Your Students Won’t Turn the Camera On Either? Part I

After nearly a year relying on extremely-limited socially-distanced contact, so many of us are craving every ounce of it that we can get. For teachers then, opening Zoom or Google Meet to a sea of black boxes - day in, day out - can feel utterly demoralizing. Not only because we want so badly to see our students, but also because it makes our already challenging job of teaching virtually that much more challenging. So if your heart drops every time you see one of those black boxes, or you feel frustration brewing under the surface, you are not alone - not by a long shot.

I invited my friend Sarah Plumitallo to share some much needed insight and perspective to this challenge. As a specialist, she sees a variety of situations throughout a given school day. She not only works in six classrooms, but also has two children of her own. Both of these experiences has shaped her thinking around what it means to be engaged.

 Part 1: My Experience with Virtual Teaching

My role this year is as an ESOL teacher in second grade. It’s my first time as an ESOL teacher in second grade, and has been an adjustment from teaching primarily 3rd through 5th graders. We’ve spent much of the year in an all virtual model, with our first group of in-person students starting the hybrid model the second week of January. It’s been a long few months of Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting - six a day, not to count meetings or office hours - attempting to teach students both to read and extend their emerging English language skills. I’ll be completely honest… this has probably been the most frustrating year of my career, and the one where I’ve questioned my skills as a teacher - even more than my first year!

A lot of that frustration and insecurity has stemmed from how difficult it is to observe and provide feedback to emerging readers/multilingual learners from behind a computer screen… especially when that screen is black. Our district policy was initially that we could request, but not require, student cameras to be on. After a few weeks, that policy was reversed; teachers can require cameras to be on, but the truth is, that’s not realistic. So it’s been a delicate balance between accepting that some cameras will just always be off, and trying to encourage more students to turn them on (and keep them on).

Part 2: The Reasons Behind the Black Square

One thing that I came to terms with early on last Spring, was that now, more than ever, I cannot take things personally. A student not doing a Canvas assignment, not coming to meetings on Zoom, not having their camera on, not participating - it’s not about me. It’s not a slight directed at me. There’s a root cause, of which I could certainly play a role, but it’s not for me to feel personally offended by. Just as I’ve long since let go of taking things personally in the classroom, I had to realize that making me frustrated wasn’t the goal or purpose behind any of my students having their camera off.

That’s not to say that I wasn’t interested in the why - I was. So I’ve not only paid attention to and sought out the reasoning from my own students, but I’ve listened to the experiences of educators and experts across the country too. And what I’ve found is that the reasons range wildly from the expected work avoidance to deep-seated trauma. Students may not feel comfortable showing the space in which they’re working - for a variety of reasons. They may just want to keep their private life private; after all, this is their home, not our classroom. (I actually talked about this in a viral post on IG early on in the pandemic.) Students may be distracted by the camera - seeing themselves and zeroing in on their own appearance, facial expression, etc. Students may be triggered or emotionally drained by the use of the camera, something I didn’t fully understand until my own son explained it.

I have two boys, a sixth grader (William) and a second grader (Henry), who’s actually in one of the classes I work with. For background, both of my boys are autistic and high-functioning, though very differently; my oldest is what might be described as anti-social, whereas my youngest is social enough that you may never know he’s on the spectrum. My sixth grader, William, to this day does not put his camera on when learning virtually (he goes to school two days a week, soon to be four). He’s just uncomfortable with all aspects of it and the more we pushed, the more reluctant he was to even participate with the camera off in class.

My second grader, Henry, explained to me that he didn’t like the feeling of being on camera and not knowing who was looking at him. He said that, in school like normal, you can see when someone looks at you - and you can look back. He wasn’t sure, then, who to look at while on camera. Talk about a complete lightbulb moment for me! I would have never thought of that perspective - and how overwhelming it might be to be consumed with questions of just who was looking in your “direction” at any given moment. Henry has returned to in-person learning two days a week at my school. We still use Zoom even when students are in person (so that virtual and in-person students can interact, and small groups aren’t dependent on where students physically are). He has slowly warmed up to using his camera - which we’ve attributed to him now being able to see just where some of his peers are looking. My experiences with him (and his older brother) have definitely served as a reminder to me not to make assumptions about why someone might not have their camera on - and establish a dialogue about that whenever possible.

