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MPS teachers go the distance

Teachers help kids learn online and off

Submitted Photo Mandy Smith teaches art at Jim Hill Middle School.

When face-to-face classes resumed this fall, families in the Minot Public School District were given the option of sending their children back to school buildings or continuing the distance learning that had been started last spring due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Distance education is what teachers like Bryan Krahler, who teaches physical education at Minot High School-Central Campus, Andrew Lach, who teaches U.S. history and American government at Minot High School-Magic City Campus, and Mandy Smith, who teaches art to seventh-graders at Jim Hill Middle School, have been called upon to do.

Smith, who also teaches face-to-face classes this fall, has been teaching for five years at Jim Hill and has been a teacher for 16 years altogether. This isn’t her first experience using technology to teach students who are in a different location, but she said what she is doing now is different than her previous experience.

“I taught over the ITV system while I was working in another school district,” she said in an emailed interview. “ITV was different than the way we are doing Google Meets today. With ITV there was an adult supervising the students and they were in a classroom setting in their home school.”

The platform the Minot Public Schools has been using for distance learning is Google Classroom. A teacher creates a Google Meet and students can then join the classroom. Students are required to log in at assigned times and submit their assignments via Google Classroom. Smith said she uses her iPad and a laptop provided by the district to teach her distance learning students and makes videos in advance for her distance learning students to view. Smith said she teaches from her classroom at Jim Hill but the technology would enable her to teach from anywhere if it became necessary.

She said she also learned from her first experience teaching online last spring.

Submitted Photo Andrew Lach teaches U.S. history and government at Magic City Campus.

” I learned that if I can engage with and involve the students in discussion (even if it isn’t content related) those students do better with distance learning than students that don’t engage,” she said in the email. “Relationships are as important in distance learning as they are in in-person learning, but they are much harder to develop.”

Smith said she is teaching drawing and color theory to her students this fall and has moved into sculpture. She will be teaching painting and printmaking next.

“I am trying to hit the same learning targets at the same time as in-person learners,” she said. “The district is calling this parallel instruction. We can’t always do the exact same projects because of supply and equipment challenges, but we are trying to keep it as close as possible.”

Even though she is trying to make sure kids learn what they are supposed to this year, Smith said distance learning is not ideal.

” I am thankful for the option of distance learning, but I do think there are many drawbacks! In my opinion, distance learning just can’t compete with in-person,” she said. “With in-person learning I can walk around the room and catch mistakes as they are happening. I can teach mini lessons as I see the need. I learn so much about what students need as I walk around. I can’t see what distance learners are doing as they are doing it. Also, relationship building and just getting to know the students happens so much more naturally. The advantage to distance learning is that students have the opportunity to have access to a teacher when they can’t physically be in school.”

Krahler, who has been teaching at Central for two years and for eight years in the Minot Public Schools, is teaching four face-to-face classes and one class via distance learning. Last spring was the first time he had taught via distance learning.

He has managed to find innovative ways to teach phy. ed., a class that many might think couldn’t be easily adapted to technology.

“We have been doing strictly fitness activities,” said Krahler in an emailed interview. “Some days I lead them in exercises, yoga, etc. Other days I let them pick a workout of their choice and they record it for me on the FlipGrid website. Some days I let them just log what activity they are doing. Again this is all very difficult for PE because we tend to miss out on a lot of the social aspects that I think is important in our physical education classrooms.

“Many of our students are limited on equipment or items they can use at home so it is all planned for them to be able to do activity at home with either no equipment or basic things around the home. The issue is some students do not feel comfortable doing the activity in front of the camera. We try to work out a way that they can feel comfortable but I still need to see them do the activity. This helps me obviously assess them and make sure they understand what they are doing and why.”

His experiences teaching via distance learning last spring have given him some insight into what works.

“I learned that we need to be in constant communication with our students,” Krahler said via email. “We have limited opportunities to speak with our students one on one, since many do not always feel comfortable speaking in front of their class.”

Like Smith, he said distance learning can make it more challenging to build relationships with students, especially since some of them do not feel comfortable getting on and speaking at their computers.

He said he also sees some benefits to distance learning.

“Distance learning can be a way to start the process for students to learn how to self-advocate,” said Krahler. “They aren’t in the building and seeing staff wherever they go, so they need to be on top of things while they are at home.”

Lach, who has been teaching six years at Minot High School, said in an email that he has been teaching two sections of U.S. history via distance learning and three sections of American government face-to-face this fall. This year was the first time he had ever taught via distance learning.

“We knew very quickly that we needed to make distance learning as comparable to the regular classroom as possible,” said Lach. “That being said, we have worked very hard to provide students with daily interactions moving at the same pace and rigor as face-to-face education.”

Like Smith and Krahler, Lach said it can be difficult to build relationships with students when they are taught via distance learning, but they are still able to continue their education during a pandemic.

When the pandemic is over, teachers think distance learning might continue to be an option for certain classes.

“I believe that we have proven as educators the ability to deliver quality education online and students have proven that it can be very beneficial in the right circumstance,” said Lach.

The teachers all praised their students and their colleagues for doing their best and supporting one another in teaching and learning.

“Students seem to have been receptive to the challenges this pandemic has caused,” said Lach. “The young people at Minot High, whether face-to-face or distance, have shown great resiliency and desire for education. 2020 has had its challenges, I am proud to be able to educate such a great group of young people at MHS! Thank you to our community for all the support we have gotten through this difficult time!”

“Our administration, staff, teachers and students are constantly learning to adjust to our circumstances,” said Smith in her email. “I work with amazing people striving to be a part of the solution by impacting education positively for our students. I am thankful to the school board, the administration, the reintegration committee and my colleagues for the opportunity to serve students both in person and through distance learning. I am blessed to still be able to teach in person.”

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944 or call 1-800-735-3229. You also can send email suggestions to eogden@minotdailynews.com.)

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