How to De-Stress

When Life is a Mess

A distance learning experience by Madeline Maradiegue

CSU Fullerton
EDEL 523
Fall 2013

O
V
E
R
V
I
E
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Creating a collaborative distance learning

experience for students living in shelter or on the
streets poses unique challenges. Student attendance is
unpredictable, there is wide range of ages, abilities,
and needs, students attention can be difficult to
hold, and each individuals safety is a critical concern
when putting these teens and young adults in
communication with one another.
This presentation shares my journey to create
and implement a collaborative distance learning
experience for the students living in the Children of
the Night shelter and students participating in the
Children of the Night online tutoring program.

The Problem
Youth living in shelters or on the streets are unpredictable.
Unreliable living arrangements, undependable family relations, and
physical and emotional damage from past traumas force these youth into a
constant survival mode. As the instructor, you never know who will show
up for class from one day to the next.

To these youth, school comes last.

When more urgent needs are not being met, school is put on hold.

Every moment counts.

When these students DO show up for class, they need to see it was a good
decision. Students will not return if they feel their time was wasted.
Therefore, lessons must be clear, effective, relevant, and impactful.

The Temptation
Take the easy way out: Avoid the problem completely.
Rationale: More traditional classrooms have a set roster of students,
with much more predictable attendance and participation.
Implementing a distance education experience will be much easier
with a reliable set of student participants.
The simple solution: Partner with another teacher to implement a
distance learning experience in their more traditional classroom.

The Decision
What is the point of learning about creating
effective distance learning experiences for half a
semester if you dont learn how to implement
them with the students you actually work with?

The easy way out would have wasted an

opportunity to make a meaningful, relevant
learning experience for me and the
unconventional group of students I work with.

The Idea
Group assignments should engage all participants.
What is something all of our students have in common?

STRESS
Financial stress
Family stress

Court dates

Trauma survival

Daily survival on the streets

Stress from school
Relationship stress
Pressure from social workers, probation officers, judges

A Complication and the Solution

THE

COMPLICATION

Youth in our shelter are victims of

sexual abuse and do not have
healthy boundaries with many of
the adults they meet. They have
had to learn how to manipulate
others for survival.

Many of our online students are

adults with criminal records.

Putting shelter residents in open

communication with these adults
can be dangerous for the youth,
the adult, and our shelter.

T H E

S O L U T I O N

I hosted the class on

Schoology.com, and made login IDs
and passwords for each student
using one G-mail account that only
I have access to check. Any messages
sent from one student to another
would come to this e-mail address.

Schoolgy privacy and moderating

tools were set to produce the
highest level of security. Nothing
could be posted to the class without
my knowledge.

Shelter students only logged in

under the supervision of shelter
staff, and online students logged in
with an online tutor.

Planning the Project and

Setting It Up
The most difficult step in the process of creating a
collaborative distance learning experience between shelter and
street youth was ensuring that students would not be able to
communicate completely freely with one another, since it posed
the greatest risk. It took several searches for a platform that
would allow collaboration and full security at the same time.

After deciding upon Schoology, it took several practice

attempts to ensure students would not be able to communicate
with each other without my knowledge or permission. Once I
was sure this could be done, I obtained permission from the
shelter president to move forward.
Next, I presented the idea to the shelter residents to
ensure that the topic (stress management techniques) was
something they would be interested in learning, and whether
participating in the project was something they would like to
do. I did not make participation mandatory. Several students
agreed that it sounded like an activity they wanted to try.

Finally, it was time to plan the

lesson.
The objective was for students
work together to discover a variety
of healthy ways to relieve stress,
while building upon skills relevant
to their academic goals.
I separated the process into three
collaborative activities over the
course of one week.

Activity 1:
A discussion about what stress means to each student,
what causes stress, and how it makes a person feel.

This activity gave students an opportunity to test out Schoology

while getting to know each other in a controlled context.

Activity 2:
A deeper discussion on ways to manage stress,
including a simple research activity.

Activity 3:
A presentation or essay to share what they learned, using skills appropriate
to their academic goal. Online GED students practiced essay writing and
gave each other feedback, and shelter students worked together to create a
presentation for shelter staff and received credit for Health. All final
projects and essays were informed by the research and sharing all students
had done as one collaborative group.

The Experience

The On-Site Student Experience

The

Students participating in the Stress Project were

given opportunities throughout the day to check the
Schoology website. Students used the website one at
a time to ensure proper supervision by staff. I had to
log them in to keep their password secure, but once
on the site they were free to explore and post
comments or replies. Four students from the on-site
school chose to participate, but only three followed
through with the assignments.

I helped students log into the Schoology website the

first time by showing it to them using the join.me
screen sharing website the students were familiar
with. After, students were given a new password daily
so I could monitor any changes they might make to
their profile. Students logged into Schoology either
before or after their regular tutoring session. Three
students from the Online GED program chose to
participate, although only two ended up following
through with the activities.

For the first assignment, students explored the

Schoology website, and posted comments and replies
to the discussion board.

For the first assignment, I showed online students

how to log into the Schoology website, then they
were able to post comments and replies to others.

For the second assignment, students did an Google

search on their own, and posted links, ideas and
comments on the discussion board.
For the third assignment, shelter students worked
together in our activity room, under the supervision
of shelter staff, to create posters to share what they
had learned. They chose pictures from magazines to
represent the ways stress makes you feel, and things
you can do to relax.

Online

Student

Experience

For the second assignment, only one student posted a

link to the discussion board. The other student did
not show up for tutoring for the second activity.
For the third assignment, both students completed
an essay with their online tutor using join.me, and
used some ideas from our previous discussions.
When each essay was complete, students were able to
make comments and corrections on the other
students essay. Then each student made corrections
to their essay with the help of an online tutor.

First Discussion
Snapshots

What is Stress?

Second Discussion Snapshots

What are healthy ways to relieve stress?

Final Product
Shelter students made posters
out of magazine pictures to
present at our weekly staff
meeting, sharing the ways
stress makes students feel, and
healthy ways students and staff
can find relief.

GED students practiced writing essays, gave each

other feedback, and made corrections.

Student Opinions

I created a simple evaluation so students could

give anonymous feedback.

I had my doubts the first day of the

project, when one student asked
Why are we doing this?? with a roll
of her eyes. I was surprised the next
day when the same student asked if I
would help her log in.

The most
frequent
critique was
that there
werent more
students to
talk to.
One student has already asked
several times to do this again.

Students in the
shelter enjoyed
working with
others online.
One student
grinned as she
compared the
discussions to
Facebook after
the first day.

My Experience and Final Thoughts

The preparation BEFORE planning the project was the greatest challenge. Thinking
of a collaborative project that would keep these students interested was a new
experience. At first my thoughts for a subject leaned toward math or writing, but the
range of student needs was too great. Deciding to focus on something all students had
in common helped bring my own thoughts together.
Planning the project was the next greatest challenge. Although I thought the
assignments through step-by-step before creating the class on Schoology, there were
still a handful of things I left out, but did not realize them until a student had a
question. During the week of the project I had to clarify and answer plenty of
questions. Questions like, How do I turn this in? or Where should we post this
answer?? made me realize I had not thought of everything.
A third challenge was moderating the discussions the week of the project. Because of
our unique security requirements, I had to stay on top of reading and approving
student posts as they came through, as well as assigning new passwords to online
students daily and checking their Schoology profiles to make sure no personal
information was posted.
Overall, students and I enjoyed the experience and learned from it. Although it took a
lot of work to plan and implement, the experience is worth doing again in this and
other subjects. My hope is for more students to participate next time.