This article was written and provided by Jason Watanabe, the Faculty Advisor for Cerritos High School Model United Nations.
It was right after we returned from NHSMUN that the world began forever changing for us. The coronavirus had already been on the news and just was sprouting up in New York as we were leaving. We got out of there just in time. It was a joy to see our students so elated after the conference, but little did we know, it wouldn’t be long before our lives were forever changed.
Normally when I return home from NHSMUN, I hit the ground running. I also coach cross country and track & field at Cerritos and this conference just happens to be during the track & field season. Unfortunately, one-by-one meets got canceled and so did conferences. Our senior teachers and I sprung into action and organized an online debate and then went further by coordinating our first online conference with our freshman using Zoom. Little did I know that it would not be our last and this temporary solution would become one that would help serve as the foundation for our upcoming Model UN season.
Trying to figure out the best route moving forward, we quickly coordinated with some of the larger schools in Southern California whose conferences we also attend. While we already had our novice conference slated, the remainder of the schedule was up in the air. The costs of hosting an online conference are not cheap and figuring out how to effectively run a conference online is not easy. Luckily, we had an extremely competent core of students as our Secretries-General and USGs of Technology to help guide us.
Together we had meetings to coordinate the conference, figure out how to effectively get students into caucus groups and also monitor them at the same time, while also still recognizing the students who deserved that recognition. The end result? The groundwork was laid for a series of conferences to keep our Model UN season alive.
In mid-October, we hosted our normally annual novice conference which allowed us to work out any of the issues in our system. We then came back two weeks later to host our first advanced conference. Edison took charge in November, Mira Costa in December and Huntington Beach will wrap it up in a few weeks. I was happy to work with this core of schools to hold these conferences averaging 600 delegates each and do our own problem-solving while salvaging the season. We even got creative and are attempting to coordinate schools across the country and the globe to have one final collaborative conference, showing that in times of great challenges, you can also find opportunity.
During the process, here are a few things we learned from hosting these conferences:
TECH ISSUES WILL ALWAYS BE A PROBLEM
Right away at our first makeshift conference in the spring, we noticed the issues with technology. A car ran into an electric pole in one area of our city and knocked the power out to a grid of the city. Luckily, the power came on, but a group of students arrived late. While we didn’t expect the same thing to happen again, we knew tech issues would be the forefront of our problems. We set up a “help desk” of sorts where students could come in and get technical support from our USGs of Technology. It also served as a resource for our staff and even the advisors. Normally the problems were solved by the students restarting their computer, reminding them to update their Zoom or be patient with it or simply providing the link to their committee. We faced a swarm of issues at the novice conference, but with each conference, the issues subsided.
HELP ADVISORS KEEP TABS
As an advisor, I always am actively wandering around committees. One, I want to see my delegates, as they always are impressive and keep me inspired to put in the time after seeing what they can do. Two, I also just want to nudge my delegates to try to keep them focused. It’s much harder to do in a virtual environment, but we implemented a few tools to help advisors. We used a “delegate issues” chart where we listed any issues that advisors should be aware of. Normally it was issues with students with their cameras off or leaving for an extended period of time, but it’s a useful tool. Secondly, we had a link to all the resources and an advisor would need from committee links to speakers list and even an advisors lounge where teachers could just talk!
ZOOM UPDATES ARE IMPORTANT
On our school Chromebooks, getting the new Zoom updates hasn’t been possible yet, but whoever can update should. The update solved the issue of allowing students to move from one caucus group (breakout room) to another, rather than having the chairs manually assign it. They will still need to do so for those without the update, but it’s far less stressful for a chair. I recently had a Professional Development (PD) with our school district and the leader of the PD manually tried to assign the entire group of over 100 teachers manually. By the time she did, the PD was already over.
TRIPS & TRICKS
With all of us helping each other to coordinate our conferences, we all figured out a few things here and there that helped us run a smooth conference. Here are a few things I can remember off the top of my head.
