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On Monday, Luverne Middle School teacher Jodi Rops faced her empty classroom.
Her computer was pointed to the smart board so that her logged-in students could view the lesson as though they were sitting at their desks.
Rops, a 19-year veteran of the classroom, is educating herself on computer apps that offer immediate student feedback.
“I liked the interaction with the students,” she said. “They can ask questions, participate, almost like in a classroom.”
Technology helps, but Rops said it’s not the same as in-person connections,
“It’s totally not the same,” she said. “But it’s better than not seeing them.”
One student made a cardboard cutout of herself and the drawing sits in one of the student desks. “So I actually have a ‘student’ in my room,” Rops said.
But the normal noise from 650 sixth- through twelfth-grade students in the hallways is missing. The building is eerily silent.
“It is really, well, weird not to have hardly any students in the building — there are about two seventh-graders in the building a day. I miss the commotion and the noise.”
Distance learning much different this fall
Last spring, when the coronavirus pandemic forced all Minnesota students to learn through technology from home, Rops did what many teachers did in the two weeks of preparation — learned a totally new way of teaching called distance learning that began in late March.
In her first experience teaching distantly, Rops videotaped herself presenting math lessons. She then loaded the video into the Google Classroom app at 7:30 a.m. for her students to finish sometime during the day.
“I also posted a weekly agenda so they could potentially do all the work for the entire week immediately,” she said.
“I know some students did that; they got up and just wanted to get their school stuff done.”
To connect with students, Rops set up an optional Zoom meeting every day at 10:30 a.m.
The first day of distance learning had 30 students attending. As the days of distance learning progressed, fewer students attended, finally dropping to four to six students.
“Most of them didn’t have math questions. They just wanted to chat,” she said.
Hybrid learning opened the new school year
When school resumed Sept. 8 for the 2020-21 school year, students at Luverne Middle-High School returned under a hybrid learning model.
In the hybrid model, half the students attended in-person classes two to three times a week. When students were not at school, they completed assignments via computer at home.
At first Rops taught the same lessons two days in a row, sometimes completing the same things eight times due to multiple class sections.
The repetition forced her to change how she teaches.
“Three weeks into school, I decided to go ‘live’ with all students. That meant those at home had to log in at their normal math class time to get the lesson,” she said. “This has gone much better for me, and the students say they like that, too — more structure for all of us.”
Rops kept the same live lessons when the middle-high school moved to distance learning on Nov. 9.
For the past three weeks under this current model, students participate in live lessons by signing into their computers at the start of each of their class periods for Rops’ live lessons.
School is in session from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Student attendance has been high
Middle-high school student attendance has averaged 90-95 percent every hour, Principal Jason Phelps said during his administrative report at the Nov. 24 school board meeting.
Core classes, such as the math curriculum taught by Rops, have found a rhythm and the transition between one learning method to another has been smoother.
However, some special needs classes are conducted in person either individually or in small groups. Some elected classes can also meet in person because teaching is more effective.
One of those elective classes that didn’t transfer easily to online instruction is the ag mechanics class taught by agricultural instructor and FFA adviser Dennis Moritz.
He cannot have more than 10 students at one time and they need to work at least six feet away from one another. Masks are worn at all times.
Moritz’s other classes are conducted online.
“In my ag mechanics class I have five students that come in and work on their shop projects,” he said.
On Monday, junior Jacob Hansen was the only ag mechanics student in the shop working on a project.
Both he and Moritz wore masks as they discussed repairs to Hansen’s 1944 Farmall H.
“It’s OK,” Hansen said about distance learning. “As long as I get to come in and do the ag mechanics class.”
Hansen returns home after his mechanics class and signs into his computer in time to complete his other classes online.
Phelps said the learning models are challenging, but teachers and staff are trying to keep learning safe and relevant.
“We are trying to find those experiences and doing as much as we can,” he said. “Everyone involved agrees being in person is the best case scenario.”