Inside the virtual classroom

Northview teachers and students strive to adapt to online education

Northview teachers of all departments adapt to online education, drastically transforming their classrooms

Photos by Elizabeth Lake

Suhani Mahajan, Staff Writer, Juliette Salah, Staff Writer, and Grace Peng, Managing Online & Social Media Editor

After much deliberation over the summer on the educational setting in the fall - including a period of intense debate over the choice of immediately returning to face-to-face learning - Fulton County ultimately decided to proceed with Universal Remote Learning (URL). Students would learn entirely from home, spending the school day on their laptops. Teachers and staff, on the other hand, would spend their days in their empty classrooms. 

“The life of a school is really its student body,” Principal Brian Downey said. “But [it’s] just so very different than having you guys in the building, even dealing with some of the silliness, minor discipline, and typical high school drama. All that is kind of fun because there's an energy to it and you talk to kids.”

For returning students, the transition to virtual learning has been a slow but an understandable change. For freshmen, this was not the most welcome induction into high school. Even so, teachers and older students helped them adjust to the new, more intense regimen. Freshman Noa Huet is one of an entire class of students who entered high school via laptop camera and microphone.

“It was kind of strange [to transition to high school] because I didn't know the teachers at all. And the way they teach - it’s a little bit different,” Huet said. “We also have more quizzes and tests than before in River Trail Middle School.”

The beginning of Huet’s high school journey has been slightly easier than most because he has an older brother who is currently a student at Northview. Although Huet has handled his fair share of struggles, he and his family have done their best and appreciate the efforts put forward by Northview’s teachers.

“During his eighth grade year, the school organized a meeting for parents to talk about high school and the requirements needed before entering ninth grade.” Natacha Huet, Noa’s mother said.

Huet, like any other student, has gone through a number of technological errors, especially in the first two weeks of school. However, since the beginning of the third week, as he has slid into the routine of online learning, the technological errors happen less often, and the setting is more bearable. 

“My dad stays at home, and my mom goes to in person work,” Huet said “I call from my desk, and my brother from his own room. I use the Dell laptop [they] gave us at River Trail.” 

For returning students, online learning has been a less-than-favorable transition. To  junior Charles Dodenhoff, certain things have proven to be more challenging than others, especially with such a rough start of the school year. 

“With my Chromebook, it just stopped,” Dodenhoff said. “It decided to not want to take my Wi-Fi at my house.” 

While this issue has been fixed, other things still remain a challenge. Additionally, certain classes have been a little more difficult than others depending on the subject and the different accessibility to the things normally found in a classroom. Some people are visual learners, some prefer having group activities, and some prefer being able to ask the teacher for a more in-depth explanation. Because of this, virtual learning is found unpleasant and difficult by many. 

“[Normally] it's all easier to do help sessions and stuff like that than having the two days a week that we have now,” Dodenhoff said.

Along with that, students have struggled to find a new work environment. Working from home can be easy for some, but more challenging for others. Some students have younger siblings to watch and take care of. Some find themselves with siblings in the same room while trying to work. Others might be faced with different distractions because they work from home. 

Regardless of the problems faced, both teachers and students are doing their best to make it through these virtual teaching times, at least until students can start returning to school, which is much anticipated by the teachers.

“It's a slower pace because you don't have that urgency.” Downey said. “When the kids are here in the building, there is an energy and flow and tempo to our work.”

Downey, even as an administrator, has felt the change since school went virtual last March. But numerous teachers have felt firsthand the newfound struggles of teaching content to students they have never met before. From teaching a language, to a STEM course, to theatre, Northview teachers strive to overcome these barriers.

Math

The traditional math class used chalkboards. But then came the overhead projector, and then the whiteboard and dry erase marker. And of course, 2020 marked the rise of screensharing and live cameras.

