School Reopening Community: Learning Beyond COVID-19

https://sharemylesson.com/collections/free-online-resources-educators-p…

Special populations were attending school labs, but that has ended for now.

I am an Autism Case Manager. I have personally seen phenomenal and exponential growth in each and every student. Platfoms like Nearpod, Lalilo, Learning Farm, and Freckle have made a major impact on each child. I sincerely believe that the platform learning addresses the individual needs of the students and it also caters to each of the learning styles.

Now, we are hybrid teaching. It has been an interesting ride with trying to teach, engage, and motivate students through online learning. Somedays I think things are going well, and other days I think I am not getting through to them. I have changed a few concepts this quarter by taking notes of each student and making sure I contact students, parents, and/or guardians to keep on top up of students doing well in class. One caveat is that I do not have to worry about disciplinary issues, but I do have to worry about "check out" issues. I am trying to do the best I can to keep my students interested by using games such as Kahoot, Vocabulary.com, and other online choice boards. I am also trying to help with their levels of stress by using mindfulness strategies such as soft belly breathing and music. I am getting daily headaches lately. I am not sure if it is from computer/ screen use or something else. I find that soft belly breathing helps to ease some of the pain.

To address this important year-end milestone, a cadre of preK-12 AFT members from across the nation has jointly designed standards-based, integrated content, offering capstone project ideas that are grade-level and developmentally appropriate. These projects will enable students to demonstrate learning in a variety of ways, such as writing a story or song, scrapbooking and counting objects in the home. These capstone projects can be utilized to wrap up the school year, be used to complete a voluntary summer learning program, or even serve as a re-entry into the next school year—whenever that happens. Teachers can adapt and modify the capstone project ideas, making them unique for their classrooms. All of the necessary resources have been provided (e.g., hyperlinks, activity sheets, question prompts, etc.) to make them easy to use. Most of all, we want students to feel good about all they know!<br><br>Find Capstones here: https://sharemylesson.com/aft <br><br>Grade-Band Themes:<br><br>Grades K-2: All About Me<br>Grades 3-5: We Are All Connected<br>Grades 6-8: The Power of Story in a Changing World<br>Grades 9-12: Overcoming Challenges Through the Lens of Social Justice<br><br>Download the capstone projects on Share My Lesson (https://sharemylesson.com/aft), and join us next week for a webinar to learn more: K-12 Culminating Capstones: End-of-Year Projects for Distance Learning Success, May 21 at 6 p.m. EDT. https://sharemylesson.com/teaching-resource/k-12-culminating-capstones-…

We are person-to-person.

I am seeing students who attend all classes and those who do not turn work in. It is running the gamut but I think I am seeing virtual fatigue in my high school classes. We thought we might do hybrid but numbers are skyrocketing and it looks like virtal until ? I am worried becuase I teach AP and there is no way to cover all the material doing half time classes

I usually have several grade levels, as well as reading levels, in my room. Once you add the mental health and behavior issues, simple, meaningful lessons and assignments, would be welcomed.

It has not been easy. We started the second nine weeks two weeks ago, and I received a brand-new schedule 4 days ago. I lost many of my RtI students due to having to take on students who failed honors ENG 2. I was expected to hit the ground running, but that is not only not feasible, but it's ridiculous! We are teaching both synchronously and asynchronously. We communicate via our LMS, email, text message (Talking Points) or old school phone. Most of the asychronous students are AWOL. On campus students found out that there is an easy way to skip class by just checking in online to be counted present. Students whose parents care about their education are doing well. The rest of them...we are expected to be counselor, parent, coach, mentor, and everything else. We, as a course teams, have weekly meetings during our lunches because we do not have a common planning period even though what we teach is a state tested subject. All assignments are placed in our LMS for both sets of students. We have to create videos teaching the lessons for the online students, but we also teach the lessons during each class. We have to have online tutorials as well as on campus tutorials during the same time, and that does not always lend itself to productivity because students from all of my different courses will check in. Even with all resources available to the online students, they still aren't doing the work. Oh, and the students have the option of taking summative assessments AT HOME.

It is emotionally exhausting, professionally isolating and systemically infuriating. In the spring we taught remotely out of an abundance of precaution and then this summer administration changed a virtual consultation model to an in person teaching model. 3 teachers had the entire state. Now I am teaching in person, but we need to be prepared to teach virtually at any moment. My biggest frustration is the expectation that I have to be professionally flexible and understanding, but administrative expectations remain rigid and unfeeling.