So much for all those carefully-crafted, time-tested lessons I spent the past five years writing.
Last March, I was feeling pretty smug. 20-21 was going to be My Year. After five years of growing my current program, I was gonna coast. FINALLY. Good peer models? Check. Families know the routine? Check. Lessons mapped out for the year? Check. Gym lobby reserved for the dance next year? Check.
Easy Street!
I forgot about Murphy’s Law. Like a fool.
I know a lot of teachers are pretty pissed off about how this school year is shaking out. It’s been tough on us. At first, I was really depressed about having to start from scratch redesigning everything about my social skills class so it would address current issues and function in a remote environment. I mean, when you’ve mentally prepared yourself that it’s about to be Your Year, a pandemic is a solid kick in the teeth.
But I pulled up my Big Teacher Panties (thanks, COVID Fifteen!) and got to work.
The first two weeks were a dumpster fire. Nobody could get on the Webex. Nobody understood what to do. I was getting alllllll the grouchy emails. But the last two weeks have started to go a lot better. I was very tempted in those first two weeks to scrap everything new I’d designed, but the group stuck with it.
We got the hang of things, and now things are running pretty well. I want to share what I’ve been doing with other secondary social skills teachers; don’t reinvent my wheel!
Here’s what we’re doing.
We needed to preserve our existing small group (we call them our Color Groups) model for a couple of reasons. First off, having 35 kids all trying to be social in a single Webex room is a mess; I only get five migraine pills a month with my health insurance, and I don’t want to use them all up on one class. Second, we are used to and need the intimacy of small social groups; it’s how our cadets (peer models) really get to know the students and where we can really practice social skills and get meaningful corrective feedback. Setting up the color groups was a nightmare at first, but we did eventually figure it out.
Gird your loins. I’m about the drop a LOT of information on you. But…if you’re drowning, it may get your head back out of the water.
START CLASS WITH THE WHOLE GROUP We begin each 90-minute block class as a whole group in my personal Webex room. I created a Bitmoji classroom (yeah, I’m a sellout)
with simple buttons for getting into first the whole-group meeting, then individual color groups for breakout sessions. At the whole group meeting, we share any important information for the good of the order and have a look at what #flatdain has been up to on Twitter (Like Flat Stanley, but with our principal). Side note: we gave every student his/her own copy of Flat Dain instead of sharing him because of COVID and distance learning. I also pull up the daily lesson plan on screen share and do a quick overview with the whole class.
BREAKOUT INTO COLOR GROUPS I had a cadet in each color group set up the meeting link for their color group; they are the ones who kick those off. Everyone logs out of the whole-class meeting and into their color group meetings. And THIS is where your cadets (peer models) will make or break your class. The number one question I ask about applicants for these positions is “Is this the kind of person who will do the right thing whether I am watching them or not?” Times like this are precisely why this is so important. There are four adults. We bounce at random between each of the four groups to check in, answer questions, and offer corrective feedback. BUT…it’s the cadets who are running the groups. I write the lesson plan and prep things, but they lead. If I had a bunch of rotten cadets, this would be an untenable model.
If you haven’t opened up the lesson plans, yet, you probably need to now so you can see what I’m talking about. You can also click on video links to see me looking haggard and burned-out while teaching people how to make pencil holders out of old corn cans.
DAILY ROUTINE FOR DISTANCE LEARNING Groups all begin with some smalltalk. They can direct this in a way that feels natural, but I have a few review points for cadets to hit during this time. Those are on the lesson plan.
After that, groups implement a station rotation model. They can choose the order in which they do the stations each day, but they are expected to get through all of them. Stations are Physical Activity, Speaking/Listening, Sign Language Time (this is all Petra and Margot, two of my cadets, and the kids are loving it), and a Craft/Activity. My goal is to switch activities about every 15 minutes or so in order to keep us engaged. EVERYTHING is linked on the lesson plan for that day.
At the end of class, we all meet together as a whole group again to debrief.
***In case you were wondering, YES, we DID create and deliver a huge craft kit full of individually numbered kits for every student. This may not be workable for everyone. I teach in a relatively affluent, suburban school where my department is given annual funds to spend on stuff like 37 glue guns and 11,000 buttons. If you’re thinking “NOPE!!!”, don’t stop reading. You could just as easily do the other stations (that don’t take that level of money and prep) and leave off the crafting. Class would work out JUST FINE. But we’re a bunch of crafty people, and we need something to use our glue guns for since we aren’t making a Homecoming Float this year. Sigh.
“WHAT THE F–K ARE YOU TAKING THAT YOU HAVE THE ENERGY FOR ALL THIS CRAP?!?” No, I’m not using amphetamines. It’s more of a “pick when you want to work” scenario. I can do a LOT of work on the front end (planning, making videos, prepping kits), then watch class run like a well-oiled machine, or I can fly by the seat of my pants every day for 90 minutes, which makes me distressed. I’m a bad improviser. I’ll go with the prep work, then sit back and watch my cadets be rockstars during class time. It’s a personal preference. Luckily for you, I’ve done the work already. You could recycle what I’ve done, make a copy of the PDF, edit it, slap your school’s logo over ours, change the date, and laugh your ass off.
“ARE YOU JUST GOING TO KEEP DOING THIS MUCH WORK …ALONE…FOREVER?” No. That’s unsustainable. My cadets will begin creating materials, making instructional videos, and assembling kits shortly. But…the first two months of lessons are modeling for them. I’m teaching my cadets what I expect from them when the time comes (NOVEMBER 1, BABY!) when they begin to create most of the lessons. They need to have seen a lot of examples and worked through them in order to be ready to do good work. Want YOUR peer models to contribute to planning? Provide them with a project overview and assign them a lesson plan template.
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Clear as mud?!?
Just open up the links and start clicking on stuff. There may be something you see that makes you say “Ooooo! I could do something like that!”
Check SMSPLS out on social media to see more. We’re on Instagram and Twitter: @smsouthpls, as well as YouTube.
