PANDEMIC LEARNING
Online education through the eyes of a Pre-K teacher
Text & Photos by Kelsey Jean-Baptiste
On March 16, 2020, roughly 1,800 schools closed in New York City, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The school closures forced about 1.1 million children to transition to online learning.
Early April, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced that schools will be closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. Teachers are now faced with the challenge of keeping their students engaged for another two and a half months.
My mother, Dr. Sonia Jean-Baptiste, is a Pre-Kindergarten teacher at P.S 272 in Brooklyn, NY. With a Phd in Education, she has been teaching for 24 years in all grades, and seven years as a Math Coach. Dr. Jean-Baptiste has been finding new and creative ways to keep her classroom preschoolers engaged through a screen. Her biggest challenge has been the creation of alternate methods of learning that resembles what was being taught in the classroom.
8:00 am
USA, Brooklyn, NY, April 28, 2020.Dr. Sonia Jean-Baptiste cooking plantain for breakfast, and drinking her daily tea, before signing onto Class Dojo and Google Classroom. Keely Jean-Baptiste, one of her daughters sits across from her doing homework.
By 8 am Dr. Jean-Baptiste cooks breakfast and then takes a seat at her computer to log into Google Classroom and Class Dojo. Google classroom is a web based platform that is being used by the Department of Education, while Class Dojo, is an app that helps teachers interact with parents and children in and out of the classroom.
Dr. Jean-Baptiste was trained in Google Classroom two years ago, and has used it to teach her past 5th grade classes. She clocks in, remotely, and documents attendance as directed by the Department of Education and the P.S 272 principal.
Once signed in, Dr. Jean-Baptiste checks in with all of her parents making sure they are up to date with the assignments. She has 17 out of 17 parents signed onto Class Dojo, but only 15 are active, and of those, nine are active on Google Classroom.
Balancing two platforms is due to some of the students lacking access to the technology to sign on to Google Classroom. Class Dojo is an app that parents can use on cell phones.
9:00 am
Once she is finished checking in with her parents and students, she spends over an hour using both applications to post-work, sing-a-long videos, stories, and other assignments for the children to view and interact with.
USA, Brooklyn, NY, April 28, 2020. Dr. Jean-Baptiste eating while uploading her children's homework for other parents to see.
"It’s difficult to teach children online because you aren't teaching the children directly, you are teaching the parents some of the strategies and techniques to help them implement tasks, related to the curriculum, with the children," said Dr. Jean-Baptiste.
She provides curriculum tasks and texts to parents, guiding them as they teach their children through play. Some parents struggle with implementing intentional strategies and techniques that force children to think critically.
One of her biggest challenges is the loss of the bond that she has built with her children and co-teachers and the loss of a physical classroom. This is a challenge because a major part of Pre-Kindergarten is the socialization goals and learning through play, which happens through intentional planning, centers and verbal interactions with children.
"Once you teach online you never know if the parents are completing the tasks placed online. You don't know if the planned lessons are being implemented strategically for academic growth. I miss that one-to-one interaction where I am able to assess growth and development," she said.
However, she engages the parents by frequently posting personal comments, morning inspirational quotes, and by allowing parents to communicate through private messaging or on her cellphone.
USA, Brooklyn, NY, May 1, 2020. Screenshots of Dr. Jean-Baptiste personal posts on Google Classroom.
© Dr. Sonia Jean-Baptiste
Some parents don't have access to a computer and using her cellphone allows parents to reach her faster.
"From the first day I began teaching, I chose to give out my telephone number to parents. It makes me accessible to their children. I learned this early on when parents would call me to their children with homework. It was another way for me to connect with my students, inspiring them to apply themselves," said Dr. Jean-Baptiste.
USA, Brooklyn, NY, April 28, 2020. Screenshot of one parent communicating with her through text.
In total, since the start of the quarantine she has received over 50 photos of her children doing the work that she has assigned online. Seeing the hard work from some of the parents and children shows that, "I am effectively reaching parents who may struggle with teaching their children”, she said. This turns into an opportunity to celebrate their work, and it may raise the morale of other parents who view these posts.
"They get to see frequent examples of how to keep their four and five year old children active with online learning." Some of the work she receives are drawings, videos of her children learning to spell or doing an experiment, or audio of her children singing their favorite ABC rock song.
11:00am
USA, Brooklyn, NY, April 1, 2020. Zoom call with some of Dr. Jean-Baptiste's students.
Zoom and Google Meet are video communication tools that she uses to connect with her children and parents.
The Zoom calls are only 15 minutes because the children’s attention span may be limited. Some of her children leave the screen, talk to someone else in the room, or want to play with their toys. They become easily distracted and sometimes don’t understand why they have to see their teacher through a screen.
Parents are usually with the children to help them stay engaged, allowing them to participate in sing-a-longs and dancing. This on-screen time helps Dr. Jean-Baptiste connects with parents about other needs and concerns, so that learning is as effective as it can be.
Not all of her students participate in the Zoom calls because many of her students’ parents are essential workers, and it becomes difficult for them to be online during the day.
