By the time students reach the high school level, math becomes a little more than just addition and subtraction.
They are introduced to concepts in algebra, geometry, trigonometry and more.
Teaching some students these concepts in the classroom can be hard enough, but teaching them through distance learning technology can be even more challenging.
Indianola Academy high school math teachers Deborah Domino and Jessica Holland were tasked with doing this when school lessons resumed over the internet after spring break.
“I think with math, it’s hard not to get immediate feedback with whether or not they are understanding the concepts,” Holland said. “It was hard to have a day or two before getting feedback and then you’re already trying to move on to the next lesson.”
Domino just completed her 38th year as a teacher. Holland will be starting her third this fall; however, the experience of teaching remotely during a pandemic was new to everyone, and it came with challenges for each.
“My Zoom account did not work,” Domino said.
Many teachers, both locally and nationally, utilized the Zoom app during the pandemic to teach live classes with kids. They were able to record the meetings and send them to the students for referral.
That did not happen in Domino’s case.
“We had Principal (Clete) Putnam and our computer teacher work on my Zoom for days, and they could not get it up and running,” Domino said.
The veteran teacher took an alternate route to teaching, recording class lessons through Doceri.
“It was very difficult and time consuming,” she said.
Not only was she missing the one-on-one interaction in the classroom, she was missing the interaction many teachers were glad to have through Zoom.
“That’s extremely hard in math classes,” she said. “You really could not individualize with this type of learning.”
When she got to the end of her Algebra II class, she introduced her students to some light trigonometry.
Due to a 10-minute limit on videos she recorded through Doceri, she said the final lesson took four emails.
Domino said the first week after spring break, all of the teachers met together throughout that week, and they provided a support system for each other.
Domino said that it was also helpful that each student at IA, grades 9-12, is furnished with a computer.
“Our learning process did not stop,” she said. “We continued to learn throughout the entire year.”
She also said they could not have made it through without the leadership at IA.
“Our administration was very supportive,” she said, “helping us any which way they could.”
Holland, meanwhile, was able to use Zoom for her meetings, and she even had a special Zoom meeting each week for just questions and answers.
“I think that ended up helping students a lot, just being able to see me write it down on a white board in front of them,” Holland said.
The duo made it through the final few weeks, but they are ready to see students again.
“That’s part of the joy of being a teacher is being able to come to school and interact with them,” Holland said.
The feeling is mutual from the students they said.
“(Usually), after spring break, they are ready to leave,” Domino said. “They are ready for the summer. They are ready to go, and it was reversed. They were ready to come back after a while.”
For the seniors, they will have to take the knowledge they learned to college or the workplace this fall.
For the rest, Domino and Holland are ready to see them in August.
