[Dr. Alban] Welcome to the virtual model of
education in Frederick County Public
School.
We have received a lot of questions
about the recording of lessons
as a way to help our families navigate
this virtual model.
And so, the purpose of this video today
is to attempt to answer many of those
questions,
that you have had for us and I am joined
by Dr. Kevin Cuppett,
who is our Executive Director of
Curriculum Instruction and Innovation.
And Kevin,  I want to thank you and your
team for
all of the work you have been doing in
training our teachers in preparation
for the virtual model, creating resources
to support them,
and helping to address these kinds of
questions with our community.
[Dr. Cuppett] Thank you. We appreciate that.
[Dr. Alban] So, let me
start by asking you,
why would we want to record google meet
sessions
or direct instruction for our students
and our families?
[Dr. Cuppett] Well, I think it's important that,
although we've been planning for the
last four or five months for this fall,
we're still operating
in the middle of the pandemic and we
heard,
after the continuity of learning period,
for many families, that having
recordings of the instruction that their
child may or may not have been able to
attend
would have been helpful. One, they can go
back and revisit what the teacher is
asking students to do.
I mean, how many times as a parent have
you been looking at, you know, at homework
time at the kitchen table and a student
says well i don't remember what the
teacher said.
So, we'll have an opportunity to do
that.
We know and we've heard from number of
families that
they they may not be able to get their
child or their student
into every live synchronous
session.
Based on, maybe their child care
situation,
it might be that the parents have to
focus on things at work
and so the they aren't there to help
their younger student. There's a lot of
complexities
that are out there in families
day-to-day lives. And so,
having this available will be a huge
help
for families who can't get their kids
there every minute every time.
[Dr. Alban] And we have talked a lot about these
virtual models
do require that partnership between home
and school.
[Dr. Cuppett] Yeah [Dr. Alban] And we feel this is a way to
strengthen that support
for families or caregivers
as we use this virtual model.
Now, when we talk about direct
instruction, I know when I walk into
classrooms,
that can look very different depending
on
the type of lesson, the grade level,
and what the teacher has chosen, the
creativity of the teacher.
So, when we talk about recording
instruction,
there are several ways that
teachers could approach that right?
[Dr. Cuppett]  Absolutely there it. Really, it's going to
come down to
what's the instructional purpose.  So, what
is the teacher trying to accomplish? So
there are a couple methods that the
recording could occur in. So, the first
one which is,
you know, very obvious would be that
maybe the teacher starting with some
very direct instruction.
Modeling a mathematical process or
strategy,
giving an explanation of the water cycle,
going through
how how to make an appropriate throwing
stance. For all of our different content
areas, teachers are going to have some
direct instruction that they would show.
It might make sense for them to record
maybe the first 20 or even 30 minutes,
however
long that period of time is, and all the
students would be
cameras off and microphone off. So,
that would really become a very
teacher centered video. So that's the
preferred method. If we can keep
kids out of the recordings, as much as
possible, we're certainly going to do
that.
But, unfortunately, instruction doesn't
always work that way. So the example that
I've been using to explain to folks when
we might actually have to record student
interactions
would be, say a high school social
studies teacher,
who is teaching students about the art
of the debate
and dialogue around an issue.  So, groups of students may have had to
research a particular topic
and they're going to engage in a debate
on one side of that issue,
say for nuclear power and another group
is going to
go against nuclear power. And so, if the
teacher feels that there are follow-up
instructional activities
that students must be able to view the
debate to do those activities, say
critique the positions of their
their peers, then that debate would have
to be recorded.
Now what the teacher would certainly do
would be get
only the students who have permission to
be recorded would be in the recording
they may have a separate debate that
same time,
in that same google meet session, with a
different group of students
who don't have permission. So, that
teacher judgment around that's going to
be very important.
Obviously, only the recording with the
students who had permission would be
shared with students who could not be
there for the debate
but would need the debate to be able to
do their follow-up work. So, it's all
going to come down to that purpose.