Part 3: Cultivating a Culture of Trust - and Understanding

Ultimately, whether or not students turn on their camera will be a choice made by them, or their family. We have to recognize that we do not have the same control over virtual learning that we do in-person learning -- their home is not our classroom. That said, there definitely are things that you can do to mitigate some reasons why students don’t have their cameras on - particularly those that are rooted in a relationship of trust between themselves, their peers, and you.

I made the mistake of asking students to turn on their cameras while we were still in a whole-group setting; which, in retrospect, seems like such a “duh, don’t do it” thing to do. Under normal circumstances, in person, I wouldn’t dream of calling out a student for not meeting expectations… I’d find a way to do it privately. The same has to hold true for the virtual environment. So I started using breakout rooms and following-up after whole-group Zooms to see if I could talk to students and their families about camera usage.

It’s a tricky subject. Students may not want to reveal right away the source of their discomfort or distrust, and we have to be okay with that. This goes hand-in-hand with relationship building, which we know isn’t an overnight process. It took me some time to earn the trust of students to even get them to tell me why they didn’t want to use their cameras.

One thing that was particularly helpful was finding ways to work up to camera usage in the whole-group setting. Some students started out using their camera when they were just 1-on-1 with me -- and I would create non-academic opportunities, like “lunch bunch” or office hours to do so. Then we’d try it out for short periods of time in small group - perhaps just when they wanted to answer a question or contribute to a discussion - and then eventually, the same but in whole group. Another thing that was helpful was ensuring that students’ had low-stress ways to communicate discomfort with the camera, so that I’d know they needed a break. That could be a hand signal, private chat, or even just a reaction emoji on Zoom.

Another consideration was helping students to find a space in their home or workspace that they were comfortable sharing. So if you have a student that is hesitant, give them the idea of creating a homemade backdrop - it can be as simple as notebook paper decorated and taped together. You can also suggest the use of virtual backgrounds, though some computers can’t handle it without a green screen (and some districts have disabled it). It’s one thing that has worked for some of my more reluctant students, especially when we could give them a custom background that was fun to show.

Part 4: Overcoming the Black Box Obstacle

I still have a handful of students sprinkled throughout the day that don’t consistently keep their cameras on… and while it’s frustrating - because I don’t feel like I’m able to always do the things with them I need to do to meet their needs - I have to accept that and make the best of it. There’s only so long I can let the frustration sit at the surface without action, you know?

So there’s some things that I’ve done to make instruction work, even with the gloomy black box. One of the first things I did was use PowerPoint online - we’re a Microsoft school - so that I could see what students were typings/moving in real time. I actually made a letter board so that students could make words, and using “Slide Sorter” mode I was able to see all 5-6 students moving their words at once - just as if I was sitting in front of them. You can do something similar with GoogleSuite and other resources, including SmartNotebook. I also used the chat box and functions in Zoom like reactions, thumbs up/down a lot as non-verbal communication tools. The key was really figuring out what tool to use and when so that it never lost its impact.

Surprisingly, I found that Flipgrid was actually a great tool to use with students that were reluctant to use their cameras during class time. I have to believe that complete control over the video - being able to refilm if needed, add filters, etc. - is why some reluctant students opted to use Flipgrid even though it meant they would be on camera in some way. Students could potentially use Flipgrid to respond, even during class, though I never used it that way.

I think overall the key to overcoming the black box problem is 50% problem-solving to find alternative ways to approach non-verbal communication, and 50% letting go. The letting go has been the hardest part for me, if I’m being honest, because I’m an observant person. Non-verbal communication is my strong suit, so to be deprived of it puts me at a disadvantage. I’ve had to rely on verbal communication much more, and just readjusting my expectations in general. 

Stay tuned for part II of this conversation where I will share three strategies to help us continue to engage our students in a digital world.