Washington tries remotely taught Spanish class

WASHINGTON — Facing a shortage of teachers this school year, Washington High School reached out to a remote teaching company called Elevate to fill the gap with an off-site instructor.

“We have other options, but this is the best,” Superintendent Willie Stone said at a school board meeting in August. “It provides the best learning environment for our students.”

While students still attend Spanish class in-person, their teacher, Maria Arteaga, runs the lesson from her home in South Dakota. With her webcam feed projected in front of the class, she interacts with the kids through a camera and mic in the room.

“I found it to be way different and way better than Zoom, and even better than being in the classroom, honestly,” Arteaga said. “The students are physically in the classroom, so they come in … I think it’s a lot more engaging for students, and it helps those students who are shy or don’t want to say anything out loud.”

There still is a staff member on-site: Erin Smith, who serves as the “Classroom Coach,” or in Arteaga’s words, her “hands and feet” in the room. The coaches take care of anything that can’t be handled remotely, like seating arrangements, classroom management, printing worksheets and troubleshooting technology.

“If they’re having some technical issue, the classroom coach is there to help them, but if they have questions about the material, I’m here to help them,” Arteaga said. “She’s like my extra support that I think a lot of teachers don’t have.”

Smith, for her part, said she thought the remote teaching model was working out well.

“My Spanish I kids really seem to be enjoying it,” she said. “It’s new to them, but they’re figuring it out as they go along … since it’s their first year of Spanish, they seem to be doing they same as they would in a classroom, they’re getting lessons, they’re practicing.”

While Arteaga used to teach in-person at a Chicago charter school, she said the 30-hour remote position offered her a better work-life balance.

“When I was working physically in the school, I felt burnt out, there was too much on my plate,” she said. “I had way too many things that I had to deal with, I was not able to really help my students the way I wanted to help them … I would prefer to teach this way because I’m actually doing what I love, not the extra that you’re expected to do when you’re in a traditional school.”

The flexibility has allowed her to pursue interpretation work on the side, which Arteaga said was a passion of hers.

“With Elevate I can (teach) and still do interpreting,” she said. “I can still teach, but it actually works with my schedule.”

There are some challenges that come with the remote model. A teacher-decorated room is obviously out of the question. One-on-one conversations are harder to facilitate.

“As a teacher, the most important thing is building relationships with my students,” Arteaga said. “That was kind of what worried me a little bit when I started teaching with Elevate.”

Elevate’s platform seeks to compensate for some of those challenges. The portal includes private chat options, a way to draw on the board, a hand-raising feature and several other stand-ins for in-person instruction norms.

“I tell my students, ‘If you have questions, go ahead and type them in the private chat, and I will get back to you the next day,’” Arteaga said. “So I don’t have one-on-one time with my students physically, I can still address whatever need that they may have. I can still answer those questions.”

Turning in homework, however, isn’t a major concern. Arteaga said Elevate’s model wasn’t too focused on assignments outside the classroom.

“I think the whole idea of homework is changing, it’s evolving,” she said. “I tell my students, ‘Even though you don’t have homework, you still have to take ownership of your learning … make sure you do the practice,’ but in my school, at least, we don’t assign homework.”

Overall, Arteaga said the model managed to keep kids engaged and involved.

“Of course it’s different because I’m not physically there with them, but I think it works just like any other relationship that you build online,” she said. “I think that’s where the world is going now, everything is online … people are still building connections, getting to know each other, without having to physically be there.”

Anahí Gasse, Elevate’s regional operations manager, said the company made an effort to prioritize social-emotional learning stressed by districts in recent years.

“We want to ensure, regardless of where students are and regardless of where the instructors are, that we’re able to connect them with the best quality,” she said. “Not just with instruction, but with relationship-building opportunities … We’re kind of equalizing the playing field for high-quality education, so it’s not based upon your ZIP code, it’s not based upon your resources.”

Other high-ups at Elevate said the company goal was not to replace in-person teaching, but to fill the gap for schools like Washington that can’t find needed staff locally.

“There is value to having that face-to-face instruction,” Elevate Academic and Coaching Development manager Lindsay McKinney said. “But we also know there are a lot of schools that are facing teacher shortages. We want to make sure that students in those situations are provided a highly qualified, certified teacher rather than a rotating sub.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com