Algebra teacher Blake Pinto is in his second year of teaching at Northview, which means he has had to redo much of the training that new teachers have had to go through, including being introduced to new software. However, despite these setbacks, he has continued to do his best to simulate the kind of in-classroom chemistry.  

“It's a lot harder to guarantee that the information is coming across, [but] I like that we can still have videos provided for kids so they can go back and rewatch it,” Pinto said. 

“But we lose the guarantee that people are seeing this, that they're hearing it, that they're understanding it.”

Math education revolves around the understanding of a certain concept. The teacher introduces the concept and puts it in action through an example or two on the board to help the student understand. Math teachers have found a variety of ways to adapt to virtual learning, using methods such as a live camera over paper or white board to typing up notes and examples before hand to present during live meetings. Pinto, instead, opts for a third option. 

“I've been using Microsoft Word. I project my Word up on the board and, using the interactive whiteboard, I draw on the Microsoft documents [with an interactive marker]. I'm just showing my students the Microsoft document and they get to follow along like that,” Pinto said. “I appreciate that for days with particularly complicated notes, I can actually save that Word document and give it to them.

Like many other teachers, Pinto has also gotten into the habit of recording lessons with new content and then saving them into Microsoft Stream. This provides a source of review for many students who may have been unable to attend the lesson or have been unable to keep up.

Pinto teaches limits through Microsoft word and projector marker to a physically empty classroom.

Photo by Blake Pinto

“I think the real difficulty from that comes down to the fact that it's a lot harder to judge whether or not they're getting it on the fly,” Pinto said. “Normally in the classroom, you can judge by people's faces. You can judge by who's answering questions and how they're feeling.”

One of the major struggles with virtual learning has been the lack of a collective educational environment. Pinto, like nearly all teachers, does not require students to turn on the cameras, and thus must spend the day teaching at a screen of initials and profile images. But the presence of numerous face streams often puts a strain on the already stressed network. 

“Instead, I just make sure they're answering questions. We do a lot of call and response in my class. So as long as they turn their mics on from time to time and speak, I'm not too worried about their cameras,” Pinto said.

This lack of face presence means that a crucial part of the traditional educational environment is gone, and teachers like Pinto must assign a “Ticket Out the Door” for lessons to ensure that the student understands content and is prepared for any upcoming exam.

“We've used Illuminate a lot more. Another testing program we've used is Microsoft Forms.” Pinto said.

Despite the struggles, Pinto is already looking forward to returning to school. He plans on continuing the current learning system he has incorporated -  including teaching through computer microphone and Word documents. But the logistics of assignments and testing are still some of the many things that are yet to be determined.

“My setup will translate. There are still parts of it that we don't have figured out. I know assessments are going to be a weird thing to do when we only have a quarter of the students in any given day. But I think every facet of this is going to take a lot of thought,” Pinto said.

World language

Learning a language can be challenging enough, but learning a language virtually can be even harder. In a normal class, there are many interactive activities that allow students to practice the language and work with others in their class. The teacher might have games, books to read, videos to watch, and projects to work on in groups. This, as one might expect, has been challenging to do online.

“While in class, everything is so easy. For instance, I can just say turn to your partner, think of something, and then share it with your partner,” Catherine Francisse, a French teacher at Northview, said. “Here, I have to create breakout rooms. I have to make sure that you know they are connected. I have to switch from one room to another. It takes more time.”

In addition to that, the world language teachers have not had any particular training on ways to teach a language online.

“The only experience that I had is to see colleagues and friends, or a teacher actually during the summer,” Francisse said. “And what we did in the spring.”

Moreover, world language teachers face an issue that many teachers at Northview can relate to: not knowing the new students. While a majority of students will interact, either by turning cameras on, using the chat function, or raising their hand, some choose to remain silent during the whole class.

“I teach a lot of the freshmen, but I don't know them, and that saddens me because the connection is not the same,” Francisse said. 

