I am a little late to blog about Distance Learning but I hope you find some of these tips to be helpful. When Distance Learning started, I wondered how teachers would adapt. I used digital learning formats in my classroom a lot when I taught. As a coach I know it isn’t the norm in many classrooms, especially the younger grades. After a lot of thought and feelings that keep changing, I think I found some things that work well and I am comfortable sharing my ideas. Wouldn’t it be horrible to share ideas that aren’t tried out first!
Amount of Work
So there is a lot of controversy around this topic. My final thought is to provide enough meaningful work that students can learn and still grow. But it should also allow parents to adjust the amount of work based on their personal situations. The process I helped develop for teachers was a “Must Do”, "Should Do” and “Can Do” approach. We color code lessons into these categories. This way the family that wants as much as possible has plenty of work and the family struggling to get work done can just do the Must Do activities. We explain that all activities will be the best for the growth of the child BUT we understand every family situation is different and we fully understand that. This has been a game changer and we had many parents thank us for making sure we met their personal needs.
Keep Learning Similar
Every situation of course is different but in our District there have been lessons uploaded to our platform for teachers to use. The problem is that nothing is familiar to the kids. To solve this problem I asked each grade level to think of one part of the day that we can try and normalize. For example, kindergarten loves their shared reading so I worked to create videos so the kids can continue with the Shared Reading. It is the one activity the kids are excited about each week. They want to learn the poem and complete the activities. Why? Not because they are fun and games but because it feels like what they are used to. Also you may be wondering why I said to pick one thing during the day and that’s because a lot of teachers are parents too, so recording can get crazy. We also need self-care for ourselves. I found it very time consuming to put together a lesson. A classroom Shared Reading lesson takes me no time to prep but prepping and recording a lesson takes me much, much longer. Click here for some videos for various grade levels (please no judging my videos!)
Virtual Field Trips
Not everyone can do live class meetings but if it is required we have found that a Virtual Field Trip is a great way to meet and keep everyone engaged. We simply have everyone log on to Zoom and go on the field trip together. Then at the end we discuss it. It is something the kids look forward to every Friday and marks off the live sessions. In reality, I would love teachers to do multiple live sessions and one on one Guided Reading lessons but that doesn’t work for everyone. They still needed to do some live sessions so many found this option to be the best! Check out this list of some fun virtual field trip ideas and check with local places online! Our local Zoo has some great online tours and learning sessions for the kids every day!
Online Centers
This is a hard one but we know the importance of practicing reading and math skills and wanted to keep that in our plans. This is one of those “Can Do” options on the lesson plans. We have included PowerPoints for Sight Words and Digital Literacy Centers. In some of the older grades it has been digital math task cards. I think the important thing is to provide these opportunities even though we have a “new normal”.
Boom Cards- If you haven't checked out Boom Cards I can't tell you how much I love them. These are great activities to use as virtual literacy or math centers. They can be used for quick practice but also can be self grading to give you feedback on how students are doing. If you aren't familiar with Boom Cards I highly suggest trying them out.
Will everyone agree with everything I feel? No, but I am ok with that. What I do hope is that everyone is meeting the needs of their kids while taking care of themselves.
Other Digital Resources
