McKayla Walz started 2020 with a student teaching placement preparing for her career in education with a job at Kwik Trip to earn extra money.
Now she is an essential employee picking up overnight shifts and making herself available to her students anytime she isn’t sleeping or working.
McKayla Walz does a video lesson with her students from her home reading room. Walz is among 198 students continuing their student teaching experience remotely this spring.
“It’s hard to say no to work right now because Kwik Trip is deemed essential because people still need the gas and groceries we have there,” she said. Semi-truck drivers depend on us for food because they can’t go through the drive thru. We’ve gotten busier because they’re so grateful we’re able to put food out for them.”
She’s also having trouble saying no to students who can’t connect with her during her office hours and message her late into the evening or early in the morning.
“If they are asking genuine questions at 7 at night about homework I try to be flexible,” she said. “If I am not at work or in a deep sleep, I try to answer them as soon as I can.”
Walz is among 198 St. Cloud State University education majors continuing to work on their student teaching experience remotely this spring.
She started student teaching in a fifth grade class at Paynesville Elementary School in January. March 17 was her last day in the classroom. For the next eight days she and her cooperating teacher met with fellow teachers in the building, collected resources, planned curriculum and made plans to deliver their lessons online.
All but four St. Cloud State student teachers were able to continue their experiences working remotely, said Kathryn Young, Office of Clinical Experiences director. The four who couldn’t are doing supplemental replacement experiences.
The teachers’ willingness to work with students despite the added work of transferring their own classes online shows the value student teachers are bringing to their classrooms, Young said.
Education majors graduating from St. Cloud State University are required to spend 16 weeks in a classroom working with students. These student teachers work in a classroom with an experienced teacher who mentors them throughout the experience.
While the students aren’t in a physical class anymore, they are still assisting with lesson planning, recording lessons and holding office hours to answer student questions online and through distance learning.
“The disruption hasn’t disrupted their student teaching, they are just doing it differently,” Young said. “A lot of our students are tech savvy. I’ve gotten emails from cooperating teachers raving about our teacher candidates’ contribution to the online instruction efforts.”
McKayla Walz does a video lesson on reading comprehension for her fifth graders.
Preparing lessons
Walz and her cooperating teacher pre-record lessons for their fifth graders to view when they are able to tune in.
It’s hard to do online learning with elementary school students because they are still learning self-pacing and self-discipline, Walz said.
In their classroom, they are using a mix of recorded lessons on Google classroom and paper handouts sent home with students before social distancing began.
“This is definitely not how I pictured myself finishing my college career and heading into my professional career, but we’re making the best of what we can,” she said.
University supervisors too are stepping up to support the student teachers and supporting them by checking in with student teachers and observing Zoom classroom sessions.
State licensing requirements require 12 weeks of face-to-face experience in the classroom. No students were able to meet that, so Teacher Preparation Programs have confirmed variances to allow them to seek their license with the nine to 10 weeks they’ve had in the classroom, along with their continued work in the online and distance learning opportunities. A bill in the state legislature is seeking to give this spring 2020 group of student teachers in the state more time to take the licensing tests since testing centers are currently closed.
St. Cloud State is working hard to support their cases by collecting data on the classroom observations that have been done as well as recording meetings they’ve had with cooperating teachers and recording lessons they are producing, Young said.
Shannon Keenan is ready to connect with her eighth grade students from her virtual classroom.
New experiences
The students are finding that this experience is giving them a new way of learning about the kids in their classrooms.
They are learning to be understanding. Some of their children don’t have the ability to go online because they do not have devices or bandwidth and devices are shared by multiple family members, so they are learning to adapt, Young said.
Shannon Keenan is a special education major student teaching eighth graders at Monticello Middle School. Since special education is a K-12 license, she had just finished her first eight weeks at Foley Elementary School and was only scheduled to be in Monticello for eight weeks.
She arrived March 9, just one week before students were sent home to observe social distancing.
“I barely got to know my students,” she said. “It was difficult at first. Some of the students didn’t even remember my name.”
Working with students with emotional and behavioral disorders, Keenan saw her students struggle at first with the new form of learning.
She’s been checking in with each of her students every day to see how they are doing. She’s helping create short lessons for them to focus on helping them to maintain a positive attitude, stick to a routine and manage stress and anxiety.
“They have never had to take responsibility for their own learning before, so that’s been difficult,” Kennan said. “So checking in with them every day and reminding them what they have to do has been somewhat helpful for them.”
For her remote classroom she’s been using Schoology, Infinite Campus and Go Guardian. She’s also been meeting twice a week with her cooperating teacher and in Google meets with the eighth grade team.
“I’m glad that I have this experience because I think it’s really nice to be able to explore the online resources and hear from other people and just communicating with other teachers in a different way,” she said. “Maybe I will start online teaching with my first job. Who knows what will happen.”
Angelica Hagen does an virtual video lesson for her art students on warm and cool colors.
Adapting to disruption
COVID-19 is an unprecedented disruption in their student teaching, Young said.
A St. Cloud State education major spends their last semester teaching 16 week in the classroom. Some majors spend all 16 weeks in the same classroom, but others who will seek a license covering a wider range of ages spend eight weeks at the elementary level and another eight weeks in a secondary school classroom.
Some student teachers were with their students for nine weeks before students were sent home to work remotely, others only had one to two week with their second class of the semester.
Angelica Hagen is an art education major. After spending eight weeks at North Junior High School in her secondary placement, she had only one week at Discovery Elementary School before school was let out.
She and her cooperating teacher see more than 700 students in their art classes.
“Doing everything online now is a big change. It’s hard getting used to learning all the ways to use technology,” she said.
As her cooperating teacher focused on getting information for the district and making sure students had the access they needed to get connected online, Hagen helped out by thinking of lesson plans that could be presented to students with limited access to art supplies.
A major challenge for Hagen and her cooperating teacher is finding ways for all students to participate in lessons because some students don’t even have paper and pencils at home, she said.
“It makes you reflect more on your own teaching and how to reach them,” she said.
She and her cooperating teacher are making plans to put together packets of art supplies for the students who need them, who have been doing alternative lessons on their iPad instead of joining in when they lack the supplies.
Since art is a weekly class for students at the school, Hagen’s classroom has been pushing out lessons to their students once a week. Hagen has been recording herself doing demonstrations for the students to follow along. They have a week to take a picture of their work and submit it through an online learning program SeeSaw.
One lesson for third and fourth graders involved bubble printing with food color, straws and paper. In some cases the lesson turned into a fun activity for the entire family as siblings saw the lesson and wanted to get involved, she said.
Hagen, like all the student teachers, misses connecting with students in the classroom. They are finding setting up video chats and office hours gives students a chance for that personal connection they would get in the classroom, she said.
“They can come and say ‘hi’ and ask questions,” Hagen said. “It’s nice to see their faces and ask them how their day’s been going. It’s crucial for them to have someone they can talk to about anything like that.”
These video chats have led to fun conversations and new insights into children’s lives that a teacher doesn’t get in the classroom. Many times the students will take the chat on a tour of their room or house, or introduce their siblings or pets, she said.
“I’m actually glad I’m getting this experience,” Hagen said. “It will help in my future career too. I can say that I have this experience and I can be more flexible with unexpected situations.”