The other thing that teachers have
available to them are not even
recordings of google meets but rather
recordings of direct instruction,
that they do separate and apart from the
students. In preparation for a lesson
I could see a teacher doing a
a Screencast or maybe a Pair Deck, which
are other technology tools that
walk students through direct instruction.
In fact,
it might make more sense to send that to
kids before they come to the google meet.
Possibly the day before, go through this
information on this instructional topic
and then the google meet session itself
is really about finding out
where students were having difficulty
with that content, where were the points
of misunderstanding,
might be a group discussion in small
groups, based on some information that
the teacher has that these groups need
different things.
Those sessions right there may not be
recorded at all
because that's not appropriate for the
instructional purpose.
It might very well be, the kids that were
absent during that google meet
would then be meeting with the teacher
at a time when they could. To go over
their misunderstandings of the content
that was
delivered through that digital that
digital tool, like a Pair Deck or
Screencast.
[Dr. Alban] And so again, there's going to be
teacher choice, as long as it aligns with
the purpose for the instruction
and as that last example you gave a
Screencast.
There would be another opportunity for a
child to get their questions
answered. But again, that's going to have
to be worked out between
the student and the teacher individually
in order to make that happen. You
know someone said, well
we had some of those screencasts in the
in the spring and that wasn't as helpful
but now we have the power of the Google
Meet that could occur
afterwards that direct conversation with
teachers, that before was only happening
via email. So,
there will be many reasons and many
different ways
to capture this instruction so that
families can go back.
Also, a student who participated in
it may
want to go back.  [Dr. Cuppett] Absolutely  [Dr. Alban] The other big
question we get
is privacy.  [Dr. Cuppett] Yeah.   [Dr. Alban] Wait a minute. I am
really not comfortable with having the
way my child is
discussing or talking in a classroom,
videotaped. So, talk a little bit about
some of the ways we're trying to protect
privacy and how parents can help us with
that.
[Dr. Cuppett] So, absolutely so the first thing is
parents are going to give permission
about whether or not their child can be
recorded.
So that that's the first thing, this is
not, we're not assuming we have
permission. There will be a form that
will be distributed. Schools will
collect that.
Um. Any student who's in the google meet
that does not have permission,
or even that day chooses not to be
recorded, can turn off their camera and
their microphone,
during the section of the Google Meet
that is recorded. Students will be able to see a recording
button is going to pop up.
Teachers are going to let students know,
hey I'm getting ready to start a
recording. Please
remember that if you don't have
permission to turn off your camera and
your
microphone. You know, even the teachers of
our youngest kids will have a list.
They'll know that certain students have
to and they'll just say, "Hey, go ahead and
turn your camera and your video off.
So, they'll have an alert that it's
occurring. Um.
So, that alone will keep, um, students from
appearing in recordings.
The other thing that we do from a
privacy perspective too, is that we can
we need to lock those videos down. So
there's a three-step process that
teachers will use to
store the videos in a way that they can
be distributed to everybody in the class.
But, also then secure them so that once a
student gets that video they can't
re-share or download that to some other
place. There will be training teachers in the
coming week on how to secure
and store and share those videos.
Then, there's a third layer of privacy.
Even for a student
who has permission. We know that
kids will often share things at school
as part of a
class discussion. So for instance, I could
foresee that
a middle school student might be: maybe
there's a conversation about
bias and a student might disclose
that, I felt like people have been biased
for me because
I'm diabetic or because I'm of a
particular
religious background. Okay, so kids will
share a lot of stuff. It's
one of the great joys of being in a
public school system, is that kids can
can really engage as citizens, right?
It might be that the teacher feels that
that information that was shared was
done in the privacy of the class.
They may actually make a decision
that that's not going to be one that
they share.
I think we have to respect teacher
judgment on this. By the way teachers
make judgments
about that kind of stuff, all the time,
all the time.
