OMG…yesterday was a very stressful day fraught with anxiety. We had two Zoom meetings, a grade level meeting and a staff meeting. We are getting closer to ramping up for the first week of “remote” learning that is not supplemental work. We’ve been given a learning plan to use with the students. That plan is supposed to be on our Canvas course. We are supposed to offer “Remote” Learning Office Hours and make ourselves available either in pre-recorded form or live during 2 instructional blocks. I am going to try live as I am not comfortable recording myself. I think I’d do better “in the moment” with the students. I am going to use Zoom as my platform for these office hours (as stated in previous posts) and for the live sessions with students. Most of my day yesterday was spent trying to wrap my head around a schedule that I could present to families before Friday, looking over the 4th Grade Learning Plan for the first 3 days next week then trying to come up with a way to support my families as the learning plan is far from intuitive. I do not want my families to see this and become overwhelmed. They need some kind of scaffolding. So…with the help of my wife I drafted a document, in table form, that I think will accompany the learning plan…something for the family to have “next” to them as their child goes through what is expected. I also…again with the help of my wife…created a technical document, included with the table…so families know exactly how to access the Canvas course that hosts the learning plan.
I shared all of this with my grade level team…to see if they would like it and…help me fill in spaces for the days I have not looked at yet…in an attempt to work smarter…not harder. They seem to be on board with the idea. I have meetings with both teams today and will get a better sense of their thoughts then. Well…just had my two meetings and no one seemed interested in helping with the document. That might be because I went ahead and finished most of it (remember…overachiever) before both meetings. We did all agreed that what is being asked of us, our families, and finally the students is nothing short of Titanic!!! There is no way the kids are going to be able to complete all of the work in the 2 hours they have been limited to. So…we went through the first 3 days and took out things we thought the kids did not need to do or “assumed too much” on the part of both the student and the family. For example, one Math activity expected them to print a document out and have scissors and glue available to complete the task. Printing a document implies you have a printer, ink and paper. We also agreed on what assignments would be graded informally. I felt much better after meeting with my teammates!
Before each of those meetings I tried another Zoom Read Aloud…only 3 families joined so I used the opportunity to talk to the parents directly about the changes we are going to go through starting next week. They were receptive and supportive which made me feel better.
I also made contact with a family I have not heard from since March 16th! That was a win! They need their Chromebook so I’m going to meet them at school to get them that before the end of the end of the week.
I spent the better part of the afternoon tweaking my Support Document. Then…I took a big risk and asked two families with different tech experience (the same two parents I spoke with during the Zoom Read Aloud by the way) to test out my directions on the Support Document. They were able to log in, access the learning plan and click on the links! SUCCESS!!!!!! That made me feel even better about all of this!
I’m thinking more about lesson presentation next week. It is my opinion right now that I will need to practice a Zoom meeting (with my wife) where I share my screen so I can see what that’s like. I want the live presentations to include time showing students where things are and what I want them to do and screen sharing seems to be the way to accomplish this.
Whew!!!!!!