George, Virtually

A U.S. Government teacher adapts to a
remote-learning environment

It can be challenging in the best of times to engage teenagers in the history of our country, but throw in a worldwide pandemic, a quick pivot from in-person to virtual learning, and a mandate to not teach any new materials, and you’d be in the position many teachers around the country found themselves in last spring. I’m Juan Armijo, and I teach regular and Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. government and AP U.S. history to high school students in Las Cruces, New Mexico. My school district is a Hispanic-majority district, and the students I teach are interested in what is happening in their community, their paths to graduation, and their post-school futures.

When schools in New Mexico shut down last March, my colleagues and I very quickly learned to adapt to a new way of teaching. With just one week’s notice, I had to create an entirely new plan for my classroom through the end of the school year. Vibrant classroom debates were forced onto discussion board threads, and small-group work became mostly individual work. My number one goal was to keep students engaged and learning in our new online classrooms. I focused the last quarter of the 2019–2020 school year on reviewing materials about the development and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, including the role George Washington played in shaping the presidency, which we had covered earlier in the year. The first time my students covered this material in the fall, they did so through an exploration of primary sources, video resources, and lively debate. I helped them grapple with understanding and analyzing the Declaration of Independence and The Federalist Papers (No. 10 and No. 15), and challenged them to respond to my discussion prompts about the Constitutional Convention and limits on presidential powers. I witnessed my students engage fully in our country’s history.

Now I had to find new ways to present the same topics to my students. As a George Washington Teacher Institute alum, I was lucky to have a plethora of resources to incorporate into my teaching. The biggest challenge, however, was engaging students in topics they had already covered in an environment that could not provide the same level of engagement. Factors such as a lack of working devices, limited internet access, and multiple students in the home made the situation very challenging. The school year ended with uncertainty and without closure.

As spring turned to summer, my thoughts turned to the 2020–2021 school year. We were initially instructed to prepare for a hybrid model, with students attending school in-person for part of the week and remotely the rest. However, at the end of July, we received word that all public schools would begin the school year online. Once again, my colleagues and I scrambled to adapt our teaching plans.

The curriculum for my 12th grade U.S. government students begins with the founding of the United States. Armed with a better knowledge of what worked and what didn’t work regarding online learning in the spring, I set about creating a plan to more fully engage my students. One of the activities I have consistently used as a tool to engage students in my physical classroom is Mount Vernon’s Be Washington game. It provides a basis for discussions on policy, leadership, history, and government that are essential to helping my students understand the founding on a deeper level. This year, my students played Be Washington from the comfort of their own homes during one of our class periods. As a follow-up, they were asked to form an argument about what they believe were the greatest influences on George Washington’s leadership and post it to our class discussion board in Canvas, the district’s online learning management platform. We used one of our class sessions to discuss and debate the arguments presented.

Despite the current challenges of the learning environment, I’m glad to know that my students were able to gain a better understanding of how President Washington made decisions and how his presidency has impacted history.