Year after year. Whether we're in a
pandemic or not. And so,
teachers will always have the the, um,
kind of final to say to be able to
stop a video and say you know what we're
not going to share this one,
in the interest of of kids and then the
teacher can
work on other ways to get that
information to students who weren't
there. So there's a lot of different
layers to this
idea around student privacy which we we
certainly want to respect.
I totally get it you know recording your
kid
is a big decision by a parent and
different parents are going to respond
to that different ways. We feel we
have kind of a multi-layered approach
that if,
if i don't want my child to appear in a
recording they won't. We're going to turn
off our camera and we're going to turn
off our video.
[Dr. Alban]
And we've also talked about the fact
that, as you shared
when students are sharing things, there
are some lessons we are not
going to record.  [Dr. Cuppett] Yeah [Dr. Alban] When we're talking
about social emotional learning
and the sessions that we have for that.
We want students to be unencumbered.
We want them to be able to talk about
their feelings. To talk about the
strategies that we're going through
and so we feel that taping those kinds
of lessons
could be a deterrent. And so, we are going
to be strategic
in what lessons we are recording and
again
teachers need to be able to know
appropriate or not.
The other thing I think it's really
important that our parents understand is
we may have a 60-minute synchronous
learning block
but there may only be 15 minutes of
direct instruction that get recorded.
[Dr. Cuppett] Correct  [Dr. Alan] And again, that will  vary
depending on the reason,
the type of instruction, and if the
teacher then is moving into working with
small groups and things like that.
So, it will not be the same as
participating in the entire synchronous
lesson
but, it will be part of it. There is also
a couple of strategies teachers could
use
to minimize the number of student faces
that would be appearing on the screen
during the recording. Do you want to talk
about some of those?
[Dr. Cuppett] Yeah so, you know. First of all it's in a
Google Meet, the teacher can share the
screen. Their screen, So, they may have a
presentation up. When that presentation
goes up it takes up a large
amount of space on the screen. And so, I'm
sure a lot of families have looked in on
Google Meet sessions and they can see
that there are rows of kids that are
available for the teacher and peers
to view. So when that screen pops up
it's going to crowd out the number of
faces that are available there. So, that's
one way that we can minimize that.
Um. You know, i think the community and I
think our teachers and our school
leaders and everybody has to understand
that when we get into this for a week or
two
we will learn things. I mean it
is
absolutely important that we iterate,
right? So, if we learn
that hey, this approach or strategy over
here is an
even better way to secure privacy or an
even better way to communicate the
instruction to kids who weren't present.
We're going to make sure that that's
shared across the district. So, I think
people have to
be patient and provide feedback. Are
there going to be bumps?
Yeah, probably so. I would imagine
and not only in just
recording of Google Meets but in many
things that we do.
But what I know about our teachers and
our leaders in the schools is they're
going to learn from that and we're going
to make improvements.
[Dr. Alban] And the feedback that we have received.
We learned a lot from the spring.
We heard from students. We heard from
teachers. We heard from families
and the same will be true here. We will
be reaching out to
hear how it's going and look at the
things we can improve.
So, that's why we feel recording lessons
are important. It's an important customer
service
to our families because we recognize the
virtual model has
created a lot of new scenarios that
families have had to navigate.
Just like teaching virtually is a new
scenario
that our teachers are navigating.
[Dr. Cuppett] Absolutely   [Dr. Alban] And so,
this first week we're not recording
anything.  [Dr. Cuppett] Correct,  [Dr. Alban]
We're just trying to learn how to
navigate the technology
and we're getting those permissions and
so it will be
in subsequent weeks where these lessons
will be made available
and as always the best point of contact
is your child's teacher.  [Dr. Cuppett]
Absolutely.  [Dr. Alban] That's the person who will be
able to answer the questions that apply
directly to you. Dr. Cuppett, thank you
again for joining me. [Dr. Cuppett] Thank you [Dr. Alban] And hopefully
parents, families, care providers,
you will be seeing these videos coming
your way so that you can support
your child anytime, anywhere.
That's one of the beautiful things about
the virtual model.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
[Music]
