New Teaching Model Creates Stress on Staff

In the midst of the pandemic, schools across the world had to decide what they were going to do with their students and which model of teaching was going to benefit the students best.

At HUHS, the option of virtual or in-person synchronous learning was implemented, where students chose at the beginnings of the year, if they would attend all five days of school in person or online.

At HUHS, to place the hybrid model everything for the online students had to be in the same place, to attend class and to complete school work. “I was on the Committee that looked at Schoology,” Instructional Coach Mallory Smith said. “For what we needed for it do, Schoology was the best fit.”

Schoology is different to all staff members and students as HUHS made every classroom incorporate the model. For some, teachers were finding this model hard to use.

“The hardest part of it is having to be an expert user right away and there wasn’t really a slow chance to test the system with little things,” science teacher Jamie Lauer said. “You basically had to go full force on day one so it’s been a huge learning curve.” This new way of presenting to students took so getting used to on the first couple weeks of school.

Let alone switching to a new platform, other staff other than teachers have had to adjust to the new ways of reaching students. Student counselor Kari Erickson said, ”As a counselor one of hardest things is making sure that we’re still available to students even who aren’t in the building and we facilitate that through google meets, but it’s never the same as siting face to face with someone so, that’s hard.”

The experience of being a teacher in this time is different than anything years prior making this some of the most stressful moments of any of their careers.

“I would say my planning is more than double. So it’s almost like having two teaching jobs. I don’t always anticipate well the virtual verses face to face needs because I am not used to teaching in a blended model,” Lauer said.

This model of teaching needed to be adapted by all the teachers and needed to be done well without any room to experiment or mess up as this contributes to the student’s grades and performance. As the year continues, the hope is that the students and staff will get more used to the new normal way of teaching.