We had snow days last Thursday and Friday which, attached to being off on Monday and Tuesday, gave us a six day President's Day weekend. I and another teacher had been pushing for virtual learning days on snow days for some time and we got the go-ahead Wednesday morning as Thursday looked like it would be out and we had used up all our snow days.
Our school uses Moodle so I alerted my kids to check it and be ready to complete whatever I posted if we had a snow day. The reactions in my different blocks were funny:
Freshmen: "Miss Morrison!! It's a snow day!!!"
Me: "Yes, but this way we won't have to take away days from spring break or add a week to the end of the school year."
Freshmen: [silence for a moment] "Oh!" "Wait- that makes sense" "I like that idea" "That's good!" "That's way better than adding days!" "Why haven't we done this before?!?"
Juniors: [confused and surpised looks. silence]
Me: "This way we won't have to take away days from spring break or add a week to the end of the school year."
Juniors: "Ooh!" "That makes sense." "Yeah! I like this idea!" "Ok, I'll be checking!"
Seniors: "Ok." "I'll go on and do it." "Yup."
Me: [surprised that they are unfazed because we have never done this before..] "...This way we won't have to take away days from spring break or add a week to the end of the school year..."
Seniors: "Yup, got it."
So now I needed to prep for virtual learning. I made videos for my Algebra 2 juniors to watch and told them to practice the problems and chat/email me with questions. I embedded a Khan Academy video for my senior Calc class and told them to read the section (a skill I have been working on with them) and practice with some problems. I told my freshmen Physical Science class to finish watching the last 45 minutes of a debate we had been watching and discussing in class. I made a Moodle forum for them to post questions/comments on and told them to make one original post and reply to two others. This allowed for asynchronous learning which is important at this early stage when we have not established a precedent for virtual learning days and do not require all students to be on during their class time.
I was most excited about the freshmen virtual learning task but also most worried they would not log on to do it. My fears were proved to be unfounded. Of the whole school (other teachers also did this with their classes) they had the best buy in!! All but 2 or 3 logged on and completed the task. They were also eager to talk about what they had done on the Wednesday when we returned.
Since we also ended up with no school on Friday, I posted follow up (more videos and practice for juniors and seniors and debate project planning for freshmen) on Friday morning.
The juniors and seniors completed their tasks for the most part and those who didn't realized very quickly that they needed to go back and catch up since we just kept on moving in class. Thankfully and unusually the next topics did not build directly off of the ones on the virtual learning days so they were able to participate in the class activities and catch up on their own time.
I'm so thankful this first try at virtual learning days went well and I have several take-aways that hopefully will help me grow in this.
Our school uses Moodle so I alerted my kids to check it and be ready to complete whatever I posted if we had a snow day. The reactions in my different blocks were funny:
Freshmen: "Miss Morrison!! It's a snow day!!!"
Me: "Yes, but this way we won't have to take away days from spring break or add a week to the end of the school year."
Freshmen: [silence for a moment] "Oh!" "Wait- that makes sense" "I like that idea" "That's good!" "That's way better than adding days!" "Why haven't we done this before?!?"
Juniors: [confused and surpised looks. silence]
Me: "This way we won't have to take away days from spring break or add a week to the end of the school year."
Juniors: "Ooh!" "That makes sense." "Yeah! I like this idea!" "Ok, I'll be checking!"
Seniors: "Ok." "I'll go on and do it." "Yup."
Me: [surprised that they are unfazed because we have never done this before..] "...This way we won't have to take away days from spring break or add a week to the end of the school year..."
Seniors: "Yup, got it."
So now I needed to prep for virtual learning. I made videos for my Algebra 2 juniors to watch and told them to practice the problems and chat/email me with questions. I embedded a Khan Academy video for my senior Calc class and told them to read the section (a skill I have been working on with them) and practice with some problems. I told my freshmen Physical Science class to finish watching the last 45 minutes of a debate we had been watching and discussing in class. I made a Moodle forum for them to post questions/comments on and told them to make one original post and reply to two others. This allowed for asynchronous learning which is important at this early stage when we have not established a precedent for virtual learning days and do not require all students to be on during their class time.
I was most excited about the freshmen virtual learning task but also most worried they would not log on to do it. My fears were proved to be unfounded. Of the whole school (other teachers also did this with their classes) they had the best buy in!! All but 2 or 3 logged on and completed the task. They were also eager to talk about what they had done on the Wednesday when we returned.
Since we also ended up with no school on Friday, I posted follow up (more videos and practice for juniors and seniors and debate project planning for freshmen) on Friday morning.
The juniors and seniors completed their tasks for the most part and those who didn't realized very quickly that they needed to go back and catch up since we just kept on moving in class. Thankfully and unusually the next topics did not build directly off of the ones on the virtual learning days so they were able to participate in the class activities and catch up on their own time.
I'm so thankful this first try at virtual learning days went well and I have several take-aways that hopefully will help me grow in this.
- Make the task have an interactive component with other students. The freshmen were most involved because they were responding to one another and analyzing what they learned. This also assured me that they were completing the task and gave me opportunities to assess how it was going and their learning.
- Use videos from others when possible. I always emphasize to students that different teachers teach differently and they may understand a particular concept better when someone else teaches it. This was a great opportunity to have them watch someone else explain a concept and I had the chance to clear up any confusion and fill cracks in the learning when we returned. It also gave them an opportunity to try other excellent resources that I had previewed (Khan Academy and MIT open courseware). Also, making a video from scratch on the morning of an unexpected snow day is not necessarily a quick process and with all my guys who do plowing and shoveling it is important to get them the material early so they can complete it when they have a chance.
I hope I have another chance this year to build on what I and the students have learned through this process and I'd love to hear ideas and best practices from other teachers who do virtual learning days!!!
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