Elementary School Kindergarten Teacher and High School Social Studies Teacher Gail Denham Describes Her Experience with Online Teaching and Her Plans for the Fall

Gail Denham is a Carver Elementary School kindergarten teacher. She has been teaching at Carver since 2009 and while there has also become known for teaching various high school social studies courses. In fact, for the past ten years, Gail has taught a six week summer school World History course to 9th and 10th graders.

But Gail isn’t just known as someone who does a great job of teaching the students found at both ends of the San Marino Unified School District, she’s also known for being one of the district’s more experienced and accomplished online teachers with much of value to offer any/all teachers assigned to teach online in the fall

In this episode of Titan Talk, Gail answers the questions appearing below (all related to her past online teaching experience and her plans for teaching online this fall)

1. Briefly describe your online teaching experience from March 13, when school shutdown, to the present.
2. Assuming that in the fall there will be no face-to-face instruction . . . that the school and the district have decided to play it safe and keep us away from school for at least another two or three more months . . . what do yo plan to use, Google Meet or Zoom?
3. If in the fall, I were to access your classroom during the first week of school, what would I see and hear when it comes to “get-to-know-you activities?” Are you planning to integrate any of these into your long distance learning sessions?
4. What about when it comes to the teaching of content? How do you plan to deliver what the students need to know to pass your tests?
5. How do you plan to test?
6. Do you believe teachers should be permitted to require their students to present their face on camera?
7. Should teachers be permitted to require their students to present their voice on camera?
8. How do you plan to hold your students accountable? In other words, what are you going to do to prevent your students from checking out on class discussion?
9. Has anyone ever tried to bomb your online class sessions and if so, what did you do?
10. Have you yet in any way polled/surveyed your students to learn what they thought of your online instruction?
11. Have you had any epic fails when it comes to your online teaching experience?
12. Do you believe that Zoom fatigue is a real thing and if so, what if anything do you plan to do in the fall to prevent your students from acquiring Zoom fatigue?
13. Is there anything else that you would like to say, that you haven’t yet said, about either your long distance learning experience or your plans for the fall?

Titan Talk is a San Marino High School teacher-hosted, interview formatted, bi-monthly podcast that seeks to highlight two kinds of educators: (1) those who have something of value to say in regards to teaching, learning, testing, and wellness and (2) those who have a personal story worth sharing.

Titan Talk is normally hosted by SMHS social studies teachers Peter Paccone and Andrew Gayl. But for this Titan Talk, Huntington Middle School teacher and San Marino Teacher Association President Leticia Aranda sat in for Andrew.

Peter can be reached at ppaccone@smusd.us and Andrew can be reached at agayl@smusd.us.

San Marino High School is a a top rated public high school located in San Marino, California, just twenty minutes northeast of downtown Los Angeles, a few miles from the Pasadena Rose Bowl, and just up the road from the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, and Library.

This "Home of the Titans" serves grades 9-12, with the SMHS website to be viewed at https://www.sanmarinohs.org.

This Titan Talk was produced using Free Conference Call to record, Audacity to edit, Auphonics to level, and Libsyn to publish.