Greetings from Northern Wisconsin!
My name is Mia Chmiel and I am an Associate Director of School Improvement at CESA 9. I have the honor of serving 22 districts in north central Wisconsin and supporting the implementation of UDL in both brick and mortar as well as blended learning models. Many times, I am supporting educators who never experienced a blended learning model as students and are hesitant/anxious/unsure how to reach students in a different model.
Which brings me to chapters 6!
Chapter 6 directs our attention to scaffolding students with time management skills. Educators new (and veteran) to blended learning may assume students have stronger time management skills than they actually have. "We can facilitate time-management strategies by providing students with an estimation of how long each assignment may take, so the goal-striving process will be easier to complete" (pg. 108). Later in the chapter, the suggestion of the first assignment for a course to ask students to analyze their calendars and create a plan for completion of work. How do you support students in planning how to complete coursework on time? What suggestions do you have for teachers who are just beginning to use a blended learning model?
Or, where have you fallen short in supporting time management skills with your students? As you analyze the updated syllabus on pages 114-118, what strikes you? What "aha" have you had and will be using in your next course syllabus?
And, then there is Chapter 7...a seriously perfectly timed read for me!
Recently, our state approved language for schools to count "virtual learning time" for inclement weather days when schools are not in session (which amounted from 7-10 days for districts in our area this winter!). Chapter 7 tackles the "virtual snow day" option with several key suggestions. What suggestions can you add to this chapter? What should teachers, new to flipped classrooms and blended learning, keep in mind when planning for a virtual snow day? What have you learned from your experience and student feedback that is important when planning for virtual learning? For example, the 6-minute video rule is helpful for those teachers who might record an entire 50-minute lesson and post (yikes!)
This blog is the home of the Virtual Learning Leadership Alliance Book Study. This spring we will be focusing on the book UDL in the Cloud! How to Design and Deliver Online Education Using Universal Design for Learning by Katie Novak and Tom Thibodeau. The kick off date is March 3rd, 2019.
Chapter 6: At IVS, we provide a pacing chart for students that is a suggested timeline to follow to ensure they complete the course on time. It is broken down by unit as well as individual assignment. We send reminder emails if a student’s grade drops below a certain point as well as midterm progress reports, and our policy is that zeros can be replaced by a grade if a student falls behind. The zeros are there to alert students that they are falling behind in the course. We also post weekly news items that are often related to course content. For example, I provide an optional study guide through the weekly news posts when we begin a new unit, usually accompanied by an eye-catching picture or meme. If a student seems to be falling very far behind, I will also reach out via phone or text message. I really liked the idea of including a minimum time that it will take a student to complete each assignment. The hard part would be estimating how much time it would take a student to complete every assignment.
ReplyDeleteChapter 7: Since my class is entirely virtual, I haven’t had to plan for a virtual snow day myself. However, my son’s high school did have a couple of virtual snow days this year. That law was recently implemented in Illinois as well. I am a substitute teacher at his high school, so I do have some idea of what they already have online. They utilize PowerSchool and Google Classroom a great deal, so the students are already used to accessing things online on a near-daily basis. Probably the hardest part of planning a full lesson ahead of time would be not knowing where students might be in the content when a snow day occurs. However, they can watch the weather and anticipate that, and since they already plan lessons online for their daily classes, it may not take that much to adapt the lesson for a virtual snow day. My son’s high school did allow an extra day to complete work in anticipation of potential problems with students’ home internet service, which turned out to be a good thing when our internet went down for several hours due to extreme cold.
Well said Pam. You pretty well described everything I do as an IVS instructor too. A few more ideas concerning pace charts....When creating a pace chart, I try to accommodate the students' face to face school schedule and take into account their days off from school like Christmas break, Spring break, etc. Most students use their school breaks to catch up on their online work. Also, if a student has fallen behind, for whatever reason, I offer to help them make a plan to catch up. This often includes making a new pace chart for them and estimating how much time they'll need to spend in the course to complete it in the time they have left before their term ends. I always remind them that the time is just an estimation and they might need to spend more time on certain content items than on others.