Beyond teaching some of the French classes, Francisse is also in charge of the French Club and French Honors Society. While, unfortunately French Club has been put on hold until students return to school physically, French Honors Society has been able to adapt to the new virtual school. The students in the honors society will be able to set up communication between other students from France. Though some things have been difficult, teachers have done what they can to adapt to this new online environment. 

“Teachers have been pretty impressive,” Francisse said. “No matter how old, we all jumped into Microsoft Teams and learned to use it to the best of our abilities, it works.”

Art

Art teacher Jeannette Clawson packages supplies for her students.

Photo by Jeannette Clawson

Jeannette Clawson, a longstanding art teacher at Northview, is currently teaching six different classes: Intro to Art, Drawing and Painting 1, 2, and 3, AP Drawing, and AP 2D. During some periods, she even has two different classes at once; however, this is common in the art department. Usually, Clawson instructs one of the two classes while the other one is left alone to work on independent work. Due to school being online, though, things are slightly different. Clawson still teaches two classes in one period, but has changed her teaching style for the moment to accommodate for the changes associated with online school.

“I just don't want to be in a situation right now where I'm not there for everyone at the same time,” Clawson said.

The decision for teachers to return to school came at the end of summer, leaving teachers with two weeks to prepare class instead of the normal one week that they usually take, but the two weeks were filled with rigorous training. With all of Fulton County moving on to Microsoft Teams, teachers had to learn how to navigate the new system themselves as well as redesign their lessons to be Teams friendly despite being limited by time and access to tools and materials. 

“Everyone's health and safety is the priority; I agree with that,” Clawson said. “Unfortunately, the nature of being in a global pandemic is that you're making decisions on the spot. And then you're accommodating the challenges and the results of those decisions as quickly as you can and it's not an ideal situation.”

Although teachers have come back to the building, they mostly stay in their classes and interactions between teachers are little to none. While social-distancing, Clawson does get to interact and formulate lesson plans with Brooke Bolduc, a fellow art teacher, but that is no substitute for her students.

“As far as the students are concerned, the physicality, really, contributes to how much I miss my in person interactions with my students,” Clawson said.

While Clawson may know her AP and more advanced Drawing and Painting students a little better, most of the students in her Intro to Art class are freshmen incoming from River Trail. Personally, she wishes to know her students - a feat nearly impossible via class chat - but Flipgrid has served as a useful alternative for Clawson to familiarize herself with her students. A third method is simply the sight of their faces during Teams meetings, and the sound of  their laughter when they are unmuted.

“I'm so glad when I can hear them laugh with me or ask questions and say things that are very thoughtful about their responses to things. What I realized is I already knew that I missed them and I longed for them,” Clawson said. “But then, seeing them through the screen, it brings me such joy, and yet it makes the longing all the more.”

Besides the difficulties of bonding with her students through an online platform, Clawson also misses the unique environment that her room used to serve for students. Aside from just her teaching, she recalls how students would converse at their own tables and bounce ideas off each other, helping each other grow. Not just that, but Clawson used to be able to observe the personalities of her students up-close, and decide how to pair up students best for peer-critiques. Now, though, students cannot have those one-on-one conversations, they must unmute themselves and talk in front of the whole class; the class dynamic is altogether different.

“We really got to know each other at a much more personal level. There's vulnerabilities and struggles that are expressed in this room because of the nature of the environment, and I feel like all of us thrive off of that. I feel like that my most interactive students do,” Clawson said. “So I really miss that a lot.”

Another less than ideal situation that the art department is having to sort out is the issue of supplies. Usually, class-sets of most supplies would suffice since students could have a general pick of whatever materials they would like to use from the classroom, but now, Clawson and Bolduc are working to create individual supply packages for students to pick up. The problem with this, though, is the acquisition of the supplies. Clawson has already had some orders either cancelled or unfulfilled barely weeks later; she is currently on her fourth vendor just to obtain watercolors. 

