Parent Tips for Winter Break

Written by Kristen Harms/ posted by Elegan Kramer

ACS International Schools wrote, “The anxiety of receiving online learning guidance, multiple resources (which although of the highest online quality, can never match the detailed and responsive learning offer that takes place in the school) managing their children’s responses, trying to give feedback and missing the ongoing dialogue with teachers, not to mention managing ‘working from home’.”  This is how they define “distance” for parents.

Remember that Virtual Campus and learning at school won’t look the same — and that’s okay. There is an unlimited amount of organic learning that can happen in daily family life and that this is a unique opportunity to prioritize home and family.  Some ideas to participate in over winter break that do not involve traditional schoolwork.  Play some board games with your kids (board games promote all sorts of academic and social-emotional skills!), read books with them and to them (ask them questions throughout), and talk! Have conversations with your children about their thoughts, fears, hopes, desires.  Integrate lessons into real-life activities and experiences. This makes learning more engaging and relatable. This could include having students follow a recipe to practice fractions or heat transfer.  It can also be an opportunity for students to shop for groceries with a budget.

Resources for Families

• FREE E-learning for Spanish Heritage Speaking Families in Dual

• Common Sense Media

• Everfi Remote Learning Activities

• Illustrative Mathematics Support

• Take a Code Break with Code.org

• Coronavirus Updates for Children that Learn Differently

Station Rotations

written by Kristen Harms/ posted by Elegan Kramer

The use of flexible grouping strategies, like station rotation, can facilitate student learning in multiple ways:

 

• Learning stations get kids to focus on small chunks of learning which keep them from getting overwhelmed

• This focus helps you scaffold skills one at a time and leads to deeper learning

• The kids have to get up and moving, away from their computers, which not only adds variety to the class but also helps the learning process while in distant learning

• It gives students the opportunity to take more ownership in their learning by providing choice and autonomy

• It allows learning to happen at a student’s level of need in small groups and/or individually

How to Make Station Rotation Work, Edutopia 

Analytics within Schoology

Are you wondering when a certain student engaged with your material in Schoology? Or if the student even opened the assignment in Schoology? You can determine this data in Schoology by going to Analytics, under the course tab. There you can see when students last logged on and when they were in your course last. Here’s a snippet of what it looks like:

  

Dig a little deeper by clicking on the student and selecting the material type to see how long they are manipulating with the material. This only monitors the time spent with Schoology materials. Any external tools, such as a link to a Zoom session or FlipGrid assignment, are not counted in the analytics. Also, it does not account for students logging through the Schoology app on their phones.

This data is NOT in real-time and is only updated at certain times of day as preset by Schoology. In other words, you cannot monitor this during videoconferencing to see if certain students have their assignments or assessments opened.

Use this data paired with your videoconferencing observations to determine which students, families, and team members you need to reach out to.

Practicing Gratitude

 “Trade your expectation for appreciation, and the world changes around you”  -Tony Robbins

That never-ending mess you're always cleaning, that thing that always takes precedence over the finite things in life.

Life is finite. Time is finite. Time with loved ones is nonrenewable.

Routines and habits become part of the norm. Morning coffee, listening to the radio, the drive to work, or taking the kids to school.

However, there is much to be said about taking a pause to our day, to our routine.

To appreciate the fortune in our lives.

The absolute abundance we are so lucky to have.

In a world where comforts are the "norm," we have to actively remind ourselves how good our lives are.

The thought of losing those precious parts of our day is a sobering one.

There will be a final cup of morning coffee for us.

There will be the last chance for us to listen to the radio.

And if we are lucky enough to have kids, there will be the last time we get to wait in traffic as we drive them to soccer practice.

As Tony Robbins quotes, if we can remove expectations from the norm, and replace them with a sense of gratitude, our entire world changes.

As we start our day, what are three things that we are grateful for? Why are we grateful for them? How do they make us feel when we think about them?

Don't brush the surface - dig deep. An action of gratitude is one of the most powerful leverages we can take to improving our lives.

Thanksgiving and the holidays may look a little different this year. Just like how you created new classroom procedures and routines for this year, think of this as an opportunity to create and test new holiday traditions. Spend time with your loved ones safely and have a happy, healthy, and restful Thanksgiving break!

Google Drive Assignments

Schoology and Google Drive Assignment

Google Drive Assignment allows teachers to add Google Documents, Slides, and Sheets.  The app does not support Forms.  When a student opens one of the assignments, an individual copy is generated and saved in a folder.

Only the teacher that creates the assignment for the student can currently access and grade student work within Schoology.
The teacher can share the folder within Google Drive with a co-teacher or student teacher.