I never thought that I would begin my student-teaching year without a classroom.  When I had pictured my first year of teaching, I imagined sitting down at a desk labeled “Ms. Ireland,” hanging posters up on the wall, determining seating charts, and welcoming students at the door.  However, as this unusual school year got started, I very quickly realized that I did indeed have a classroom — one that looked nothing like I imagined.  Though re-inventing the classroom by transforming it from a physical space to a digital one was not an easy task, it allowed me to analyze the importance of classroom community, and develop strategies for creating and maintaining the feeling of being in a learning environment no matter the circumstances.

Every classroom, whether physical or virtual, needs to include these key components: structure, expectations, community, and ingenuity.  In the fourth grade classroom led by my mentor teacher, Ann, and myself, we achieved structure by beginning each day by reviewing our consistent daily schedule.  In this unfamiliar world of online learning, we ensured that students knew what to expect from each school day.  They could read the schedule before the day began by looking in our Google Classroom’s Stream, and ask any questions as they signed into the Google Meet for the day.  Additionally, we established high expectations through frequent reminders and modeling.  Many of these expectations had to be rebuilt from the ground up; gone were the days of instructing students to stay in their seat, raise their hand to share with the class, and line up quietly for lunch and recess.  Instead, students were directed to keep their cameras on throughout the day, write “me” once in the chat to share, and sign into the Google Meet promptly at the designated times.  My students and I reimagined these classroom expectations together, and Ann and I encouraged suggestions from students about how to better our practice.  For example, it was a student who taught us a new way of taking and sharing photos through Google Docs, which became the classroom norm for homework submissions.  This encouragement of student ideas was integral to the development of our classroom community.  With students and teachers seated miles apart and connected by a screen, we had to work extra hard to feel like we were learning together.  Over time, we developed a classroom community centered on mutual respect, promoting inquiry and expression, and celebrating vulnerability. 

Lastly, navigating the virtual classroom space required ingenuity.  In this virtual era, we could not use many of the teaching practices that have become commonplace — there was no opportunity to sort student desks into groups for collaborative work, no way to hang student creations in the classroom for all to see, and no whiteboard in front of the class on which to write.  Over time, I tried several learning platforms and took note of which the students reacted to in a positive manner.  From watching my students and their likes, dislikes, and interests, I eventually gained expertise in a few versatile learning platforms, including Jamboard, Nearpod, and learning games such as Kahoot and Jeopardy.  In order to maintain a sense of familiarity inside the virtual classroom, I felt it was important to find a small list of learning platforms that could be used in various subject areas, and ensure students were as comfortable navigating those platforms as they would be navigating a physical classroom space.  My students have enjoyed these platforms, and have frequently taken it upon themselves to create their own Jamboards, Kahoots, and other projects about subjects they are interested in, so that they may share them with the class.

For a more in depth look into how classroom community was achieved, and the learning tools used to reimagine the classroom, please visit the “Philosophy and Growth” section of this website.