- Since we had an upgraded subscription to Zoom, we were able to use features like polling, which saved us time by allowing us to use polls to take all of our votes. While the person in charge of the room must create the polls (while any host or co-host can use them), you simply can set up one YES or NO poll and one YES, NO and ABSTAIN poll to use whether it’s procedural or voting on amendments or resolutions.
- Having your chairs log in with two separate accounts allows you to monitor twice as many rooms during informal caucuses. It is also encouraged to keep one caucus group in the main room or at least an account logged in there in case someone logs into a session.
- It’s difficult to protect any virtual setting from unwanted filters, but you can try to limit the chance of it happening. Require delegates to keep their cameras on unless they specify a reason why they cannot. Create a waiting room to approve delegates in your committee and try to have them set their name to their committee and country while also having a list of advisors so you can add those in who should be there and weed out those who should not be. Creating a password is a great way to limit issues, but make them simple enough so delegates and advisors don’t have issues. You can also create a standard conference password. We also made sure not to publicly post the link to the committees, rather have the advisors distribute them.
- Discord may be a convenient way for delegates to communicate, but may not be the best use for the conference for delegates. I would say, using a discord for chairs to communicate (if they are working from different locations) may be useful, but for delegates and advisors, keeping it all in one package (Zoom) would be the most convenient. In addition, not all delegates will have discord so it’s one more obstacle in the process.
- If you can safely be in the same or similar place, it does make it easier to communicate, but in this environment, we know it is probably not likely. Thus, be sure that your staff (Secretariat and chairs) and advisors have a place where they can easily communicate. Test out what is most effective for your school!
- Sometimes the last thing students need is to sit in front of their screen for another hour for an opening. I agree that there have been many useful and amazing opening ceremonies, but also understand the difficulty faced in these trying times. We have never had a long opening or closing ceremonies as I know the students are trying to mental prepare themselves during opening and exhausted during closing. However, this is a perfect opportunity to provide choice. We decided to just go with a quick introductory message and awards in closing via slides, but if you pre-record your opening, you can allow students and advisors to attend your opening at a convenient time for them. It also takes the stress away from coordinating a “live” session. If you wanted to do a Q&A, you can do it live, but suggest you also record it so others can view it later! Check out the Cerritos Advanced Introductory Video.
- Share the resolutions link with all the delegates in formal caucus. While they can see it via Zoom, it’s hard for them to scroll through it and ask a question unless they have access to the document.
YOU CAN STILL PROVIDE RECOGNITION
While the thrill of the award ceremony is not the same in a virtual environment, you can still provide recognition to those who deserve it. One, we have used a Google Sheets point sheet to keep track of the delegates which allowed us to quickly monitor the delegates and then tally who deserved recognition.
A FINAL MESSAGE
Model UN has definitely transformed and in this forever changed world, I believe this series of events has proven that we in the Model UN community practice what we preach and can truly adapt to various situations and solve the problems ahead of us. I am grateful to have worked with a group of schools, advisors and delegates who made this all possible and only hope that they can get the same joy from Model UN virtually and also learn as much as they did with in-person conferences. While I do not want this to become our norm, I definitely think that this type of experience can become something we experiment with more in the future as we connect these amazing minds that are our delegates with others around the world. Yes, it’s definitely true that this world is forever changed, but it is our choice whether that change is for the better or worse. Seeing my students in action, I truly believe we are headed for a change for the better.
Please stay safe and healthy and I hope that at some point, we can work together in the future. If you ever have any questions, always feel free to reach out to me.
PLEASE JOIN US AT THE INTERNATIONAL
We really hoped to hold a conference where schools across the country and world could come together in a more collaborative setting with less emphasis on awards and more emphasis on collaborating. We came up with a two schedule system placing the Asian/Oceania (May 21-22) schools in one zone and the European/African (May 22-23) schools in another with the Americas/Carribean schools able to choose their sessions instead of having to stay up at the strangest hours to attend a conference. We hope you can join us on this wonderful experience as we close out our Model UN season. Even if your entire school cannot attend, we are open to individuals as long as you’re willing to prepare and we can even provide training (in English) with those without formal programs! For more information, please e-mail me at Jason.Watanabe@abcusd.us or visit https://www.cerritosmun.com/the-international.html.
