#31.The First Days - Social Distancing Style

Our first day of school is August, 17th 2020. Normally by this point in the summer I have my lessons planned, my copies made and my classroom set up.  Obviously, this year is a little different.  My district is currently providing our students with options in order to return to learn: 

1) a hybrid schedule in which students alternate attending in-person and remote modalities or 

2) a full remote learning experience.  

This presents me with quite a challenge!  How will I teach two groups of students, in different locations, at the same time?

Does anyone else remember reading the book, "The First Days of School" when you started teaching?  Recently an "updated" meme of the book has been circulating and it certainly rings true!  This year is in many ways our "first year" all over again.  You are likely being asked to teach your students using platforms you have never used, to recreate your curriculum in a way that is accessible online, and develop new ways to manage your classroom.  

I want my students to be successful no matter what modality of learning they choose, but I also need it to be sustainable for me as a teacher. I have designed my lessons so that my students are learning the same information concurrently, no matter where they may be physically located.  The remote students might have some choice as to when they learn the information. 

To accomplish this seemingly impossible feat, I have built the following best practices into my online classroom:

1. Uniform Lesson Design: Each lesson that I design has a landing page in our LMS.  All of the links and activities are housed here.  I have built the following three components into my daily lessons; retrieval practice, content delivery and application.  

2. Consistency:  Each lesson is clearly labeled.  I have chosen to use a numbering system (based on what I learned in The Modern Classrooms Project) to organize my class.  For example, the first day of unit 1 is labeled "1.1", the second day on unit 1 is "1.2", etc. 

3. Clear Expectations:  Although I will not post all of the assignments for a unit ahead of time, the students will receive a calendar at the beginning of each unit identifying what lesson will be covered each day.  

One of the most important things that I realized in this process is that BOTH my F2F and Online classroom instruction will look different this year because of social distancing requirements.  Accepting this limitation freed me to explore different ways to "teach" my favorite lessons.  I no longer have the option to run my classroom the way that I have in the past, even if my students are in the physical classroom. It is time to break the mold.  

To demonstrate what this process will look like  I have modified my "First Days of School Station Rotation" from last year.  I identified four needs that need to be met in the first week of class; building a community of learners, establishing clear policies and procedures, teaching the students how to navigate the LMS, and exposing the students to a taste of the content. I designed a virtual station rotation that addresses these needs over the period of two days.  

Station 1. Class Introductions: Students will be introducing themselves via Padlet. They will share a picture of themselves and answer questions like "what is your happy place?"  To make this even more interactive, you can create a "people find" icebreaker activity to use based on their answers!

Station 2. Canvas Scavenger Hunt: This will be the first year that we roll out Canvas to all of our students.  This scavenger hunt is designed to familiarize the students with the LMS. The students participate in community building activities as they learn to navigate through the LMS. 
-Messages: The students will send the teacher a message using the messaging feature that answers the question, "if you had one extra hour of free time every day, how would you use it?."  

-Class Discussions - They participate in a class discussion in which they share their "rose, bud and thorn" for the past six months.

Station 3. Exposure to Content - The students take a fun, but not terribly scientific, projective personality test called "The Cube." (Public Link) It is posted on EdPuzzle, which is another tech tool that I use all the time. The students analyze their results and, in doing so, tell the teacher a little bit about themselves.

Station 4. Syllabus - The students have to locate important information in their syllabus including grading information, important dates and assignment expectations.  They have to take a picture of their answers and upload the file via our LMS.  This allows them to practice different ways to submit assignments.  

NOTE: I am continually amazed by the creativity and generosity of my fellow educators.  The Canvas Pro Scavenger Hunt that I posted above was originally developed by Lindsey Cole.  Her original scavenger hunt is a masterpiece!  It is even more in-depth than my version and includes the directions in both English and Spanish! I have posted all of my work in the Commons as well.

If you do not have access to Canvas, I have included links to the materials in Google Drive as well.  You can tailor the LMS portion to whatever platform your students are using.    

This year, as educators, we will be faced with challenges unlike any that we have faced before. Many of us are feeling like first year teachers all over again!  My hope is that you give yourself the same grace and patience that you give your students when they are learning something new.   In the words of Helen Keller, "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."  Together we can build an accessible, sustainable and engaging learning environment for our students.