What I Tried During Distance Learning: Communicating With Students (Part 3)

I'm a reflective writer--it helps me organize and think through things. My administration asked me to do a writeup of the things I tried and did during our time of distance learning, to include as a part of my professional evaluation. So I figured I'd try to pivot it, and turn it into something that's useful for my practice and continued development. I hope this is helpful for other people too.

• Part 1: Necessary Changes
• Part 2: The Classwork
• Part 3: Communicating with Students (this post)
• Part 4: Questions I Still Have

Being systematic in my communication

• One of my first instincts with distance learning, in the middle of a pandemic, was that the goal and focus of our education should change in response. My working theory was that the thing that kids are going to experience, learn, and remember from this time is not math content. The thing kids are going to learn about is self-direction, independent learning, and communicating digitally.
• That being the assumption, I reallocated a ton of my teacher energy away from curriculum to building a strong and consistent structure for communication and connection with students. In doing so, I focused on coaching students on things like goal-setting, managing longer-term assignments, accessing resources independently, and keeping abreast of the constantly changing landscape of participating in school. That is to say, I focused on building student cognitive and emotional capacity.
• This was one of the most complicated new systems I had to work out. I never had to do anything like it before. And I do not like talking on the phone. But I knew it was important to do.
• Initially, I said I was going to call up each of my 80 kids at least once a week, and then expect to text/call follow up with all of them again a second time, later in the week. I used Google Voice, and a spreadsheet I had developed to track my communication. The calling each kid, over the course of two days, was somewhat manageable, if exhausting. I immediately discovered that calling/texting each kid twice a week was unmanageable. Then after about six weeks, I dialed it back a little bit, to be a bit more strategic with my energies, in the name of sustainability. And here is the system I have developed.

A tiered system of contact

• The big idea I had to eventually figure out, was that I should have a clear tiered system of communication. At the bottom, I should have a communication method that is low demand, to capture most students. Then as we proceed gradually down the spectrum, the communication attempts are harder to ignore, ending with direct phone calls to parents and referrals to the school's student support team (SST). I also had to figure a timeline that seemed reasonable to match with this system.
• Below, I have represented this tiered system, along with a timeline. This system is based on the goal of weekly two-way communication between me and the student, where two weeks is too long to go without any prior communication. The tiers are:
• Text student --> call student --> email student --> email student, cc'ing guardians --> text guardians --> call guardians --> loop in SST.

• Note that the first two steps happen on the same day. I would text each kid in the morning, the following message:
• "How's your week going? I'd like to check in today. Unless I hear from you by then, we'll plan on our regular phone call check in at 2:40. Looking for an update on how you're doing and how [week's assignment] is going. Talk to you soon!"
• Towards the end of the school year, especially if it was a "light" week, or if it was a particularly exhausting week for the kids or I, I might change it up by sending either of the following messages:
• If we had solid two-way contact last week:
• "We can check in over text this week. I want to check in about how you're doing and how [week's assignment] is going."
• If I hadn't heard from them last week:
• "I'd like to check in today. Unless I hear from you by then, we'll plan on our regular phone call check in at 2:40. Looking for an update on how you're doing and how [week's assignment] is going. Talk to you soon!"
• The first option usually got a bunch of good responses. Kids were motivated to respond, because they don't like talking on the phone #GenZ. It also allows them to communicate in a way that fits their schedule a bit more. And it lets them plan their responses a little more, if need be.
• Offering the first option (text w/ no expectation of call) was also good for me, because it dramatically reduced the number of students I needed to call, reducing demand on my end. On the flip side, however, it did lead to a slight increase in the number of students I'd go more than a week without hearing from. So maybe a more appropriate use system would be to only extend this option to students who have demonstrated multiple consecutive weeks of successful communication via text, without me needing to call or email them or their guardians.
• All students had a pre-scheduled time that I called them--same time each week. I also did my calls on the same day each week. Initially that was Monday, but I switched that to Thursdays. This was because students typically hadn't started work for the week by Monday, so they didn't have a ton of questions yet. I also wanted to give a kid a few more days to reach out to me on their own, through office hours or something--which would then count as their point of contact for the week. If I could pick again, I might go for Wednesday next time, because it still gives kids a couple days for us to work with, in terms of planning for completing work later in the week. 

Tracking contact

• I wanted to pair this tiered communication system with a tracker that allows me to quickly update a kid's status, filter and sort for different kids with different statuses, all while putting any contact info I may need at the ready (namely phone numbers, emails, and preferred contact info). Some may ask, "Don't you have a student information system, that has all this?" To which I respond, "Yes," as well as, "LOL." Cumbersome at best, for this purpose.
• I made a spreadsheet that does this pretty well. It has adapted and grown over time, so this is the most advanced, cleanest version. Here is a blank template. Note the communication template. It has a drop-down menu with statuses for students that align to the communication system outlined above. Throw in a couple filters, and you're in business.
• Column H indicated the default mode for how I reach out to those students:
• Text: they've effectively communicated with me for multiple consecutive weeks via text, and so are extended the option to check in via text, w/o expectation of phone call later that day should they not respond
• Call: call unless they text back before scheduled time
• Hangouts: for students who don't use phones, I taught them how to use Google Hangouts. It's much quicker/easier than email
• Email: for the very few students who didn't want to use Hangouts, for whatever reason. This wasn't typically effective.
• Note, this was made to be useful for teachers and their work. Throughout all of this, downtown, administration, SST, and guidance were all constantly hitting us with different versions of different spreadsheets, the same spreadsheets, all requiring of teachers different levels of fluency with spreadsheets. I believe that it would be possible to give a school full of 50 teachers this kind of tracker, train them in how to use this, and then have a connected "admin view" that collects all of this information, and complies it. I'd be interested in hearing if any of your schools have done something like that.
• My school instituted daily "office hours," which were times where teachers were technically supposed to make themselves available for students. I was always available for students who needed help then, but I was also pretty much available whenever any students needed a quick support-session in general. Combined with the already existing regularity of my weekly communication routine, the office hours were pretty unused. So the existence of office hours didn't impact students accessing real-time support from me.

The next post in this series is Part 4: Questions I Still Have.