DeletePam and Jen have laid the foundation for my response to this prompt. The IVS Assignment Pace Chart (representing the ideal completion pace) is a great baseline to facilitate time management for students. I recommend that students print it out and keep it near the computer where they work on class. I also encourage them to cross off assignments as they complete them. And as Jen noted, these schedules can be individualized, too.
DeleteThe key to making them work is early contact with students who are falling behind. If you can catch the students and find out why they are not posting on due dates (illness, tech issues, procrastination, confusion, etc.), you can put your heads together to overcome the obstacles.
As has been stated, snow day plans are moot for online classes. Schools with 1:1 laptops likely have the full curriculum online, too.
The laboratory schools where I worked had the concept of "Drop-in Units" for Teacher Ed clinical field students, and they also worked for emergency sub plans. They were basically 3-day units that involve topics that can be introduced, practiced, and assessed within three days. Back when Photostory was an operational Microsoft tool, a topic could be researched and shared within such a 3-day window. It could be a mini unit on under-represented female poets from a given time period; in March it might have been Irish poets. This kind of approach could be used on snow days (which could run as long as three days) or introduced online and finished back in school.
Thanks, Jen & Kathy, for chiming in with more details about how you use your pacing charts at IVS. I have personalized pace charts when needed as well. Most of the time I just let the students know that they've got flexibility within the pacing chart, but that gives them a good idea of what it takes to stay on track.
DeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteWith regards to Chapter 6: So much of what Pam S wrote (above) is similar to how VHS handles things. We have the weekly checklist which gives an order and brief overview of each of the week's assignments, we ask teachers to email the student's in-person point-person (Site Coordinator) if their grade falls below a certain number, we give opportunities for kids to make-up work... I think there are still a lot of areas for improvement, perhaps starting with what we include in our "Start Here" lessons. These are intended to help students acclimate to the online environment, introduce themselves, and send a personal message to their teacher. I wonder if this could be a place to even more directly ask kids about when they will do work for their online class (do they have a dedicated class period, when is it, etc.) and what their weekly schedule is like. Perhaps we could even include required assignments at the start of the first few weeks where a student would be asked to send the teacher their plan for the week. The worry I have about that idea is that kids who already struggle with these kinds of executive functioning tasks might then be "dinged" with lost points for not doing the assignment which was intended to help them... It's tricky!
Chapter 7 felt a little removed from my personal experience (the school I taught in before coming to VHS wondered about and ultimately decided against the virtual snow day), but I was struck by the importance of getting kids to understand and be ready for the virtual snow day before it happens. This shouldn't be a striking realization, but I hadn't thought about how schools and teachers would need to set aside time - in advance - to make sure that kids understand the system, have access, etc. This makes it more than a "simple" - no school, go do your online work! - situation.
~ Laura
Your comment about updating plans reminded me of the Study Supporter Study run by Todd Rogers at Harvard. He leads a lab that runs several studies around having students get encouraging messages or check-ins about how their courses are going from other people in their life, like parents, teachers, coaches etc.
DeleteThere are also studies about making goals at the beginning of the course and getting students to think about where they will study, what time of week etc. at the beginning of the course. He has studied online and f2f courses in k-12, higher ed and MOOCs.
