Granton's 3rd Grade Teacher Discusses Keeping Kids Engaged

Monday, March 15th, 2021 -- 12:32 PM

-The Granton School District’s teachers continue to find ways to keep their students, both in-person and virtual learners, engaged in classroom activities.

In our continuing interview series, I spoke with Granton’s Interim Administrator James Kuchta and 3rd Grade Teacher Holly Larson and they discussed some of the ways they make learning fun for students.

Mr. Kuchta:  “Today we have our wonderful 3rd grade teacher Holly Larson.”

Holly:  “I’ve been with the school district since 2012 and I absolutely love it here.  It’s a great school district and I hope it’s one I can stay in for my career.”

Mr. Kuchta:  “There’s some great things you’ve done in the classroom.  Earlier this year, we had virtual students.  Can you tell us a little bit about your virtual teaching?”

Holly:  “I had one virtual student at the beginning of the year and we were able to successfully work with her through Google Classroom.  So, I was able to put assignments in Google Classroom and she was able to do them."

"And we also met for Google Meets for some of the academic lessons so she was able to participate with the class and to see her classmates so she not only got the academic, but she also got the social."

"Thankfully, she was able to come back and then midway through January we had another student decide to go virtual and the whole process started over again.  But thankfully, that student is now back and I’m very fortunate, right now, to have all of my students in my classroom with no virtual right now.”

Mr. Kuchta:  “It’s a big change.  I was able to be in the classroom when a student was virtual, so she was teaching synchronously, we call it, where she was teaching both virtually and face-to-face with her students in her entire classroom."

"So, it takes a lot of talent and our teachers have gained a lot of technological expertise this year and she’s one of those technology leaders, I would say.  Can you talk about some of the other ways you used virtual teaching?”

Holly:  “I have a document camera in my room that projects to my smart board.  So, I’m able to use that for both my virtual and in-person students in my classroom so they can see the same things and what I’m writing and they can copy it down."

"For my virtual kids, I would have my iPad camera facing the smart board, so they could see what I was projecting on the screen.  It’s a really good way for my students to follow along with what I am doing at that time."

"And it’s easier for me to put manipulatives underneath it, so I can show them more examples that I might not necessarily be able to do on a smart board program.”

Mr. Kuchta:  “As you can see, teaching has taken a big turn with technology these days using white boards, smart boards, using the document projector.  When I started teaching 35 years ago, it was very different.  The other thing is that our students have one-to-one devices.  Can you talk about that?”

Holly:  “Each of my students has a Chromebook.  We keep the Chromebook in the classroom.  For the elementary, we don’t send the technology home like with the upper students.  We keep it at school."

"My students have gotten very good at Google Classroom and all the different programs we use throughout the day.  Even though I don’t have any virtual students, we still practice using Google Classroom and the different technology they would have to use if, for some reason, we would have to go virtual, just to keep that practice going, so they don’t forget.  We do a lot with technology, but we still like to do some paper and pencil stuff as well.”

Question:  “When you had virtual students, did you and your students find the transition fairly easy or was it difficult?”

Holly:  “It was pretty seamless.  My kids are really easy going and they were able to just roll with all the changes.  The biggest challenge I found was that I had to remember to include them and not just include students with their hands raised."

"It was harder for me to see them because they weren’t personally in front of me.  I would have to have my iPad showing the smart board, so they would see the instruction.  So, that was a learning curve for me, but my students took it really well and they loved seeing their friend even though it was through a screen.”

Question:  “Anything else?”

Mr. Kuchta:  “We are finishing our third term next week and we have a three day week and the following week will be on the 4th term of the school year.  And our goal is to reimplement all of our students back into the school, face-to-face, for full time face-to-face instruction."

"We’re down to under 20 students next week in the district that will be on virtual, so that’s a very small percentage now.  We’re happy to be moving back to full time, face-to-face instruction.”

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.