Hybrid school- live streaming

[niccig]

Contentious debate underway in the school district we live in (not the school district where I work). The plan is 2 days for each cohort and the students who are at home that day or the 100% online students will join the teacher’s live stream of the in person lesson. The teacher will have 2 web cams and a microphone.

I do 25 zoom sessions a week, and I’m completely exhausted focusing on the students on zoom. There’s no way I could also focus on in-person students at the same time as my zoom students. I think this will be an absolute disaster.

Is anyone’s school doing this and can talk about the experience.




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[DualvansMommy]

Both my kids school opened their doors last Sept to the set up you described.

It’s going ok after a lot of initial hiccups first couple of weeks/3 weeks. I don’t know what grades you’ll cover, but it was a struggle for DS2 who is a 1st grader and majority of his class. They tried to make it work right up till Xmas break, and announced the plan wasn’t sustainable for the teachers. Now they have the option of all virtual learning with virtual teachers only or go in school 5 half days a week. It’s so much better already.

It’s workable in a pinch but not really sustainable for months on end, and especially more so in lower grades. It’s bit more manageable in 4th and higher grades for some reason, but still not ideal.


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[JBaxter]

My 2 have a few students in each class that still chose to distance learn. If you are contact traced then you switch to zoom lessons The teacher has a monitor but Im guessing 4 or 5 max at this point It seems to be working fine here they are able to share their screen and ask questions. I cant imagine having a whole class on zoom that would be crazy. They have to log in to each class

[PunkyBoo]

DS2 is hybrid- in person 2 days a week. His class is split in half- half in person M/T, half are in person Th/F. Everyone remote Wednesday. So the teacher is live streamed to the at-home kids while the other half are in person. I don't listen in but it is not going well for DS2. He's not engaged, he loses zoom connection and it takes forever for the teacher to notice that he's "in the waiting room" to be let back in. I don't know if other students are doing well with it, but my DS2 is miserable. (He has ADHD and suffers greatly with the impulse control to stay off the games and other junk on the Chromebook when he's supposedly in class).

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[jgenie]

Our school has been full time in person since the beginning of the school year. My kids are middle schoolers and my oldest is a self starter that just gets down to business and gets it done. DS2 needs reminders to be online on time but he can do it when he has to. I was sick in bed the last two days and he got himself where he needed to be with minimal involvement from me. I feel for parents and teachers of younger students and younger students. Younger students don’t have full command of their bodies and I’m sure a fair amount of time is spent dealing with behavior rather than learning. Our teachers are teaching in person and remote at the same time. Private school with small classes makes it easier. I don’t know that teachers of large classes would be able to pull it off as easily. Each teacher has a camera on a tripod and a laptop. The teacher can choose which camera they use depending on the day. Remote students are shown on a screen in the classroom so the teacher and fellow students can see them throughout class. I didn’t think it would work as I thought kids at home would be ignored but that hasn’t been the case. My DC have been home on some days while school was in person and they didn’t feel like they were being left out. I think it’s better for my DC to be in person when possible but they would stay home if I let them. It’s much more relaxed for them when they’re home. They don’t have to move from class to class. They can grab a drink or a snack between classes and read or play with lego to reset between classes. All in all it has been quite the feat but our teachers have risen to the challenge and greatly exceeded our hopes for this year. They truly are amazing!!

[georgiegirl]

My 9th grader’s honors English class has both in person and online students. All the rest of her classes were online only. She said it worked out fine.


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[craftysierra]

My older two are both this way. One has commented that she does not always see the teacher, but is had gotten better as the year has progressed. They are both in high-school.

[acmom]

Our district has this hybrid set up and have been doing it this way all year. My two older kids are in middle school and were in the hybrid until Thanksgiving and then we pulled them to all virtual. As a former teacher, I was concerned about this set up for all the reasons you described, but I would say it has gone better than I expected. They basically log in and follow their daily schedule from home with all their classes on Google meet. Some teachers seem much better at it than others...some really engage and involve the students at home, but a few just have the students at home mainly watching. A couple teachers aren't super tech saavy, so have a hard time trouble shooting on the fly, which occasionally presents an issue. Luckily due to mine being in middle school, neither has any one teacher for longer than a period or two, so they aren't stuck in that "watching" mode or having tech issues for too long. Some of the teachers also have also done a great job with group/partner work in breakout groups which my 2 both like. Usually that involves the students in class on their chrome books in the groups as well so the groups are a mix of in person kids and kids at home. And sometimes the teachers will do a lesson and then let kids work independently, but keep the google meet open so they can work at their own pace, but also ask questions if they need to as they work.

I can see that it could be more difficult with younger kids. From what I hear our elementary is only "live" for shorter times for things like morning meeting, mini lessons, read alouds and then do more independent work or zooming with a small group (sometimes with a TA).

The one very nice thing about this set up is that it has allowed students to stay with a consistent class regardless of teacher/student quarantines and allowed students to move back and forth between virtual and hybrid. My kids did not have to change teachers/classes when we moved to all virtual and it basically was the same as their virtual days in the hybrid. And they could go back to the hybrid anytime without missing anything or having to change anything.

Its clearly not ideal, but has not been the total disaster I thought it would be. But I also know that that is only because the teachers have worked VERY hard to make it work.

[SnuggleBuggles]

The one very nice thing about this set up is that it has allowed students to stay with a consistent class regardless of teacher/student quarantines and allowed students to move back and forth between virtual and hybrid. My kids did not have to change teachers/classes when we moved to all virtual and it basically was the same as their virtual days in the hybrid. And they could go back to the hybrid anytime without missing anything or having to change anything.

Ds2 goes back soon and those benefits above were highlighted in the orientation.

OP- that’s the current plan for ds2 and the teachers expect there to be a learning curve but they have been brainstorming things to experiment with. Nowadays there should be a lot of real life experience to learn from too.


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[Snow mom]

DD is in 6th and her school has teachers live streaming from the classroom. She goes every other week and everyone is home on Wednesdays (teachers teach in the morning and there is asynchronous work in the afternoon). While I was skeptical it seems to be going well. DD isn’t bothered by the combo either while she’s at school or at home. Her teachers are super upbeat so I really have no way to know how hard this is for them. I’m happy to ask DD about the process more if you have specific questions of how they handle things in the classroom.