A few weeks ago I found myself, along with the rest of the teachers in the the United States, thrust into the world of distance learning. I've been a teacher for 32 years and have seen pretty much everything you can imagine in elementary education. But this was a first! I can definitely say I never imagined teaching my students from home on my computer.
The first couple of weeks felt like a blur of confusion. Every teacher I knew felt overwhelmed and confused. I can honestly say I feel your pain! But as the weeks have progressed, I'm beginning to find my groove. Here are a few things that are working for me, and hopefully will work for you too!
Home Instruction Packets
If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend making home instruction packets for your students. I've found that parents and students prefer this to online learning. Why? Because it's easy to understand.
Many parents (and teachers) simply don't have the expertise to navigate the online and digital world. Often times, parents and kids have difficulty understanding how to login or find their way around complicated websites. Teaching your child at home is frustrating enough, without the extra burden of a million different logins and places to navigate online.
If you're able to make home instruction packets, be sure to add easy to understand plans for parents to follow. I assigned a story for my students to read/listen to each day on Storyline Online. I gave them a link directly to the story to listen to and then all the corresponding worksheets were in their packet.
The kids love these high quality stories and the parents love the simplicity of the instructions and work that was included. Each day the students do a reading comprehension, writing, math and science/social studies activity. They meet our common core standards but aren't overwhelming to parents or students.
Google Classroom
I know that you may not be able to create home instruction packets or maybe you want/need to have some kind of online hangout. Google Classroom is the best and here's the reason why I love it – it's simple.
Keeping things simple really will be your life saver in all of this. Many school districts have a G Suite For Education account and if yours is one of them, you can set up a free google classroom.
Google classroom is like having your own virtual classroom online. You can invite your students to join your classroom, post assignments, video, links to websites and keep track of grades. It's very user friendly and a great way to keep your students (and yourself) organized with everything in one place. Click here for a quick tutorial on how to set up your own google classroom.
Boom Cards
I've recently discovered boom cards and I love them! Boom cards are age appropriate, digital task cards that students can play on their own. It's super fun for kids, with one simple click to answer the question. The website is also easy for them to navigate, which makes it a win win for everyone.
You can set up your own classroom on the Boom Learning website and each student can have their own profile. Within your classroom, you can assign digital task cards for your students to complete and monitor their progress with student reports. If you're required to keep data on your students progress, Boom Learning will do it for you!
If you need some e learning resources for distance learning but you aren't sure where to begin, boom cards are a great place to start! Head over here to see all the ways I use them in my classroom.
You Tube
Another really helpful tool for distance learning is YouTube. There are literally thousands of videos, already made for you, that can help your students with skills in reading, math, phonics, science and social studies.
I've been using YouTube for years in my regular classroom and now we're using it in our digital classroom as well. I assign phonics, grammar and math videos daily to my google classroom. Most YouTube videos are short 2-3 minute clips that kids enjoy. Many of the videos are ones that my students are familiar with from our daily routines at school.
Using familiar videos can help your students feel a sense of security in their learning. It's fine to have kids watch and rewatch videos more than once. In fact, I often show the same videos more than once each week. It can really help kids when they are learning a new skill. But there are plenty of new videos to choose from as well.
YouTube can be a real life saver when you are trying to teach online. Simply link up a video to your google classroom or in an email and your kids can have a great little lesson in whatever skill you are introducing that week.
Click here to Grab these YouTube links to over 280 free books and videos for kids! You'll never have to worry about having the right book or video for a lesson again!
Zoom and Google Hangouts
Many teachers are meeting with their students online using platforms like Zoom or Google Hangouts. Live sessions are you great if you want to be able to talk to your students, ask questions, etc. But be forewarned, it can be a stressful experience.
Young students don't know the proper manners for these online platforms and there can be a lot of talking at the same time, being silly, background noises and more. It can also be hard to find a time that works for everyone in your class.
Young students need adult help and supervision when using online platforms. Many parents are working either from home or outside of the home. They may have more than one child in the house required to login for a class or activity. Older students may be required to complete their work online. There may be only one computer per household for all of these activities. These are just a few of the reasons that meeting with your students online may pose some problems.
Record Your Videos
I prefer recording my lessons and posting them on YouTube. I can add these YouTube links to my google classroom and students can watch them when it is convenient for them. There are no interruptions so I know that the lesson will flow smoothly and make sense.
I can also record my lessons at my convenience. This works great if you're a parent yourself and trying to not only teach from home but also teach your own child as well. I set aside one day a week to record our daily word study. I record all of our lessons for the week. It takes me a couple of hours and then I upload these videos to YouTube. You can take a look at one of my videos here.
Each day, I add our daily word study video to our google classroom. I ask students to make a comment after watching the video about something specific that I talked about in the lesson. That way, I know if they're watching by the comments that they make. This method has worked out great for myself, parents and students. It's convenient, simple and gets the job done. Is it perfect? No. But nothing about teaching in the middle of a pandemic is perfect.
Wrapping It Up
If you're struggling to get your groove on with this distance learning, I hope some of these ideas will help you out. My mantra has, and will continue to be, keep it simple. We all want to do our best and be that same fantastic teacher that you were every day in your classroom. And you can still be fantastic….just in a simpler way. Hang in there! You can do this!
If you need a little more encouragement, hop over here to read about the six things I've learned about distance learning.
I am a little late to the game but what do you use to record your word study videos or any other teaching videos you make. We have been using Loom but some parents say the quality is not good. I am trying to get new ideas since school is out for the rest of the school year.
Thank you!
Hi Lisa,
I work on a MAC and I use a program called Quick Time. It comes standard on a MAC. It’s very easy to use!