UTeach has had more than 1,000 teachers take its online Blended Learning courses. Although remote learning is different from blended learning, we often refer to resources for remote learning. These may be helpful to you as you transition to remote learning in the coming weeks.
Keep it simple.
In our experience, one key approach can help you, your students, and their caregivers: Keep it simple.
Online courses can be rich and support inquiry learning, but they generally require far more than two weeks to prepare. You and your students didn’t start the school year planning to teach and learn entirely online.
Right now, everyone has competing priorities. Students have to navigate the change in instruction. Teachers have to design remote learning processes and resources. Caregivers are struggling to help students while they also adapt to life at home and to providing for their families when even the ability to get to a grocery store is tenuous. Everyone is worried about the health of family members. Many are struggling with isolation.
This is a time of extreme change and anxiety for everyone. Please be kind to yourself and your students by keeping it simple.
Instructional Videos
Create instructional videos to share remotely with students. Choose from the example tools provided or use your own ideas to create content-related videos or screencasts. The instructional video should be at least 10 minutes in length and include student accountability for answering questions throughout the video.
Resources
Interactive Lessons
Create an interactive lesson using an application such as Nearpod or Pear Deck. Interactive lessons engage learners in the delivery of content by encouraging them to be active participants throughout the lesson. Existing PowerPoint presentations can be imported into both of these platforms for more engaging and interactive learning experiences.
Resources
Pear Deck Resources for Distance Learning
60-Second Guide to Interactive Lessons in Nearpod
How to Launch a Nearpod Lesson
10 Ways to Use Nearpod in the Classroom
Personalized Learning Plans
The creation of a Personalized Learning Plan involves designing customized lessons and activities to accommodate individual students’ learning path and pace. Customized lessons should include the incorporation of blended learning strategies to facilitate student content mastery. As students work through personalized learning pathways, assessments should be embedded throughout and continual feedback provided. Prior to embarking on a personalized learning pathway, teachers should collect and integrate academic and non-academic data about each student. Discussions should take place with each student to determine personal learning goals and pathways to ensure the proper channels are in place to meet individual goals. Teachers are encouraged to align each student’s learning goals and pathways to academic standards and expected learning outcomes. The content and accompanying blended learning activities should be created in advance.
Review the two models showcased: choice boards (menus) and playlists. You can create your own personalized learning templates to use for remote instruction.
Links to information related to both models have been provided or you may conduct your own research to support the development of choice boards and/or playlists to implement in remote instruction.
Information related to creating Choice Boards (Menus):
Choice Boards, Menus, & Tic-Tac-Toe
Meaningful Menus for Creating Choice in Your Classroom
Information related to creating Personalized Playlists:
Balancing Student Choice and Needs with Playlists
Playlists: A Path to Personalizing Learning
Using Playlists to Differentiate Instruction
Offering student choice and voice with playlist based instruction
Online Discussions
Create a discussion for students to interact with in an online setting. Make sure the discussion relates to relevant learning content that is presently being covered. Discussions should include critical thinking questions that support collaboration amongst students.
To support meaningful discussions, include the following: 1) discussion prompt 2) critical thinking questions embedded in the discussion 3) encouragement of student-student interaction 4) a reflection of the outcome of the discussion.
Online Assessments
Create online assessments that incorporate the use of digital resources to assess understanding. Interacting with the GoFormative app is one example of how the teacher can measure student understanding and then analyze the student data to inform future instruction.
Take the GoFormative Quiz to complete the assignment for this module:
- Go to goformative.com/join
- Enter this code: ASYZCO
After completing the GoFormative assessment, create your own online assessments using GoFormative or the other resources provided.
Resources