"I don't feel that the Zoom calls made a big difference because unfortunately, it is not the entire class that you are interacting with. Different things are going on in the students’ home that may affect the calls. I would like something more interactive and I am exploring what strategies in the platform allows for that," said Dr. Jean-Baptiste.
One platform that she is learning is Pear Deck, an application that she can apply to google slides, where the children would interact in real-time. If she poses a question, video, or photo on Pear Deck the students would be able to respond through voice immersion.
"Allowing the children to use this application would help because at their age they love using iPads, cellphones, and other forms of technology. Sharing additional tools with them would cause them to ‘feel grown’ by allowing them to speak with me through technology," she said.
12:00pm
USA, Brooklyn, NY, April 16, 2020. Dr. Sonia Jean-Baptiste taking a break from her class and preparing dinner.
By the afternoon, Dr. Jean-Baptiste takes a break from her classroom allowing the children to complete the work that she assigned in the morning. During this time, she works on the next day’s lesson plans or begins to prepare dinner for her family. She makes sure to take the time every day to do something that is not related to work.
“Taking time to not be on the computer helps, because it is my time to reflect. I think about how best I want to present activities so that children are making real world connections, during their new ‘normal’," said Dr. Jean-Baptiste.
Every day she only gives herself about an hour to step away from the computer but makes sure to go back on by 1:00 pm because online schooling ends at 2:20 pm.
1:00pm
USA, Brooklyn, NY, April 29, 2020. Dr. Sonia Jean-Baptiste laughing with her students on zoom.
After her break, she gets back onto the computer to view the work the children submitted. She grades their work and shares online what the children created or completed for other parents and students to view and comment.
"Posting the children's work gives parents a sense of pride. They can show their children and it sets an example for the other parents who may not be as interactive."
But it is also a sad part of the day because it reminds her of the limitations of online learning.
“This way is not interactive because in the classroom they can share their work and express themselves about what they created, without the presence of parents. Students are unable to foster academic and social growth by receiving feedback from classmates and teachers," she said.
Not being in school is a difficult setback for Dr. Jean-Baptiste because she misses being able to share moments with her children. But she is happy that she is able to continue interacting with her children in some way and is excited for when school reopens. She will be looping with her class to Kindergarten.
USA, Brooklyn, NY. Photos of Dr. Jean-Baptiste children doing her school work. The students are Maxwell (upper left), Sarenthia (Upper Middle), Alaia (Upper right), Zehn (Lower left), and Sarenthia (Lower right). ©Malita Esnard, Cynthia Vazquez, Sugeiry Perez, and Nakita Lewis.
P.S 272 Curtis Estabrook School
USA, Brooklyn, NY, April 26, 2020. The front of P.S 272 The Curtis Estabrook School. The school is now shutdown becasue one of the lunchroom staff contracted COVID-19.
Before Covid-19 quarantine, every day in the classroom the students sang in the morning, ate breakfast, went through their lesson of the day, ate lunch, took a nap, and then went home. Jenny Padilla, one of the parents in Dr. Jean-Baptiste's class says that she tries to keep teaching Jonael, her son, but the closing of the school has caused more stress on her as a mother.
"It’s very challenging. I have my hands full working, cooking, cleaning, and school trying hard to maintain sanity," said Urena.
Urena works as a Health Home Aide, and with the stress from work she comes home every day to take care of her three children. She makes sure they color, read and write every day to continue to challenge their minds.
USA, Brooklyn, NY. Jonael creating a science project given to him by Dr. Jean-Baptiste. ©Jenny Padilla.
Other parents feel that transitioning to online classes have made their children more addicted to screen time and have less time to interact with other students. Malita Esnard, another parent in Dr. Jean-Baptiste's class, says she understands the purpose of moving to online learning but says it is not an effective substitute.
Her biggest challenge is trying to teach her son Zehn and to view her as another form of a teacher.
"My child doesn’t see me as a “teacher” thus he don’t want me to teach him or play the role of a teacher. As a result, he states, 'I’m not Ms. Jean-Baptiste and that’s not how she does it.'"
Esnard says that Zehn is not able to understand that he can do schoolwork at home, and he is treating this as a vacation.
She is grateful for the assignments but says that he is regressing. "His attention is regressing, there are too many distractions in the home. He is now requiring assistance for everyday activities as well as schoolwork. For instance, writing words and using the bathroom," said Esnard.
In response, Dr. Jean-Baptiste says this goes back to the implementation of lesson plans with mindfulness. In the classroom, there are intentional lesson plans prepared to meet the needs of each child. As an educator, these are some of the skills that we are taught. Some of our parents are struggling with the challenge of being intentional when teaching their children, so the roles of mom versus teacher becomes blurred.
USA, Brooklyn, NY. Zehn in school. The photo was taken for him to remember his cubby. ©Dr. Jean-Baptiste
However, her goal for the 2020 – 2021 school year is to loop with her class to Kindergarten. This addresses the truncated school year, which caused a learning disruption and allows for the continued bond of teachers, parents and children.