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!