The lab site is here if you want to check it out:
https://studentsocialsupport.org/research
Chapter 6: My VHS courses have a number of internally structured pieces for time management, and there are others I’ve created on my own. Courses have weekly checklists, so this works well for students who like to physically check items off the “to do” list. On Wednesday, when the virtual week opens, students receive a “Welcome to Week ---” notice that outlines the activities and assignments for the week. There is also a calendar that can be set to remind students of upcoming deadlines, like the first original posting for a discussion. Teachers are also asked to contact site coordinators if they notice a student hasn’t “been in class” for a period of time or that grades are slipping/assignments aren’t being done. I also send notes to students in their private topic for these same reasons. I also use our “News” forum to remind students of mid-week or project deadlines. I have also created a daily outline for each week that lets students know what to do each day. Students like this because I make sure the assignment load is not too much for one day, and I include weekends just to have them check what they've done and what they will do, so it reminds them to check in. While some students like to do a full week in just a day, the daily outline reminds them of when to post replies to peers or to check into their group wikis to check progress. I started doing the daily outline when I had a class of students who had never taken an online class before, and they were confused as to when to do each assignment. It “stuck” and even though it takes some time each week, it has been helpful for those with busy schedules and time management issues. I've had lots of positive feedback about it.
ReplyDeleteChapter 7: While my school has a 1:1 computer program, a virtual snow day would not work for my school. We have many students (and teachers) who live in an area without Internet or cell service. In fact, I have to ensure that any computer-based work/assignments can be completed in school. Therefore, even a flipped or blended learning is tough. Unless it can be done in school, we can’t expect students to be able to access learning virtually.
~Christine
What state are you in, Christine? The lack of home Internet accessibility puts a crimp on any 1:1 computer school progress.
DeleteBut your situation does give me pause. I think we colonize a whole lot of our students out of school time with homework and such. This is pretty radical, but maybe we need to operate more like corporate America, where work stays at work.
I think that as far as scheduling and calendars/deadlines/due dates go: there are MANY ways to get this across to students. I try to present the information in a variety of formats, so that all students can find a format they can use. For example, the LMS calendar is a no-brainer since the due dates show up in the calendar on the home page. Also I create "old school" calendars in Word, so that students can print it and see it in a chart form. I also like to present information in announcements in the LMS that are scheduled for the whole term and will appear and disappear as the term passes. Also in Blackboard there is a page banner on the home page and I have a to-do list for students that I update each week with the assignments and things that need to be done. I also send reminder emails if a good number of students have missed assignments toward the end of the week but before the deadline.
ReplyDeleteChapter 7: I think that virtual snow days are a GREAT way for students to have work (if they are in middle and high school particularly.) I am not sure how that would work for elementary school students who need supervision for the most part. (And will they really do it?) If there is no accountability for "snow day" assignments, then likely the students won't complete the work. So grades would be a MUST. From the teachers' perspectives, I think that it would be a time investment at the beginning if the teachers are creating video lectures and such. But once they are complete, then it's just a matter of uploading the videos or links to the videos. As with anything I think the success depends on a lot of factors: students, teachers, accountability, work ethic, self-discipline, preparation of students by teachers before the "snow day" occurs, technology capability at home, etc.
I like what you said about using the LMS calendar AND old school calendars. I do the same thing and believe it is important to use repetition whenever possible to reinforce due dates and deadlines. Similar to your protocol, at the beginning of each week, I also ask the students to print out their "To Do" lists in old-school calendar format. Doing so, encourages the students to see the big picture for the week and helps them to plan ahead, rather than clicking on assignments day-by-day. Moreover, it helps them to see connections between individual assignments within a single week.
DeleteOne constant concern I have with my Canvas and Blackboard platforms is that some students rely solely on their "calendars" unless I continually direct them to view modules as units and to review their weekly "To Do" lists that I have created in an overview page. As mentioned above, just using the calendar often prevents students from making connections and reduces the effectiveness of scaffolding. It also creates a problem with makeup work when students skip around to complete missing assignments instead of doing them in sequence.
Prompt 1: A bit of both
ReplyDeleteWhen I was teaching my multimedia Journalism course, I did have a schedule similar to the example syllabus in the book with deadlines spelled out, and assignments broken into chunks for students to turn in smaller pieces throughout the semester. I even added a "warning" about the holiday breaks to plan around them for students who go on vacation.
