This is an opportunity

[Lucas HiltyAdmin @lucashfbep-org]

In light of the swift changes brought about by the pandemic, we have opened this special form. Teachers who had never before opened Google Classroom have begun delivering course content online. Other teachers are transitioning to the role of homeschool coordinator as patron families enter an unchosen period of learning from home. The pandemic and the associated isolation creates new difficulties and unexpected opportunities. Take a moment to share something you’ve learned or ask a question.

Consider these categories:

• Successful strategies for assigning work for elementary students
• Guidelines for constructive communication with parents
• Maintaining your own equilibrium as a teacher
• Setting boundaries for yourself now that you can teach from home
• Utilizing technology wisely

What insights have helped you? What would help other teachers? What will help parents? Share your tidbits, and questions, along the way.

[Arlene Birt @arlene-b]

We are doing School at Home, with K-8 teachers planning and preparing lessons in a daily, checklist format.  High school classes are using Google Classroom.  Today a parent told me in an email, “There were tears today, missing school and friends!”  I miss my students, too!  Here are a few things that might help with that:

1. I made a short video of our two very large stuffed animals “talking” to my class and saying they missed them.  I uploaded this in a Google Photos album and shared it with the parents via the SIS.  (I had to scan papers at school, so took time to make the video.)
2. I recorded myself reading stories to my class, so they could have a little sense of “normalcy.” They could see and hear their teacher reading, and hear some little comments or stories that I added.  I uploaded these and shared the links in my assignment page.
3. We’ve had a lot of email communications, and I’ve tried to add little notes to my students in the parent emails.  One student has recorded two brief videos of herself talking to me.
4. A parent told me that her son likes the little comments that I’ve added in the assignments – He “likes the little notes and things you wrote in between the assignments, the things that sound like Miss Birt.”
5. Another teacher told me that the elementary teachers at her school are doing short Zoom meetings with any of the class who can attend, and that is a favorite time of the day for many students.  They do them after 3:20 pm when the older students are likely to be finished with their online work.

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