Getting Creative with Google Classroom and Project-Based Learning
“We have one teacher who’s doing a fabulous job. She’s a big outdoorsy person, so she’s been taking her kids and videoing outside as she goes on a hike. She’ll post it as a field trip,” said Holly Rupp, assistant principal at Delta Middle School.
Only a week online and a 90% student engagement rate means Delta Middle School is doing something right. “Google Meet is being used heavily throughout the district to get kids online with their teachers,” Rupp said.
While some school districts are deploying high-tech video production setups to completely recreate the classroom environment online, that’s not an option for districts whose populations skew on the lower end of the socioeconomic totem pole. Delta County School District 50J in Colorado has roughly 56% of the student population receiving free and reduced lunch. According to Rupp, computers are not a household staple, and some of the students don’t even have access to the Internet. Finding a virtual learning solution that was easy to deploy and access was paramount.
Delta Middle School started their online classes on March 30, 2020. “We had about 2 weeks to get things up and running online. That’s been a challenge. A lot of staff did things online but not fully online from home,” Rupp said.
Delta County School District normally uses GSuite, so they’ve adopted Google Classroom and Google Meet as a way to manage classes and interact with students.
“On Monday, we post all of the content for the week. It’s a mixture of videos, documents, and text that the students have to read,” said Jesse Kendig, math teacher at Delta Middle School. “We want to introduce a more interactive element with Google Meet where we will actually host classes online so the students can interact with us. They miss that element.”
Moving online has given Kendig a chance to observe a new learning style in his classes. “We’re letting the students work at their own pace. If they want to get all of their work done on Monday and Tuesday, and then have the rest of the week to themselves, that’s okay,” he said. “Of course, we encourage them to work every day, but it’s interesting that certain students like to work more independently.”
For Kendig, a typical day as an online teacher starts with answering emails from students and parents. He then holds office hours from 12-4 pm to allow students to initiate a Google Hangout and get real-time help on lessons. Many of the teachers at Delta Middle School have also been FaceTiming students to make sure they are emotionally okay during this confusing time.
Like many states throughout the nation, Colorado governor Jared Polis announced that schools would remain closed through the end of the school year. The biggest question mark for Delta Middle School is how they’re going to test students to ensure their online lessons resonate. Colorado’s state standardized test, CMAS, has already canceled its 2020 assessments.
It’s much easier for students to cheat online than it is in the classroom where teachers can monitor Internet use. “We’re trying to move away from tests and just focus on projects,” Kendig said.
Project-based learning is keeping Delta Middle School’s teachers on their toes. Kendig’s most recent assignment asked students to step into the shoes of interior designers and make their parents the clients. The students had to work with their parents to redesign a room in their home, creating a budget, taking measurements, and evaluating costs, space, and timelines.
“I’m looking at this as an opportunity,” Kendig said. Whether they’re live streaming, producing videos, or just using Google Meet, the need to produce a project-based curriculum has never been higher. Delta Middle School is proof that creativity is the most important ingredient to a high student engagement rate online.