This helped a bit, but I still had students who struggled with getting their assignments in on time. Media files can be especially finicky, and there were even a few students who did not procrastinate, worked tirelessly and dilligently all semester and still had problems.
If I end up teaching again, I'd consider adding weekly reminders about the schedule, and map them back to the syllabus to reinforce planning and look at our progress at the start of each class. I think a big mistake we make as instructors is never going back to the syllabus after the first week. It's an easy trap to fall into.
This chapter inspired me to reflect about how to scaffold time management skills. The book example mentioned that in a media class, one could tell the students something like "deadlines don't work in the field so I won't accept late work." However, I find that approach off-putting and not very UDL friendly, especially for students who need executive function supports. I would instead consider something like making penalties for late work gradual so that the students get some practice and have room to make low-stakes mistakes early in the semester but will have enough incentive and a healthy amount of pressure to stay on track towards the middle to end.
VHS supports students by having a weekly overview at the start of each week. This typically outlines the assignment title, type, due dates and how many points an assignment is worth. I think this is a great step in the right direction in terms of supporting students to manage their time. It is missing that estimated time for completing each task. I worry most about the students who are taking full-time online classes. Let’s assume that a full-time online student is taking 5 classes, and therefore has 5 weekly overviews that they need to keep track of. That's a lot of clicks. One suggestion I would have for improvement would be for us to develop a system that allows students to see all of their assignment due dates across their courses in one location. This would give them the bigger picture they might need if they are choosing to save paper and not print out each of their weekly overviews. It's also fewer clicks.
ReplyDeleteOne other area example of where VHS supports students in managing their time is with the bigger Independent Research projects that are in some of the science courses. Students are provided a timeline of due dates with summaries of each task, and they are reminded each week to review those tasks. Teachers are good about posting news items or private messages to all students to remind them of the due dates each week.
Like others have said above, one of our biggest strengths is getting the Site Coordinators involved in the process. Having on-site support for our virtual students is really huge. A teacher can send students messages, but those are so easy to ignore. It’s not so easy to ignore the adult that is standing in front of you checking in with you to offer guidance in how to get back on track.
I know I was supposed to add suggestions, but I am left with more questions after reading chapter 7 because I have no experience with either a flipped classroom or virtual snow day. The concept of the Virtual Snow day sounds great, but when looking at the Broadband data, is it realistic? Not to mention the fact that often snow days may also mean power outages in some areas. Are students who are unable to complete the assignments considered absent for that day, and/or would they be required to make up the work? Since I have never seen this is action, it is a bit hard for me to imagine the success. How is this actually different from a teacher assigning a reading and questions from a textbook? Does a teacher have to include a videoed lesson or have student conferences for this to be considered a true Virtual Snow day?
I do think, regardless of whether or not Virtual Snow days are used, that students and teachers should start to gain experience with an LMS since this is the way that education is moving.
To respond to your power outage questions. All this is taken into account. When the student completes the assignments, they are then counted present. At least my school, is very understanding to these types of emergencies. No, teachers do not have to do a video or presentation. We use these days to review something that has already been learned. Students use these days as practice days. The classrooms with Seesaw or Google Classroom communicate through these platforms if needed.
DeleteThanks for sharing, I posted my response before I read the others, and had similar questions.
DeleteI'm also wondering about planning for natural disasters or other emergencies. I once heard a story from a professional colleague who was at a school that helped another school damaged by Hurricane Sandy to put some courses into their LMS until they could get everything back up and running.
I also had a challenging experience after the Boston Marathon bombing. The college I worked for at the time was closed for the day when the police had most of the area on lockdown. It happened to fall during the finals period. I was able to work from home, and create a "just-in-time" detailed screencast for faculty to move their final exams into the LMS. It was not an ideal situation, and I think we could have planned better in advance for it.
Thinking of Marianna's post....I read where some are concerned about knowing what current content to post for Snow Days. I like the review sheets/practice days. This is always good.
