Dear McCall Parents and Guardians,
I
hope you are well. I would like to take this opportunity to share with
you some of our teachers’ experiences with remote teaching and
learning. One of the questions teachers often ask themselves is whether
to require students to turn on their cameras while they are on Zoom.
We understand some students are reluctant to turn on the cameras because
they are conscious about their own appearances or how their background
may look to others. However, it is also important to recognize the
negative impact to the students’ remote learning experiences if they
consistently attend Zoom classes without having their cameras turned on.
For example, it is very difficult for some teachers – impossible for
others – to properly provide feedback to the students without being able
to see them. This is particularly the case for teachers who teach
performance-based skills such as those in the music, physical education,
and World Language departments. Those teachers have to be able to see
the students do what they are being taught to do in real time in order
for the instruction to be effective.
The
other reason that teachers are encouraging students to turn on cameras
during Zoom lessons is because effective instruction is often dependent
on the relationship the students have with their teachers. It is very
difficult for teachers to develop those relationships if they do not
have important information that is conveyed through the facial
expressions and body language of the students during instruction.
We
are also finding that some students consistently have a hard time
following the norms their teachers have set for their remote classes.
Some examples of those incidences include students walking away from
their Zoom sessions for long periods of time, family pets and younger
siblings distracting the students and interrupting the entire remote
lesson, and students zooming while in bed dressed in manners that are
not appropriate for the school setting.
When
establishing classroom rules and norms, I often asked teachers and
staff to think carefully about what the underlying reasons are for
putting them in place. In a world where it is so important all of us to
be flexible, it becomes even more important for all of us to make sure
we are not spending time and energy enforcing rules that really do not
lead to the students attaining the learning goals we want them to
achieve.
I
understand the challenges of managing your students’ at-home learning
at the same time that you are meeting the demands of your professional
and everyday lives. When our teachers reach out to communicate with you
about the challenges they are facing with your students’ remote
learning, I hope I can count on you to understand what we are asking the
students to do during remote lessons is truly important to helping them
reach their learning goals. I hope I can also count on you to
collaborate with our teachers and problem-solve through the challenges
they face so that your students are able to learn as effectively as
possible.
Thank you,
James Lin
Principal McCall
Middle School
