Episode 267: Prepare for the Unexpected (when students are absent)

So Jessica and I were joined by Megan Wyant , who is our newest co-host , and we actually answer a question that one of our UB teachers recently had about what exactly to do when a student misses group speaking and listening assignments , so they are absent for speaking and listening in class activity . What do we do about that ?

Right , so we went deep into our most practical advice for alternative assignments , for when students miss out on something like a Socratic Seminar or group collaboration projects . You definitely are gonna wanna have your notebook out for this one , so let's dive in and get started . Hi there , caitlin , here .

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Welcome back again . Thank you guys , so thrilled to be here as always . It's just a fun addition to the mix . I'm really enjoying it and I hope that you guys are too . Let us know . You know , tell us on Instagram , send us a little message of how you're enjoying the podcast this year in 2024 .

Today we are diving into , actually , a question that came to us from one of our EB teachers that I'll share with you in just a second . But really we're talking about preparing for the unexpected . When students are absent , what do we do ? How do we handle that ? And it's interesting , like I am the culprit of this .

Now , as a mom with my son in kindergarten , I'm like oh , by the way , we're not going to be here for this three days after Thanksgiving , you know , and I think about , like , when parents did that to me , I was so upset with them , but it's because I didn't necessarily have great solutions to the student being out , and this happened to me all the time .

Actually , in my most recent school , because we live near Lake Tahoe is a lot of our students are on the ski team .

And so today's episode really came about from a question from one of our EB teachers , breonna Nicole , and I'm going to read the question that she shared with us because it's probably a question that you have yourself . So she said today we are doing the real talk discussion for a major grade . I have students who purposely stayed home to get out of it .

What alternate assignment could I offer as a makeup ? I don't want it to be a punishment , but I want it to address the same skills and not be a 3D grade .

My students worked really hard to prepare for this and Brianna got a ton of great feedback in our community from our EB teachers and from Team EB , and what she ultimately decided to do was a flip grid assignment with her students addressing their talking points . But what was interesting is her post really got us thinking .

That's very interesting to me that students purposely stayed home so that they didn't have to do this assignment . So whether your students have done that and purposely stayed home to get out of participating in an activity , or they're sick , or they travel . During certain times of the year they're out of town , whatever it is .

What can you do as a teacher to prepare for this when students are absent during a speaking and listening activity or something that's a major part of their grade ? So let's say you're doing a Socratic seminar with your students and they missed that .

Or you're doing a real talk discussion or any sort of like fishbowl discussion or a literature circle meeting , what these things ? When they happen in our classroom , it's very difficult to replicate them . For an absent student who missed that , it's different if they missed a test or they missed us reading a certain part of the book .

Those types of things are a little bit more easier . A little bit more easy , a little bit easier to thank you . It's 6.15 in the morning in California , or the record . I woke up at 5 . To record the podcast I was at . So my brain is just getting started .

But it's not as easy to figure out what to do with these discussion-based , like speaking and listening-based type activities or assessments or things that our students are missing , and so what we've done is we've gathered some ideas for you that you might want to just put in your back pocket or keep in the back of your brain so that , should this situation arise

in your case , in your own class , you can go to some of these and utilize them for your students . So first one , jessica , I'm going to hand over to you to kind of kick us off with some of those first ideas that we have .

It's almost like when you're absent as a teacher , you can either do the mad scramble that morning and like , oh my gosh , what am I students going to work on , and you're frantically emailing while you're sick what your plans are , or you can have emergency subplans in place , and they're effective and they hit the mark , all the good things .

So what's the better alternative , right or a better option ? Same thing here . As long as you have a plan in place for this and you can even communicate it with your students in advance , then they'll still be able to produce quality work instead of this like I don't know what could you do since you were absent , kind of thing .

So the first idea I feel like this one's probably the most obvious , and it's written responses . So if a student misses a Socratic seminar or a big discussion , a real talk discussion , you can have them write out their answers .

Maybe they choose two questions that you gave your students for the Socratic seminar , or maybe they came up with their own questions , and what they can do is write a paragraph response for each of those , and maybe they have to , you know , include evidence , include justification , all the expectations you had in the Socratic seminar .

Just come down to paper now and you know you can pick whatever length is appropriate . If you have eighth graders , maybe they can do more than a paragraph right . And this can also work for a student who maybe is actually present for the Socratic seminar but didn't speak Like I definitely had students who did that at first .