DeleteI am at IVS with Pam Shaw-- She sounds familiar to with what I try-- weekly reminders in news aligned to my pacing chart. I like Jennifer's idea of the "old school" calendar. Maybe seeing each week in print in calendar form would help keep kids on schedule. I know I am a visual and hands on learner. In my course page News-- I try to find eye catching images followed by reminders, trivia, supplement to the lessons.
ReplyDeleteAs for virtual snow days, we call them Alternative Learning Days. I try to make my lessons easy, family included, choice, not computer heavy, and something that shouldn't take a long time.
Chapter 6: Time management. For my course, we have official unit deadlines every two weeks where every assignment that was given in that unit is due. We also provide a pacing guide/calendar for students to follow so they do not get behind and have to turn in every assignment at the end of the unit. I really like how we adapted the Calendar view for our pacing guidelines on assignments as it reaches more students and it provides a visual aid to follow. We also provide a detailed mid-term progress reports that list all missing assignments so students may turn in their missing work. Mostly I think the reminder announcements help students keep on track and current in the course!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of a midterm progress report that lists all missing assignments. The progress reports at my f-to-f school often limps homework assignments together by week and is not as specific. One feature in my Canvas LMS that helps to address missing work is a dropdown link in the gradebook for each assignment by which I can group email all students who have not submitted that piece of work as I am posting daily grades.
DeleteHi Jennifer,
DeleteLike Marla, I appreciate the detail included in your school's midterm reports.
IVS has several intelligent agent letters that I make use of weekly to keep students/guardians/schools apprised of progress. One is an academic warning letter for those students earning 60% or less. One is a pace analysis letter showing where the student is in terms of where s/he should be at an ideal completion pace. The third is a positive feedback letter explaining that the student is on track to complete the course in a timely manner. I have the option of including a copy and paste of all assignments and feedback to any of these letters. I like the idea of everyone being on the same page regarding student progress each week. It feeds the "no surprises, no excuses" wolf. :-)
Smiles,
Kathy
Chapter 6: How do you support students in planning how to complete coursework on time? What suggestions do you have for teachers who are just beginning to use a blended learning model? I appreciate the importance of this chapter as I have a child of mine own (9th grader) that has always struggled with Time Management in his classwork. I can imagine that if he were enrolled in a online course, it would be so easy for him to fall behind unless there were a process in place to help in breaking projects and assignments down with specific timeline requirements. I agree with the point of continuously referencing students back to the course syllabus, which if thoughtfully prepared, will assist them in staying on track. I also disagree with the idea that there shouldn't be some opportunity to make up work that is not turned in on time. Such hard and fast rules as "deadlines don't work in the field so I won't accept late work," I think only works for students that are naturally organized and does not encourage those that are not.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I'm not that great about directing them back to the syllabus all the time. But, if we design it well and make it actually useful, then it should be a reference document, not just something to click past and ignore in the future.
DeleteChapter 6: How do you support students in planning how to complete coursework on time? What suggestions do you have for teachers who are just beginning to use a blended learning model?
ReplyDeleteI like this topic because I agree that most students don’t have time management skills. I agree with Pam Shaw since I teach with IVS also. After reading the material, there is a lot more I could do. I could break the schedule down even more. The reading suggested lots of different ways to present a schedule. I use a basic “here is the Unit and this is when it’s due” method. I think using a variety would help. I do send out reminders…for example, the day before I send out mass emails saying what assignments are due tomorrow.
Or, where have you fallen short in supporting time management skills with your students? As you analyze the updated syllabus on pages 114-118, what strikes you? What "aha" have you had and will be using in your next course syllabus?
Time frames sound good. I do have a class where there is a video to watch before answering the questions. I usually let students know the length of this since it’s longer than students expect.
