It’s official: my school district will be opening soon in a hybrid Learning model. For my school, that will mean that we teach the cohort of students who are back for in-person learning (the “roomies”) in the morning while teaching those same lessons to the remote students (the “zoomies”) in the afternoon.

Hybrid learning is going to be one more huge challenge in an already challenging year. To help ease my stress by planning for it, I’ve been gathering tips and suggestions.

I know that many of you have been teaching in a hybrid learning model for months now, and we could all benefit from hearing about your experiences! Please email me or comment below with YOUR tips and tricks. I for one need all the help I can get!

*Assign a peer learning buddy to every student. My in-person students will be part of two separate cohorts. Cohort A will attend school on Monday and Tuesday and do remote learning for the remainder of the week. Cohort B will attend school on Thursday and Friday but will be remote on Monday through Wednesday. A few of my students will be remote every day. Since everyone is going to be remote for at least part of the time, and since my time will be stretched even thinner than it already is, I am going to need my students to help each other more than ever.

Each student will have a buddy that is on the opposite rotation schedule. Any time they have questions about an assignment or just need help with something, I am training them to go to their buddy first. (This is a version of “ask three before me” that many teachers use in the classroom.) It’s important when assigning the buddies that you pair kids with someone with whom they feel comfortable. Otherwise, they might not want to ask that person for help, even when they need it.

For those teaching in a blended model (with students both in-person and remote at the same time), this would work for helping the remote students to be able to ask questions of their buddy or for their buddy to ask the teacher to help the remote student.

*Keep group work virtual. One thing that is stressing me out is how to continue doing small group instruction and allowing students to talk to each other in small groups. I’ve decided to just keep it virtual. The roomies and the zoomies would log in to Google Meet or Zoom as they usually do. Then I can meet with them at the same time. If I want more small groups, I would simply send them to breakout rooms. This may somewhat defeat the purpose of in-person learning, but we can’t have everything.

*Keeping the same assignments for both remote and in-person students and providing those assignments on the same learning platform that we’ve been using. There is no sense in creating multiple assignments and I want to handle as little paper as possible.

*Keeping some flipped classroom techniques in mind, I’m also thinking about how to maximize the “teacher time”. By that, I mean that I want my students to do things that don’t require my presence (such as watching a video or reading independently) while saving the activities that need me or need other students (such as solving math problems, giving feedback on writing assignments, or having a discussion about the reading) for “teacher time.”

Besides watching videos during the asynchronous time, I’m also thinking about using a reading text or website for students to explore. Then they can add their thinking to a tool like Padlet or a Google doc. When we are together as a class, we can discuss the work they did in the asynchronous time.

Some great tools for flipped classroom time are EdPuzzle and Actively Learn.

*Give myself grace. Many things will go wrong or just not be as effective as I had hoped. For those situations, I’m going to call them “learning experiences” and figure out how to do better. But I am not going to beat myself up over them because this is an entirely new world for all of us.

*Building community in this hybrid model will be a priority. We will continue having a daily class meeting with both the “roomies” and the “zoomies” participate together. We will continue to have our daily class circles and occasionally play games together. I’m going to have each cohort develop their own class norms together. I am currently collecting ideas for maximizing ways to have my cohort “zoomies” talk and interact with each other in a socially distanced way. (That will be the subject of a future post, so stay tuned!)

*I will continue to do regular Google forms check-ins where I ask students questions about our classroom structures and activities and get their feedback. These have been enormously helpful to me during remote learning since I can make adjustments based on student feedback. This builds trust in my students when they see that I adjust to meet their needs.

*Developing systems and routines for getting stuff done is always important, but never more so than when I’m trying to juggle so many different tasks and schedules. I do this by making detailed “things to do” lists for each day. It seems a little obsessive (okay, maybe it is), but it helps me keep all the details of all the things I need to do in some sort of order. Once I get into more of a routine, it isn’t necessary to list every little thing but it helps me keep it all straight in the beginning. Plus, there is nothing that makes me feel more productive than checking stuff off my list!

*Plan for breaks. Some of the most important tasks I add to those to-do lists are break times. Time to take a break from the computer and eat lunch, time to take a brief walk outside (or around the school), time to chat and reconnect with school friends.

*Don’t grade everything. I know that goes against what we feel like we should be doing as teachers. But think about it — we have to set limits for what we can do in this highly unusual teaching situation. Decide what you will grade and what you will check off for completion. Or select a few parts of the assignment that you look at more closely and let the rest go. Using tools like Google Forms with multiple choice answers also helps with grading.

*Finally — take care of YOU. No one else is going to do it. You have to think about what you need to replenish your energy and then give yourself time and permission to do that. Here are some ideas:

~set boundaries for when you will check and respond to email
~set boundaries for how long you will work on grading. Grading is just like laundry – you’re never really caught up. So set a goal for how long you will grade student work or how many assignments you will grade in a day. Then stick to that.
~get some exercise every day. Not necessarily by going to the gym, but by getting some movement that makes you feel better.
~drink enough water. A good goal is half your bodyweight in ounces of water daily.
~get enough sleep.
~take breaks whenever you can during the day.
~meditate or just sit in silence for a few minutes every day.
~ask for some help. Get help at home and divide up the workload at school. Asking for help is never a sign of weakness – it’s a sign of strength that you know what you need and you are willing to ask for it.

What tips can you share with all of us?

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