Snow Day: Virtual Teaching and Learning

Upon the return to school, students will search the snowy courtyard for
their beautiful ice orbs, the result of a science project focused on
states of matter and energy. 

I continue to be an advocate of the Snow Day Virtual teaching and learning idea, yet many of my colleagues and friends do not agree with me. I can see their side of the story too--a snow day is a rare day for children to go out and play, enjoy their families, relax, create, and have fun. Why ruin that with lots of study; yet to keep the curriculum flow going it's difficult to interrupt the learning when storms hit. Hence, in the end, I'm a fan of a good balance between the free play and fun that a snow day brings and the a bit of practice and school learning to keep the program consistency going.

So yesterday as the snow day began, I was online with a number of colleagues doing our work virtually. Then I sent a letter to family members and colleagues regarding the math curriculum updates and expectations. I also sent out a number of notes to family members regarding specific student accomplishments and questions. Responses to these notes, in part, helped me to further analyze the math program and do some prep for upcoming lessons. Later I worked on upcoming progress report comments and found a bit of time for snow day play and fun too. My notes from yesterday and today encouraged students to catch-up on their math practice and to get a head start on next week's focus too if they'd like My team members and I all worked to update our science websites, links, and learning and placed that information on our team website for student review should they like to preview the science curriculum, try out a few experiments, and play some related games.

The snow day for me has been the kind of time I crave on a weekly basis to do good curriculum research, planning, and review. It was also the kind of time I look forward to with regard to collegial collaboration. Needless to say it was a welcome reprieve and a great opportunity to catch up.

Technology has created a more seamless landscape for learning. It's hard to distinguish what belongs in the hours of a school day and what happens afterward as people everywhere are learning all the time via the Internet. When it comes to extreme weather and loss of school days, I still think there's room to consider virtual learning as a way to deal with a lost school day, yet I think that the decision has to be one that's considered by all stakeholders in each community as there will be different opinions based on geography, people's jobs, schedules, development, family needs, tech access, and more. At first, I was of the opinion that snow day study was the way to go, but my colleagues' debate helped me to see it differently. Now I think there may be a balanced decision to this, but I'm not sure what that is, and would recommend that systems create a good process to discuss what time on learning means and how that system will meet state requirements and expectations for optimal learning--how can we spend our time and money in ways that best supports all students? That's a big and important consideration in this day and age.

A recent decision by Boston Public Schools to change school start times resulted in the situation where parents' voices where not included in sufficient ways. Hence the decision met a lot of opposition, and eventually was retracted. So with any decisions for modern day schools, coming up with a good, transparent, and inclusive process that includes all stakeholders is most important. How we communicate the process well is essential too.

What will happen with learning in extreme weather days in the future is something I'm not sure about, but for now, I will say a balanced day of study and play served me and my teaching program well. Onward.

p.s. When I was a young mother and teacher, a snow day meant extensive child care at home and little school work, so that's a significant factor that has to be considered too when thinking about at-home work days since many educators are parents of young children too.