HP Innovation Journal Issue 15: Summer 2020 | Page 51

TEACHING FROM A DISTANCE
Edna Brewer Middle School, Oakland, California
As educators and administrators across the country discuss plans to
reopen schools in the fall, the only thing that’s certain is that classes
will look very different, with fewer students in classes, social distancing
measures, and, for many, a combination of distance and in-person
learning. The Garage by HP visited one sixth-grade language arts teacher,
Jana Maiuri at Edna Brewer Middle School in Oakland, California, to
learn about her teaching experience during quarantine. Maiuri and her
students worked through the ins and outs of distance learning together.
They helped each other troubleshoot microphone and webcam
issues, learned to use the chat function in Zoom meetings, figured out
how to upload and download different file formats, and got to know
one another in new ways, from their living rooms, bedrooms, and dining
tables. “It’s a huge learning curve for them on top of their classwork,”
Maiuri says. “ They’ve been incredibly resilient.”
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