'Teaching Back in the Classroom'

Although I enjoyed teaching from home, it has been great to get back into the classroom to see all the students. They were all so excited to see each other this week. There are quite a few changes in place at school which ensure everyone is safe. The biggest changes that affect our class are: we start early and finish early - Start 8am, pack up at 1.30, Pick-ups at 1.45 and Bus leaves at 2pm. Everyone uses hand sanitise when we leave the class and when we enter the class. The students sit at their own tables with no moving around the classroom. All the student know that if they spread their arms out and can touch someone, they are too close. Our break times are different from the juniors to make sure we can maintain social distancing in the playground. The students keep their bags and drink bottles by the classroom.

The students were very keen to get into their learning this week and most showed excellent self management skills to navigate their learning on the class site. They will be working hard next week to share their learning on their blogs. Our class were able to have a whole google hangout with two of the students who are learning from home, which was awesome as it was one of the students birthdays! I have been in contact with these students and they will join us for at least 3 hangouts next week which will be great. One of my students is working from home but does not have any connectivity. I have arranged work for him while he is at home.

Overall I was very impressed with the class and their focus. I had to video them while they were working as it was so so impressive!

Distance Learning - Week 4

I can't believe that we have already been learning online for 4 weeks this term. I feel like the time has whizzed by thanks to the effort that the students are putting into their learning. I have 21 students in my class. One of my students does not have connectivity at home and his whanau did not want a device, so I have been dropping off learning packs to him every 2 weeks. Every morning I log in and I am greeted by at least 15 of my 21 students each day.

The students have a weekly timetable to follow which is on our site.



We  start everyday online at 9am with a specific focus. It may be sharing news or learning, blog commenting and on Friday it is 'Free Writing Friday'. I then schedule in reading and math groups until 12.30. I see 15 of the students at least once a day if not twice and the other 5 students check in during the week at least twice. All of our google meets are optional. Our learning is on the class site so if the students do not join into the google meets, it is fine as they can access their learning from the class site independently. If the students choose to join our google meets, they follow our google meet etiquette. The following poster has been very helpful for managing the students and they need very few reminders now compared to 2 weeks ago. This is on our class site.

I have found the reading and math groups a fantastic way to continue teaching as the very keen students are always there. My target students are often at these small group sessions so it has been very beneficial to have such quality time with these students that I may not have had in the classroom. Some of the students use our sessions together for questioning, for help and it's always good for them to talk about their learning with others. We have also used these sessions for blogging.

I record every session though I have not stopped the recording for each session which means some of my recordings are 4 hours long. However I have found the recordings really helpful to inform my teaching. It is something I should do more in the classroom and I will look to do that when I am back at school.

We have been doing FREE WRITING FRIDAY as a group for the past 2 weeks during our 9am catch up. Last week we had 16 keen writers and this morning we had 11! Our writing focus is on FREE WRITING which means the students can write about anything at all! They know that re-crafting and editing is important however this session is all about sharing thoughts and ideas without worrying about mistakes. The students can re-craft and edit at a later date if they choose to. It is amazing how much writing can be achieved in a 20 minute writing session.



The students are doing well but definitely losing steam by Friday so I decided to make Friday a 'Fun Day' focus to encourage the students to keep motivated until the end of the week. We had a lot of fun today with our scavenger hunts. It was a really fabulous way to end the week with the students saying things like, 'this is the best day ever' and 'I can't wait for next week' which is awesome!

We finished the week online with our class assembly where I acknowledged each student who received reading certificates, Mathletics awards and class certificates. Click on this link to check them out. I shared my screen and the students celebrated each achievement. Each of the certificates were emailed to the student and their parents email addresses. Some of the students have chosen to share their certificates in their blogs which has been fantastic. 

I am unsure of how many more weeks I may be teaching from home but I am very pleased with the efforts my class are putting into their learning and I feel confident that we will have success sooner in the classroom when we return because of their efforts!

Distance Learning - Week 2-3

The past two weeks have whizzed by even though I have only left my road 3 times! I'm finding that teaching from home has it challenges and benefits and each day I am thankful that our school is part of Manaiakalani Outreach. I find myself continually going back into my DFI folder to use some tool or trick to make teaching from home more effective and I have also found the 'Teachers Using Google Suite for Education' Group on Facebook helpful too. 

ANZAC Day looked a little different this year in my home 'classroom'. I set up an ANZAC Day page on our class site with plenty of different choices for the students to make in their learning. During the week we discussed the different ways that we could commemorate ANZAC Day at home and on Friday 24th April our first google hangout of the day was all about ANZAC Day. I encouraged the students to wear a poppy, wear red or bring something that they had made during the week. It was a very bright hangout.

This was my ANZAC Day backdrop during our google hangout and my ANZAC commemorations that I shared with the class.

Reflections on Week 2-3:

Positives: 

• Adding a meeting code to our hangouts has meant that students can not join the hangout if I am not there.
• 15-17 students join our first google hangout of the day, everyday.
• Most students connect to at least one of our google hangouts each day.
• More students are starting to share their learning on their blog without prompting. 
• Students have commented that they have watched my 'how to blog' videos. They are using the videos to help them instead of emailing me.
• A few of the students who needed support from their whanau to access their learning are not needing as much help now as they have become confident using our class site.
• Students are more willing to share their learning during our google hangouts.
• Sharing the document link in the chat works better for the students than looking for the link on the class site.

Challenges: 

• Some students are not prepared to take part in learning during group sessions and think they are just there to say hello. I need to work on this still - I need to be clear with the group session expectations as I am with the whole class sessions.
• A few students are pushing boundaries during the hangouts. It is tricky as I am glad they are joining in, but they need to remember that there are expectations as they are joining our online classroom.
• I will reiterate expectations verbally and with a visual.
• Each student has quite different expectations of what home learning looks like in their homes. 
• I have listened to and read a lot about the expectations on teachers, students and whanau during this unusual time. The most important thing to consider is is everyone okay? Being encouraging and kind is the first and foremost thought for our me in our class. I have realised quickly that I can encourage, engage and try to motivate the students using the class site and our google hangouts however it comes down to their whanau as to what they will actually do each week. Adding pressure and anxiety during an already stressful situation is not what the students or their families need. For this reason, I will continue to run a full learning programme via our class site and hangout. I will encourage, support and suggest but not pressure the students in the learning that they do.