I just attended the Sleeping Beauty ballet and by each Act, there was a time schedule…25 minutes, 30 minutes. I had never seen this before but I sure did like the heads up. ha
Chapter 7: What suggestions can you add to this chapter? What should teachers, new to flipped classrooms and blended learning, keep in mind when planning for a virtual snow day? What have you learned from your experience and student feedback that is important when planning for virtual learning? For example, the 6-minute video rule is helpful for those teachers who might record an entire 50-minute lesson and post (yikes!)
Chapter 7 ideas were good. Lots of background, setup work needs to be done first so that technology is all on the same page. Someone needs to plan the system before courses can go out to students. It is hard to realize, but there are still areas and homes where the internet does not exist. So, lots of planning needs to take place for this to work.
I did relate to the fact that we think students know how to deal with technology already. I used to teach face-to-face computer classes to middle school students. I use to have people tell me “I bet they know more that you know.” Well, no. Students can text and play games. They struggle with indenting paragraphs, using autosum in Excel, etc. BUT, students are not afraid to try what needs to be done at the computer. They are not afraid of technology.
I did like guidelines…the 6 minute video. Guidelines are great, but I’m sure it will take lots of trial and error, lots of corrections to get it right.
Prompt 2 Part 1
ReplyDeleteI think virtual snow days are a good idea in principle but I have some concerns about students like Coco in the book who might have limited access or even worse, no access to the internet at home and can't go to school or the library like they could in better weather. Especially in some of our smaller New England towns, even students with access could have a power or internet outage and not be able to access the online material at all.
I agree with the authors that it's not realistic to expect students to complete a full day of schoolwork on a snow day. Even if they stay inside all day and are able to resist the urge to go outside and play, they might have distractions from family members with everyone being home at the same time, pets, noisy snowblowers and plows outside, etc. I found the suggestion for Coco, a 4th grader with anxious tendencies, to get up early and be focused very unrealistic. Even if she was able to get up early, she might be competing with her parents for the computer if they now have to work from home, too.
My instinct would be to plan for a lighter day so the students still get some work done. I would definitely not expect everyone to get a full school day's worth of work in. For schools with paper textbooks, having a reading option would work as long as students remember to bring their books home. One idea might be to send the snow day activity home at the beginning of the semester, or ask students to keep a printout of it in their notebooks. That would only work for an activity that does not need to be tweaked the day before.
Prompt 2 Part 2
ReplyDeleteI am very familiar with the 6 minute video rule... In my experience with college level courses, it can be hard for faculty to stick to. Many faculty are used to lecturing and often have a hard time getting away from not being able to "say" everything, even though they can have other supplemental text or visual materials to go along with it. The worst cases were faculty who thought this meant taking a 90-minute lecture and just cutting it into 6 minute clips with no additional edits, or faculty who thought every video had to be exactly six minutes to the second and would try to "fill" the time even if they were done saying what they needed to say. Scripting works best, but can be hard for faculty to get used to, especially as they often work on the fly and finalize lectures the night before class.
The best faculty I worked with were open to instructional design feedback about how to make their videos more impactful, and selecting what parts of the material really needed to be video. For example, lab demonstrations can be slowed down, sped up, and reviewed as many times as needed for students to understand physical phenomena. Background information can be text on screen and infographics that make sense in 2D and don't need to be shown over time or in an animation to be understood. Non-video content can be more easily edited and updated, too.
Sara - I appreciate your calling out that instructional design online is different (duh) from face-to-face instruction - and that people, even great teachers, need to learn how to change their style and thinking to do online teaching well. This is making me think about the teacher training that we offer at VHS and how we coach and support strong f2f teachers as they transition into the role of online teacher. ~ Laura
DeleteYou're welcome. I found that most college faculty do get better with time, and after they've taught online and get the hang of it but it can take longer than the administration would prefer...