They were very nervous during a Socratic seminar and it was pulling teeth to get them to say anything and you're like gosh , I want to give them a grade , but they literally didn't talk right now . So you can have them also write out their responses and it's kind of up to you .

Do you want to give them full credit on that , depending on your school's grading policies ? Because technically it's a speaking and listening grade . And you're writing . I don't know , you'll have to figure it out , but the written word is always an option there .

And then idea number two if students miss a big discussion is and again , this is like a discussion you're grading , not just an everyday class discussion but you can have them participate in a mini seminar . So if you had more than one student absent on that particular day , you can have them meet together and do their own discussion that you can observe .

And again , that's if you have the time , if you have the resources to do this and I get it that it's not always feasible , right , things need to move on in the classroom but it is a nice option for students and I like this idea . This actually came from Sarah . A lot of you are probably familiar with Sarah .

She's an EBT member , she is so active in our Facebook community , so supportive of all of our teachers , and she's a current eighth grade teacher and this is exactly what she does with her absent students .

So she has them pick a small audience , like three to five of their classmates or another staff member , if someone's available , and she lets them recreate the Socratic seminar . And I thought this was really interesting .

It was like during a career range time , so it could be maybe during recess one day I know we don't always love to do that , but it's an option or during the last 10 minutes of class when students are silent reading , whatever you choose .

Sarah does that with her students and she says she's gotten really great feedback from not only students but her admin and from parents , which I think says a lot . So you might be listening and think like , okay , I don't know if I can do that one , but just knowing that that's what's working for a teacher in this situation might give you some additional ideas .

And I think , gosh , when a parent emails you to say , hey , that was really cool , you let my student or my child do that alternative assignment , like when right , and then the principal's telling you it's good , like there's something to that . So I thought that was a great option .

They can ask their peers about the main talking points that were discussed and then any conflicting viewpoints that actually came up during the discussion , and this can actually help the absent student learn about the discussion that happened .

And then that student that was absent can take notes during the interview , write down some points that they would have made if they had been present for the discussion .

Right , and a side note on this , and I love this idea , because we all have those students that are early finishers , right , and most of mine were like the best kids and they just like opened their book in silent read , but these students would be awesome to be the interviewee , right , if you have an absent student , pull those kids in that are early finishers

and they can be the interviewee , and most of them would be happy to do it , I'm sure . So that's a great idea . The fourth idea is just to have them record themselves , and this is usually what I did .

I would have students record their responses their questions on Flipgrid or just using their phones , because they've all got one , and then they can submit that for their assignment , their ultimate assignment .

So it's like it's a life skill that we're giving them of being on camera , because it is very different , and I actually would argue that that's kind of harder to do it is you can speak in front of your classmates .

I just am always thinking about in what ways are the things that we're doing in our class impacting our students in the future in the real world situation . I had the privilege of going to see one of our EB teachers at her school in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago and I got to watch her teach one of our EB writing program lessons .

It was so freaking cool . But at the end of the class I talked to the kids about well , why are we doing this ? Why are we finding justification , why does this matter ?

Evidence and all this stuff and really , at the end of the day , in a large majority of our jobs , roles that exist in this world , we have to be able to create a position , find evidence to support that position and justify our reasoning behind it , especially like an entrepreneurship or if you're selling something or a variety of different skills are applicable to

the things that we're doing in class , where students are like , oh , I'm just writing , oh , I'm just recording a video , and so I always think about , like , how am I able to share the lens through which my students can look at this at ? As this is not about English class at all .

This is actually about your life in the future and how it's going to set you up for success . So recording themselves is such a great skill , like you should even just do this anyways in your class .

The next idea I want to share , and going back to real world application , is a collaborative Google Doc , because at EB we do some brainstorm Google Docs where we collaborate our ideas . So this is also real world .

So basically , you could set up a collaborative Google Doc , right with the sharing permissions and all that good stuff , where the absent students can contribute their thoughts , their responses , their questions related to that Socratic seminar , that real talk discussion , whatever speaking activity you did , and that way you're providing a shared space for collaborative reflection

, which is the goal anyway . Right , and if you truly only had one student that was absent , just offer some extra credit for some other students who actually did participate , so that there's still collaboration happening on that Google Doc .

