With many schools online or trying to communicate with students at home, I wanted to share what was successful for my when doing hybrid or concurrent instruction last year. While no one is enjoying this shift, there are ways to make it work and we just need to hold onto a few things that worked for right now.Here are 9 structures for a hybrid or concurrent teaching setting as well as 5 ways to support more distancing between in person students.
Want to view how I did science labs for online/distance learning? I heard from many parents and kids how much they loved having Science this spring. I hope this gives you some ideas of what you could model at home or record and post for students asynchronously.
One of the first things I wanted kids to have at home while teaching virtually was whiteboards, so I was psyched when my administration planned to make sure every kid got one in their "to go" kit to take home. I love using them in class, and kids love working with them. While whiteboards can of course be used as a replacement for paper, here are 10 specific ways to utilize them.
Google Slides are great for Collaborative Work! Think about collaborative story writing, number sense routine discussions, jigsaw reading, and more! See my periodic table project for one such idea.
I wrote a letter to my class the day that school closed for the year. It made me cry a little so I didn’t send it off. Everything was sad enough. I added a piece today because we had a great (3/4 of a) year together and this journey online is a bit unforgettable too. My class this year is fun online; I feel lucky that I get to do this with them. At the same time, my heart aches for their losses as the capstone year of elementary school. It may not compare to the loss of graduation for a senior, but their young hearts are broken nonetheless. Many have waited for these special events since Kindergarten. Their life will move on for sure, but there’s so much loss tied up in this pandemic. This is just a little slice.
This week as I kept typing the links to "classrooms" I have been missing my real classroom. This whole video chat stuff is good. It's better than email. It's better than digital worksheets, but it's not a classroom. A classroom is another home. I miss the space we can say is ours.
Charmed by Challenge 