Educators are supporting their learners via online learning. That's a steep learning curve for many of us who are accustom to teaching in classrooms with a large variety of differentiated hands-on learning activities. So how can we meet this challenge?
That's a question educators all over the world are asking now. What can we do?
I jumped into an online math lesson the idea to find the lesson turn into a virtual recess again. I tried to teach too much too soon at a time when students simply wanted to connect with one another and get used to the Google Meet platform we were using. I disbanded the lesson and let the recess continue for a while. Then I reached out to colleagues for advice. They offered great tips including the following:
- Have an agenda
- Make sure that everyone mutes their mic
- Give each person a chance to speak
- Keep it simple
So today, I'll try another math lesson. Here's the plan.
- I placed a link for the Google Meet on the grade-level learning menu.
- I introduced the lesson and lesson prep on the grade-level math Google Classroom
- I'll start the lesson by introducing the agenda to students including the following steps:
- Thank you for coming to this lesson
- Mute your Mics
- I will call on people to answer specific questions. When I call on your, unmute your mic, then you may answer the question or say "pass." If you pass, I'll call on someone else.
- We'll spend about 15-20 minutes on the lesson, then you'll make your boards, and after that we'll play Bingo.
- We'll review the lesson with an interactive Fraction slide show. I created the show so that I could review a simple fraction concept, then move the fractions to exemplify that concept. There is an example of what the slideshow looks like at the bottom of the page. (it is not interactive in this mode, but it is interactive in the document-form).
- Then I'll give students a chance to create their boards, and after that we'll play Bingo.
Let's see how this interactive online lesson goes. I know families are looking forward to time when their children can engage with learning with their classmates and teachers at a specific time. I hope this responds to that desire.
