Week 1 in Distance Learning 2020
First, some background. I am teaching a fourth grade classroom that is largely comprised of students I had last year in third grade. This is my first time teaching fourth grade in a long time, but it’s after two years teaching third grade, and a lotta years teaching sixth and fifth grade. Doing a “loop” up with my kiddos and their families is a great opportunity in a situation like distance learning, so I consider myself fortunate, and I hope that my families appreciate having someone that knows them, and that they know.
This week started with a lot of chaos and confusion around scheduling that I will not belabor, but since the start time was the same and I had already established solid contact with my families, so I had 90% attendance, and have run about the same since then. I do have some concerns (which I won’t go into, privacy) but I have a supportive admin who is aware of them, etc.
Here are some tips based on this week (and prior experience last year):
- Start with bell-work, do now, or some other piece of work that they can begin working on as class starts and they come in. We’re supposed to be doing an SEL activity, and I am doing meditation. This doesn’t work if you have kids dropping in a minute or two late (and you will) as you’re doing a focusing meditation. This gives students 5 minutes or so to “file in”. In a normal class, I’d do 10-15 minutes for this, but time is too valuable in a Zoom classroom, I move on and tell them to finish it later during our independent work time or as homework. I’m doing Daily Language Review and Daily Cursive Practice with my kids. My kids were used to DLR and CONTINUE READING: Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Week 1 in Distance Learning 2020