Zoom Tips for Preschool Teachers

Today's post is by a guest writer, Lindi Bell founder and head of Small World School a Reggio inspired preschool in South Africa. Lindi has over 25 years experience teaching children and is a mother of three. She has conducted and attended courses on Multiple Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Art Therapy, Play Therapy, Imago relationship Theory, the Reggio Approach and many more. She holds a very strong image of children, as she has seen what they can do, given a ‘Yes’ environment that supports the way that children learn.

Here I am Zooming from my living room. I am playing a card game with my class during our playdate. 

As a school we are also facing moving our teaching online for the next little while. As part of preparing for this we have been having Zoom playdates with our classes. After her classes playdate Lindi wrote the following about how to do Zoom with preschoolers. The children in her class are mostly 4 years old. 

1) COME IN QUIETLY: it works to have everyone come in on Mute (that’s a setting you select when setting up the Zoom meeting before hand). This creates a listening space.

2) ROLE OF THE TEACHER: Hold the space as Host as you would in your rings. In other words, you offer the floor as to who will speak next (rather than all at the same time, juggling for bandwidth). Make sure everyone has a chance to speak.

3) HOLDING SPACE FOR THE CHILD IN THE DIGITAL WORLD: Treat the digital as a material. In other words, involve the children in coming to grips with Zoom’s potentials eg ask child themselves to mute/unmute mic.. show them where it is. This is just like teaching children to raise their hand before speaking or keep quiet and listen while others are telling a story. Children need time to work with the medium of Zoom. You can also start to teach children how to raise a hand (while on mute) to indicate they want to say something. You can literally raise your hand or there is a tricky-to-get-to ‘Raise Hand’ function on Zoom. We are also teaching digital citizenship here, active listening and respectful reciprocal dialogue.

4) PLAN FOR POSSIBILITIES: Don’t waste parents valuable time and data with dead spots or waiting for ‘things to come up’.. eg “what shall we sing today”? As with your normal class rings, have something to connect around, go in with a plan, a focus, a provocation, which you have made visible to children/families beforehand. I’m the beginning, I would keep these provocations broad but relevant to what is going on what with Lockdown and the many changes that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought. For example: ‘Come and share what you have been busy with this week’; or
‘Bring your favourite toy that you have been playing with’ or
‘What do you miss about school?’
It works to be more teacher directed on Zoom Rings than you would in your play sessions/Discovery Time with the children. Try to keep rings 15-25 mins to save families’ data.

5) SINGING TOGETHER: rather ask all the children to Mute their Mics and “sing to the class in the cloud'. Sadly, singing altogether with mics on brings interference and lag. Teacher/Host can keep Mic on and sing along. Songs with lots of Actions work (so everyone sees everyone doing them). Also call-and-response songs eg “Sawubona (Sawubona)”. Have these songs planned beforehand.

6) MAKING EVERYONE VISIBLE: Suggest to parents beforehand to set their Zoom setting to Gallery view so children can all see everyone who has joined. Zoom on Laptops can view more than 9 faces on one screen. Phones/iPads less than 9.

7) DOCUMENTATION: While you are Zooming with your peeps, make notes (ie document as you would normally) what they have shared/things of interest that you might want to build upon or provoke further. Documentation is also Listening Made Visible. This precious Zoom time together helps you as a teacher to actively build upon their current interests that you might not be privy to while in lockdown so that you can continue to co-create inquiry-based curriculum. You can also choose to Record the Session as Host when setting up the meeting... just like video recording a Morning Ring. You will need to inform the parents before they come to the Zoom meeting that you will be recording it. This will help you to reflect on how the children have engaged with the provocations, and build on the current interests.

8. PROJETTAZIONE: If you are in the habit of bringing the previous week/day’s documentation of the children’s thinking/artwork/conversation to class rings to share with your class and plan your next days provocation, you can also work out how to use the ‘Share Screen’ option in Zoom which allows you to share back a photo/video of what you/their peers have been creating (an artwork/or garden/dance move) with the whole class. You can also share that week’s provocations that you have set (we are using Google Classroom for this) with the class as you talk them through it by pulling up the Google Classroom screen.

10) BUILDING CONNECTION: Use this platform of Zoom as a way to expand our relationships and as an extension of the best of our humanity. It is fundamentally human to want to connect, offer support, care for one another, learn together through Play. No, the digital world can never replace the power of real life intra-action. But it does offer a substitute for the interim. Use Zoom to check in with the children and their parents. Ask “How are you doing there?” Listen to the answer. Offer support, a laugh, a smile, a joke, and active hope. Children really love to see their friends and, if you have built a warm relationship foundation, they will also be missing their teacher. They are eager to connect.

11) SMALLER GROUPS: For smaller groups/one-to-one interaction, offer your class children the opportunity to video call you anytime during school hours, if they want to ask something, or share what they have made. You can call them too, at least twice a week to start. Work with families to find the right time to work with their children in smaller groups. I’m finding that parents are enjoying connecting and sharing and even documenting on our existing WhatsApp class groups, something to bear in mind as we search to find the right platform for documentation (our other options include: Storypark, Google Classroom Stream, Small World Families FB page etc)

12) ASK FOR FEEDBACK: After each Zoom session, send a WhatsApp message to your class group asking for any suggestions to improve it for next time. We are all learning on the job here. For example, one parent reminded us that her child’s sibling had a Zoom play date scheduled for the same time.. oops! Another parents told us of zoom hackers and that we should always set up a meeting that requires a password.

13) THIRD TEACHER: Pay attention to your background and the materials you have at hand... consider creating a mini atelier so that you can just reach out and grab something (a book/TP roll/pen and paper) as an idea come up. Also think about your face’s angle to the camera (no-one wants to see up your nose.. or, maybe they DO!). Make sure you as Host are well-lit (!) and not too far away from the camera and microphone. If you as teacher have kids of your own, and they want to come and sit on your lap, that’s fine! Teachers’ homes have always been a great source of inquiry for children!