still image before? I have a much easier time bonding with someone when I know what they look like. And that is because I really gather so much information just by watching people. 

Which brings me to Reason B. I cannot read their expression. I am autistic. I am book smart. I am not street smart. I am not the best at determining how people feel or how they react to certain situations. I cannot gauge correctly if what I said hit the way I wanted it to hit. I do not know when there is an appropriate time to stop a conversation. Or an appropriate time to start a conversation. So how do I navigate these treacherous waters? I watch the people that surround me. I watch their faces, their body language, anything and everything. You really can learn so much from a simple short glance. My mom has said at some point, that she really feels watched when she eats with me. Mostly because I am trying to read her to see what is going to happen next. Why is this important? Well, teaching is a social endeavor. You interact with others. You need to know what motivates a student. What can keep them going. What can you use to get their interest. What can you do to help them learn better. While some of this information can be gleaned at the start of the year, in everyday contact you can learn what works and what does not. You can adapt your behaviors based off the behaviors you see. If you see them at all that is. 

Again, do you see why seeing is so vital to teaching? If I cannot see, then I cannot be the most effective teacher I can be. Which brings me to final two problems with remote instruction. We covered educational problems, a few technological problems, so now let us talk about the emotional problems.

Challenge #9: Laziness.

♪♫Today I don't feel like doing anything
I just wanna lay in my bed
Don't feel like picking up my phone, so leave a message at the tone
'Cause today I swear I'm not doing anything

Nothing at all
 Woo, ooh, woo, ooh, ooh
 Nothing at all
 Woo, ooh, woo, ooh, ooh
 Nothing at all♪♫ 

Bruno Mars really encapsulated the mindset of my students. Kids are lazy. I was lazy when I was kid too. But the difference was that I always did my work. These kids do not seem to have that difference. Believe it or not there is a difference between live laziness and remote laziness. The first major difference is the time frame. Normal classes have an excess of 50 minute classes. As stated before the shortest classes I have taught live were 50 minutes, and the longest was 84 minutes. In class, you can be lazy and not work for minutes at a time and still have time to do the work. As discussed in Challenge 3 the flow of a class allows time for student work. While it is not the best idea, students can laze around during the work time provided they have the work ethic and time management to utilize the remaining time. This difference does not occur during remote instruction. Why? Because there is only 30 minutes of class time. Once my class is over I do not have any control on what my students do in their spare time. Ideally, after class is over, or near the end of their final classes you should do your work. This is what you should do whether you are doing live instruction or remote instruction. But most of the students just check out after their final class. They attend class, do some work in class if there is time allowed, and then stop from there. Of course, as I am not present I do not know what my student's homelife is like. They may have to work, they may have to watch their siblings, or they may have family troubles. All of these reasons could explain why they do not do any work at all. Based off this, it is a little unfair to say all the students are lazy. You truly cannot blame them based on these circumstances. What you can blame them for is not contacting their teachers .

When I was a wee lad in high school, so about two inches shorter than I am now, we rarely contacted our teachers. If we needed to talk to our teachers we did so before class, during class, or after class. My teachers did not give out their e-mails. Or if they did, we never contacted them. Now, as a teacher myself, I find my students do contact me through e-mail. They will ask for help on assignments, or to tell me they are leaving early or something. This did not really happen when I was in high school. It is a weird change of pace. It is kind of weird how it went from little to no contact with teachers to being able to contact teachers whenever. My students can contact me three ways: through my school e-mail, through the Google Classroom Page, and through an app called Remind Me. Students have the opportunity to contact me if they need to. But the truth of the matter is that they do not contact me. How long does it take to send a quick e-mail or message, “Mr. Herrera, I’m going to be out today…” I think that does not take too long to do. A few seconds at most. 

And that brings me to my final challenge. Challenge #10: Tired of remote instruction. I heard this so often from my students. “I’m tired or remote instruction.” Oh yeah? Well. I am tired of teaching remotely, but here we are. Somehow, and I do not understand this logic, because they are tired of remote instruction, that means they can not do the work. I really heard that so often. My automatic response was, “We’re all tired. But we have to do it anyway.” One student tried telling me that it was different for me as a teacher. I got paid for being remote, the students did not. My job is to teach. Their job is to learn. It does not matter if they get paid to attend class or not. There are so many jobs out there that require at least a high school diploma. I have said so many times to my students, “The skills you learn in high school will follow you for the rest of your life.” You learn so much during high school. You learn how to interact, how to work, and plenty of other important characteristic and qualities to survive in the real world. 

A few of my students wanted to go to trade school instead of going to college. I tell them that that is a perfectly wonderful future ahead of them. But to get into trade school you need to pass high school first. Not only that, if you routinely not show up, do not do you work, and never contact your employer or fellow employees, you will not get hired. They tell me that it will be different when they get paid for it. I disagree. Old habits die hard. They spent the last year year-and-a-half, slacking off. That is very hard to break. They will have a rude awakening if they do not wake up now, and fix their behaviors before its too late. 

Lastly, I disagree with the notion, that because I am getting paid to do remote instruction, it is different. It is not. Here is why. I do not get paid enough to do remote instruction. Teachers do not earn as much as they should, and we certainly do not make enough to make up for remote instruction. I am not a teacher for the money. Being paid is a perk. I am a teacher because I want to help raise the next generation. I want to get students interested in learning; I want to enable kids to learn how to think critically. I want to give kids the skills to adapt to the real world and to follow logic and reasoning. I am a teacher because I want to teach people the science I learned. I am tired of remote instruction. I am tired of logging on to a screen where no kids show up. I am tired of logging on to my computer and not being able to grade student work because there is no work to grade. I am tired of spending my days attached to my computer where I spend hours doing nothing. 

I am a teacher. I want to teach. I want to be in the classroom. I want to interact with the students. I am an extrovert. I like being in the same vicinity as others. I enjoy interactions outside of my computer. I am autistic. While I interact with my students I need to see them to make sure I can teach them effectively. Remote Instruction makes it very hard to teach. From the problems of expectations, student attendance, lesson time constraints, where the students are physically seen in class, the children being young people, the availability of the Internet, computer problems, camera malfunctions, student laziness and tiredness, remote instruction was not an easy time to be a teacher. We all struggled, from the neurotypical teachers to the atypical teachers. But we all had one thing in common: we all wanted to make a difference in the world. Even something as drastically dangerous as the Pandemic of 2020 was not enough to stop us. 

We remained. We survived. And we taught. 

Next time on Autism and Education, Science and Me we are going back to some research, where I will begin discussing Asperger’s Syndrome. Look forward to it. 

            Thanks for listening. This video was different from my usual format. This topic was less research and more just a long rant. These are all my personal opinions. I am sure some of my challenges resonated with some teachers. But it also could be that they disagree with all of these points. My point for this episode was to just discuss what I saw and felt. I welcome any comments or feedback on this episode. Share with your friends, engage with others, and just talk about. Safely of course. I feel obligated to say stay socially distant, wear your masks, and get vaccinated. Let us do what we can to bring students back to the classroom. Until then, I will still be here. Waiting in limbo until I record again. See you next class.