DeleteChapter 6: I am an online teacher and no longer have the opportunity to see my students face to face. However, online students need guidance with time management even more so because they do not have a teacher encouraging them daily. Therefore, in addition to the due dates, I provide students with a pacing guide to use as a to means for completing assignments. Also, in Canvas, there is a calendar for students to use which organizes due dates and assignments and I encourage students to use it in planning their day. Finally,for students who continue to struggle, I have worked with these students to create a plan/calendar that includes exactly which hours will be spent working on assignments each day. Once students understand how organizing their time will improve their academic success, many begin to use the a type of calendar.
ReplyDeleteChapter 7: Since I am completely online, all of my content is accessible online. I do use videos and it is important to have shorter videos rather than one long video. Also, include questions or an activity to assist students with the purpose of the video. It is also important to chunk content so it does not overwhelm students and provide examples of all expectations. Lastly, it is important to have scheduled time when you will be available for questions.
I like your idea of asking students to make a calendar. I wonder if having a post-assignment mini check-in would help students reflect on how much time they actually spent afterwards.
DeleteI could see this being a quick poll question a day or two after they submit the assignment asking about how well they did with planning their time and sharing a tip for classmates or something they struggled with in a short answer or discussion post.
At VHS, the student handbook provides detailed advice on time management topics such as strategies for success, pacing, “attending” class, planning ahead, and how to make a working plan to complete a weekly assignment list. In Week 1, students also complete a self-assessment that asks them to reflect on the commitment each is prepared to make to the specific online course. This requires students to consider questions regarding time aside at school for VHS (how often and for how long), computer access at school and at home, scheduled school vacations, class trips, etc., and anything I should know about their individual learning styles as well as any other information they want to share with me that might be helpful in making their experiences better in my class. This exercise also indicates that VHS AP courses require an average of 10-12 total hours of work each week and asks the student to assess his or her ability to be able to put in those hours each week. My blended learning have similar features.
ReplyDeleteIn area in which this could be improved in accordance with UDL strategies would be to have students not only reflect on their calendars but also to have them create an actual plan on paper (or in another media format) for completing their work.
In addition, both my online and blended courses indicate that communication is essential between student and teacher. I continually encourage students to ask questions and share concerns and challenges. My advice for new teachers would be to offer gentle reminders to help students stay on track to avoid situations in which students get too far behind. Time frames for virtual snow days sometimes need to be more flexible. The instructor needs to consider that power outages can occur and that, in some instances, older students need to take care of brothers and sisters as well as complete tasks such as shoveling snow.
My real "aha" throughout this book study has been seeing the need to provide varying multimedia formats for not only student contributions but also for my syllabus, feedback, and discussion contributions.
Hi Marla, I like your idea of having the students make their own course calendar and a time management table to help them stay on track throughout the course! I also agree that once a students falls behind it is extremely difficult to motivate that student to get caught up and turn in all those missing assignments. Besides gentle reminders such as course announcements, what other tools would help encourage students to stay on task and continue to work through the active unit and not fall behind?
DeleteChapter 7
ReplyDeleteWith regard to Virtual Snow Days, our school uses the Canvas LMS, so all students are used to working with online assignments on a daily basis. When a snow day is called, teachers are required to post and open all assignments by 8 a.m. on the Virtual Snow Day. Preparation for this is made easier if instructors post all f-to-f and blended assignments on the LMS on a daily basis. Many of us, including myself do so; this also helps when I am absent and in need of a substitute. In addition, in September, each instructor is required to create two emergency lesson plans for each course in the LMS. Regarding the time frame for student submissions on a Virtual Snow Day, the work is required to be rigorous and occupy the same time a student would have spent in a given course on that day. However, we typically implement a deadline of midnight in order to accommodate students’ home life situations, which can include caring for siblings, shoveling snow, and allowing for power outages.
I've started using a midnight deadline with my face to face kids as standard protocol... If you can't get something done in class, by all means, finish it today, while it's fresh. I've found that it gets rid of a lot of "but I read slowly" and "but I was distracted" arguments and students use their time more effectively and seem to learn a little better.
DeleteHi Marla!
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of emergency lesson plans. Is this something that can be dropped in at any point in the semester? What kind of lessons do you find work the best for your students?
