Day 7 - COVID19 Pre-Planning:  Building Community in Remote Learning

So our district does not start bringing back students until September 8th, and only if the numbers are low enough.  The phase in plan is very slow starting with K-2 for 90 minutes a week for maybe a week or two, and then phasing in in chunks the next few weeks.  

Right now we do not even know if that will begin as other districts went back face to face and are having to close.  If it does begin, who knows how long it will work.  If everything goes off perfectly, I still will not see kids until end of September earliest, and then who knows for how long.

I think it's pretty safe to say we will be in remote learning for most of the semester - I wish they would just call it, but for many reasons they don't.  

Given this, it is more important than ever to build a strong community with parents and students to navigate through this first every school start not in the classroom.  A few things I am thinking of for the start of the year:

1.  Teams meet and greet at the end of the week with students.  I will let them join the class in the next day and then sign-up for 10 minute sessions with up to 4 students per session.  For one of my preps I have a lot of my students from last year, so it will be nice to see them again!

2.  Parents - there is no student orientation, curriculum night in the form of face to face this year, so reaching out to parents and building a strong line of communication during a completely new system.  My thoughts are to develop a parent team for each course and hold office hours for parents once a week to answer questions and keep them up to date.  Yes this will take extra time, but so will answering a bunch of emails.  Parents can adjust as long as they know you care and are invested in the kids.  Being pro-active in communication builds a relationship with a parent before an issue arises.  It is always better to tackle and issue if a foundation is formed ahead of time.

3.  We are given 30 minutes at the end of the day for office hours, which I will use for sure, but I think I will also offer one evening office hour per class each week.  Many times students are not ready to ask questions right away after school and need a break before starting their work and even knowing what they want to ask.

Just some thoughts - it is dedication of a lot of time to do this, but less collaboration will demand the same amount of time, but in a less productive way.  I have always preferred the proactive route and back in the day when email was newer I started a weekly group parent email that was well received.  That process waned when websites became a thing.  I now see the virtual platform as a way to get a closer knit community of collaboration going again.

Three positive things for today:

1.  I got on my Peleton bike for the first time in 2 weeks.  I pushed myself to get there since the beginning of school takes over everything and gives back exhaustion.  I needed to push and remember how much better I feel when I exercise.  Goal is to repeat Wed, Sat, Sun of this week.

2.  I got A LOT of things done yesterday for my classes.  

3.  I get to collaborate with some of my colleagues at my former HS today - looking forward to "seeing" them!