“I personally am finding myself being challenged to design or redesign my lessons in a way where the most students can have the most beneficial experience within the limitations that are representing themselves, because our goal is to grow everybody, as well as we can,” Clawson said. “These kind of challenges, certainly in the big picture of COVID and what's going on the world in the world are not big, but for me, this is my world that I'm trying to take care of.

But despite all the difficulties, it is all slowly coming together. Clawson predicts that soon, as online teaching becomes more comfortable for both her and her students, she can go back to asynchronous learning. And as for further long term, Clawson hopes for a brighter future.

“I can't tell what the future is, you know, I hope that my students will still want to be engaged in all the fine arts, even though it's a different experience and perhaps not as a broad fulfilling experience as it usually is,” Clawson said. “My greatest hope is that we'll all be back together, doing what we did before, but with the enhancements that we learn from this experience.”

Drama

Drama teacher Anna Pieri shares her new classrooms and the adaptations made - most notably, to record the meeting.

Photo by Anna Pieri.

Although Anna Pieri is one of the newer faces among the staff at Northview, she has already established a name for herself, through her outgoing personality and her hands-on teaching style for Northview theater kids. However, like Pinto, Pieri has also had to adjust to these drastic changes in such a small amount of time. But unlike Pinto, Pieri is unable to work from the stage, which is her traditional classroom. She works, teaches, and plans from her office in the Black Box Theatre.

“I think all the teachers in the building kind of feel like they're all first year teachers. That's true for me, too,” Pieri said. “It’s like it's a brand new world.”

Like many teachers, Pieri has had to follow the new guidelines set by the district, which include writing up lesson plans for each day of each week of class. She shares those plans with the class as an agenda for the day through Powerpoint slides. 

“It’s just little things like this that help to keep everybody on task,” Pieri said. 

 While this is a more unconventional route to theater education, which often revolves around the students’ performance, Pieri acknowledges that the change has its benefits. 

“For teachers that have been here forever, these are super easy. They can do it in here,” Pieri said. “The nice thing is that it keeps us organized and on task with the Universal Remote Learning.” 

Conveniently, the first few weeks of theater curriculum are usually based around discussions on the fundamentals of theater and theater technology. This means that the current circumstances provide a favourable learning environment for those new to the material, as Pieri can share Youtube videos through her screen for demonstrations on different kinds of equipment instead of having to physically lug each instrument into a space where it can be seen by the entire class. 

Pieri has also acknowledged that the recent trend of current events has helped her Advanced Drama students in tackling sensitive themes, such as racism, in a more comfortable manner than what normal circumstances would have allowed. 

“One month into the semester, [they] felt comfortable enough talking about really intense issues that even the adults I know think are hard to talk about,” Pieri said.

For student actors, a new focus that has emerged throughout the pandemic is the prevalence of video tape auditions. Pieri prepares her students for these kinds of auditions, which in real life will often replace the live auditorium audition. 

“The professional theater industry works nowadays is [that] you submit self-tapes online. And so I'm just kind of trying to focus on that part of my knowledge,” Pieri said. “We're already taping ourselves for things, so let's just focus it a little bit more on what it's like to submit a film audition.”

Part of this new kind of teaching is the use of new software. Flipgrid, for one, has been a major component of theater. But Pieri also utilizes the Class Notebook and Collaboration Spaces offered from Teams for assignments and group work.

As the future remains uncertain, Pieri and her students are trying their best to continue with their plans. All live drama productions for the semester have been canceled, but the actors are hoping to at least start performing in the spring, and bring to life many popular school shows, such as the Spring One Act Play. Their plans also include the annual Thespian conference, which was recently opened to all actors, instead of strictly veteran thespians, at a much lower price as a result of less logistical work. 

“It's one of those horrible beauties that happens out of trauma. You bond with the people you experienced that trauma with,” Pieri said. “And for everybody at Northview, we're all on our same team. And so I think that's actually brought us all a little bit closer together.”