Yesterday I experienced a huge dip with regard to "virtual school" since I received directives that were worrisome and burdensome. After hours of processing the information and trying to make sense of it all, I reached out to the administration with my worries. I received words of support which helped me to make sense of the directives putting me back on track to forge forward with "virtual school" which is the attempt to continue the 5th grade learning program online. I am relieved to be at this place, and will use next week's teacher preparation time to review and revise the process to meet students' interests and needs in an even better way. What will I do to prepare?
Analyze efforts to date
I will make time to analyze the students' virtual learning efforts to date by reviewing the many, varied study opportunities they chose and completed. This will inform next steps.
Virtual Lesson Planning
I will plan a number of "math talk/problem solving" lessons that help student to review information taught and begin to learn new information. I will also plan a number of virtual math game lessons. I tried both of these types of lessons out this week and they were well received. I'm looking forward to continuing this virtual study with students the week of April 13.
Virtual Learning Schedule
I will work with the many teachers on the grade-level team to put a schedule in place for student-centered virtual learning. For every meeting and lesson, we'll make sure there are at least two educators there. I hope that this schedule will last for several weeks rather than just one week. This will add structure to teachers' and students' days which is good.
Revise the Learning Menu
I will respond to the suggestions administrators made for updating the learning menu to provide an easy-to-follow math menu with daily assignments and choices.
Teacher Meetings
I'll plan to attend a large array of teacher meetings as one way to plan and prepare with the broader team to support our wonderful fifth grade students and their families at this time.
This will be a full week of work that will hopefully result in a positive teaching/learning plan for the weeks at home and, perhaps, weeks back in school in May and June. Time will tell. Thanks to all who supported me on yesterday's bumpy path. I'm on the other side and ready to go on Monday when "virtual school" resumes.
