San Marino High School physics and government teacher Scott Barton prefers to deliver lessons from his large classroom rather than instructing from home during the era of “distance learning” that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.
September at San Marino High School is typically accompanied by flocks of young people scurrying here and there, the notion of the return to classes and activities still fresh enough to provide mountains of optimism before everything begins to settle into a familiar groove.
But at least for a while, much is new: teachers, clothes, classmates and other things that might include vague concepts such as academic expectations and opportunities. Much if not all of the previous experience with this time of year, however, has been altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which might have affected education more than any of the nation’s institutions.
Where classrooms once buzzed with activity, computer screens now hum from muffled isolation, as students and teachers adapt to distance learning, which was introduced locally on the apocalyptic date of Friday, March 13.
Once the most active part of the educational process, teachers, counselors and aides have been relegated to the familiar role in an adolescent’s life of images on a screen. But with the task of providing a consistent opportunity for learning in an unfamiliar setting, teachers have looked for unique ways to strike the match of inspiration.
“It’s really about finding ways to be creative,” said Scott Barton, who is in his 14th year of teaching physics and government at SMHS. “And a lot of them are small.”
San Marino High School teacher Scott Barton’s first-period honors physics students assemble virtually for their 8:30 a.m. class.
SMHS educators are given the option of teaching from home or venturing into the classroom, and Barton has opted for the latter. Principal Jason Kurtenbach said that 30% of the school’s educators teach from their classrooms. The last 10 weeks of the 2019-20 school year were spent by most teachers familiarizing themselves with the new technology required to deliver their lessons and adapting to new curriculum and grading requirements. With the buildings closed, teachers — like students — were forced to work and study at home. Barton said he spent the summer evaluating his practices as indicators began to correctly predict students wouldn’t be returning to classes in August.
“I was just trying new things,” said Barton, who rattles around in his 900-square-foot classroom (“It’s eerie,” he noted) on the second floor of the math and science building. “How I gave assignments. How the kids presented information. A lot of little things. Looking for a pragmatic approach to distance learning.”
When teachers were given the option of returning to their classrooms, he was more than happy to oblige.
“I got really tired of my living room,” he quipped.
While evaluating the new challenge of connecting with students who were in many cases several miles away, Barton concluded that familiarity, in this case, breeds success.
“I try to do things the way I would do them in a ‘normal’ class situation,” Barton said. “I think that my class looks and feels a lot like it would anyway. But I have to be honest, when you have kids who are in honors physics, it’s a lot easier. I have all seniors, and that makes a difference as opposed to a teacher who has five sections of freshmen.”
Much like the sleepy teenagers who amble into the classroom, students appear on Barton’s computer screen at the prescribed time of 8:30 a.m. for honors physics. The boxes get steadily smaller as the virtual class fills. Barton knows exactly when the final student has “arrived,” and they are off to the day’s lesson, which entails a mock traffic accident experienced by a real student that shows the concept of movement and gravity.
Barton is active and animated as he presents his material.
“I am doing the same things I would normally be doing in class,” said Barton as his every movement is transmitted to the students, who are required to keep their cameras on so they can be seen by teachers.
“That has been very important. I am not naive enough to [rule out the possibility] that they might have their hand on their phone just out of camera range and could be texting with a friend, but it is now a bit less likely. There are actually a lot more distractions when they are at home. Sometimes I am able to hear commotion in the background.”
Barton uses the entire classroom, which he has strategically outfitted with several webcams to beam experiments to students. He reenacted one such demonstration, known as the monkey and the hunter, which tests acceleration due to gravity and projectile motion.
“The students were able to see it, but not quite as well as if it was in real life,” Barton said.
One feature that is difficult to duplicate is Barton’s proclivity to inject humor into his lessons.
“I just don’t get the same reaction when I tell a joke,” he said. “I don’t get the immediate reaction. I know the jokes are funny because I have used them for years and they all relate to the lessons, but they just don’t work as well.”
Like most aspects of education, it just takes a little more effort.
“All of the planning and the online grading, those things take more work,” Barton said. “All of the things we do outside of the classroom. I have to convert things from paper to digital. But the teaching is pretty much the same.”
Barton feels the key to successful distance learning is the same as the key to successful in-
person learning.
“Building rapport with the students,” said Barton, who regularly makes himself available for online “office hours” and individual consultation. “It’s harder to do in this virtual environment, but it is still very important.”
