Page 30 - Priorities #63- Winter 2016

Academic
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AP Psychology Remote Synchronous Class
AP Psychology teacher Adam Siler never thought he’d
be able to say, “I’m going to grad school in Philadelphia, Innovationsteaching in California and living in Virginia.” This year
Adam Siler moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, but it didn’t stop him from teaching at the Priory. “The benefit is if there is demand for a psychology class and the teach- er is moving 3000 miles away? We can do it.” Using a platform called GoToTraining, the class is done remotely and synchronously. Adam logs in from Virginia, and un- der the supervision of Joe Montero in the classroom, the students connect on their laptops. “The tech people have been incredible and it has been a great marriage between Joe and me in terms of managing the class.”
Adam begins each class with a check-in, so students feel like they have a voice. Students can communicate with Adam in several different ways. Each student wears a headset or earbuds with a microphone and Adam can mute or unmute each student individually. There is also a chat and “raise hand” feature on each of the student screens. Tests and quizzes are done both online and in hard copy format. Students are allowed to text or call Adam on his cell phone during the assessments if they have any questions. “I probably get on average about six phone calls per test with questions, and this is fine. It’s the same as if they needed to ask me a question during a test and walked up to me in class.”
This class only came together after a lot of research and experimentation by the Technology Department and Adam. Surprisingly, there has only been one technical problem at the beginning of the year when the Internet went out and they had to cut class 8 minutes early. “The kids can just do it, they don’t need step by step guidance. 99% of the time if there is a problem, the students trouble- shoot it.”
The AP Psychology class is a very challenging class, and there is a lot of autonomy. Even so, Adam was hap- py to report that this year’s remote synchronous class is doing just as well as last year’s in-person AP Psychology class. Adam had a simple explanation for this. “It’s not about doing something new, it’s about doing something functional,” he says. “ It’s still teaching and learning.”
INNOVATION