It's blank in my gradebook , and I just moved on and I'm going to share , though , like why this worked in my classroom , and this kind of goes back to our previous episode . We were talking about batch planning . Because I batch planned , I knew in advance that I had likely a Socratic seminar every other week or so with my fifth graders .

So , if you know , I'm using my son's name if . Jameson was absent for one week , it didn't matter , he was going to get another opportunity to participate a week and a half later or whatever it was , and it just kind of allowed me to like move on with students .

It was nice for the students and the parents because they weren't dealing with like written responses at home , all that stuff and one discussion really didn't matter . Now , if it was a pattern , then they were going to miss you know three or four like yes , then I would have to come up with a different project for them .

But I honestly knew that in my classroom other things carried more weight , right , like an essay grade was going to be bigger than a Socratic seminar that they missed . So it was okay for me to do this and I think sometimes we just need that permission like again , it's okay not to grade it . It's okay that you have a blank in your grade book .

It's all good . As long as you've got enough other assignments to assess students , it's okay to move on .

Understandable right , Like we're taking away from school . Davey's second grade teacher was like enjoy your vacation , he's good to go , You've got nothing for me . And I was like brilliant teacher because now , like , I adore her right . Also though she doesn't have to grade anything .

She knows Davey's a good student , she knows he's going to catch up , like keep it easy on herself too , so side tangent , and I would argue too , like what's a day ? Right , Well , it's two and a half days for us , but yeah what's a day ?

Whatever , however , you define success , you know what I mean Because they think about school differently , like some of my greatest mentors hated school , and they're terribly in school and are very successful business people and entrepreneurs , you know .

So I just think like at the end of the day , if you tell yourself like it's all going to be okay , it's all going to be okay and then it's so free , it's so free . So I'm going to I'm going to share the last idea here in just a second . But there's one other thing I want to say .

I've gotten to a point where , like this is going to sound terrible but at the end of the day , like nothing really matters yeah , I'm with you , nothing really matters and like that is super freeing from a like everything's going to be fine perspective .

Like I was at lunch duty and one of the dads was complaining to me about fake grass not being able to be used anymore . Like because whatever , like we're in California , we have fake grass because of droughts and all of these things , and then plastics , whatever . Like I'm super environmentalist . Like , and I was just like who ?

So this is like a generic alternative activity , maybe one or two things , like a one pager activity or a graphic essay or an evidence tracker that you just always have students complete in case they're absent during a speaking and listening activity . So you know they're absent for this .

This is just what I do , right , it's like a simple if this , then that type thing and while these assignments don't necessarily assess students speaking and listening skills , you're still able to get a great idea of where students stand with their understanding of the text , what's being discussed , their ability to support their ideas , evidence , justification , all those

things that we really actually care about . Right , we care about speaking and listening to 100% , but those three activities that I suggested at the one pager , the graphic essay or the evidence tracker if you're an EB teacher , you all have access to those .

So those are things that you can just grab , keep in your kind of toolbox of teaching , things that you have on hand because they can be used with any text . They can be rinsed and repeated throughout the year and those are just some of those great just go to alternative assignments to use in the case of an absent student .

So that is all we've got for you guys today . Hopefully those were helpful . I would love for you guys to know . Send us a message on Instagram at EB academics and let us know of those seven ideas which one was your favorite . All right , next week on the podcast we are talking about the science of reading and how it applies to middle school .

So this was super interesting . Actually , what we've known , we've had , we've I don't wanna say how to we've known that we were gonna get to talk about this on the podcast for a while , but it was very interesting .

We're talking to an admin at a school or how the school district partnerships carry was , and she was like talk to me about how the science of reading applies to your middle school curriculum , and it was very interesting to have that discussion as a team through the lens of middle school sixth , seventh and eighth grade , versus so much of the conversation that we're

seeing right now is an elementary right and we've even had a teacher reach out to us like we had this great PD , but it was for elementary school teachers , clearly , and not for middle school ELA . So next week on the podcast we're diving into this how it's applicable to middle school ELA .

Jess kind of our curriculum team did a ton of research in ensuring that we're providing you guys with best practices , so make sure that you join us next week on the podcast . Do you guys have anything else to add to that before we leave for the week ?