It has been a long time since I taught a formal class. (Nowadays, I mostly provide PD for adults in the form of workshops or help desk support.) Upon reflection of Chapter 6, I undoubtedly fell short of supporting my 8th grade students’ time management efforts. Late assignments were penalized a certain percentage for every day the assignment was late. There was no comparable incentive for handing work in early either. In retrospect, I think this sends a wrong message. Where I agree there are important life lessons to learn about deadlines, mastering the main learning objectives take precedence. Today I am more inclined to interpret a missed deadline as an indicator that the student needs additional support, or simply needed more time to understand the material. It’s almost like the missed deadline is additional formative data. The punitive, docking of points approach could ultimately lead to disengagement especially if the student was late despite extra effort, or some other extenuating circumstance. After all, in the work world, missing a hard production deadline gets you fired. The direct analogy in the school world would be expulsion. This seems absurd in the context of a missed assignment. So I think it would be better to supply the course timelines (in multiple representations of course) and make sure students understood a missed deadline means something is going on related to their learning and some action, possibly more attention or effort is required. At the very least I would provide a step by step remedy for what do next after the deadline date passes.
ReplyDeleteIt has been my experience in the workplace that there are different kinds of deadlines, some whizz by and others move, and the consequences of missing different types vary. It may seem like a lenient approach towards deadlines as I realize I am perilously close to missing one for this course right now, but the idea occurred after reviewing the UDL guidelines in table 6-1 which speaks to supporting goal setting, planning, autonomy, and coping skills.
In reference to to the requirements of utilizing an LMS, and training teachers enumerated in chapter 7:
ReplyDeleteOne thing teachers preparing for virtual learning will need to keep in mind is the issue of accessibility. A year or so after UDL in the Cloud! was published, the rules pertaining to school online content were updated. The aim was to ensure better accessibility for everybody including people with disabilities. Either teachers will need training on developing accessible content or the LMS will need to be capable of handling a it for them. For example, the 6-minute videos will be required to have closed-captions. Alternative text has to accompany all images. Blinking or flashing elements are not permitted. Uploaded content like pdfs will need to be formatted in a way which makes them able to be read by assistive devices. The entire site must be keyboard navigable. There are specifications for forms, tables, and HTML page structure. The design needs to consider contrasting colors for those with visual perception issues like color blindness. Even misspellings, broken links, and the common “click here” link are identified in the standards as accessibility violations. These requirements fit in well with what I know about UDL. But unlike a framework or set of guidelines aimed at improving practice, the accessibility standards are a legal compliance issue.
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ReplyDeleteHow do you support students in planning how to complete coursework on time?
ReplyDeleteI am old school. My students are at risk, have social emotional learning impairments as well as specific learning disabilities. Daily students are ‘expected’ to write a SMART goal. For typical learners this is straightforward and brilliant. For my kids it’s like climbing a mountain in flip flops.
The suggestion for having a class that actually teaches time management and associated skills and strategies is fantastic.(I am bringing this to my collaboration on Tuesday.) The idea that my gang understands and knows what to do with a SMART goal is a tragedy. It takes about three months to teach basics of the whys and hows to set a good and individually appropriate daily goals.
Presently we work on a point system where students are expected to earn 4 points daily. Each morning kids are supposed to write their goals for the day. Great! Except- there is no follow up or accountability in place. There is however a ‘Point Board’ in every mentor room where daily and total point values are seen by all. These two ideas alone are magically supposed to inspire work completion and time management.
At the beginning of the year I sat with my kids to review all upcoming assignments. Together we (I) determine how long each one should take. On colored masking tape I write out assignments and anticipated completion dates. This helps most kids stay on track within reason. By mid year ½ of my students are independent. At this point I am still doing weekly and monthly individual plans with 6 of 23 students.
What suggestions do you have for teachers who are just beginning to use a blended learning model?
Ask for training, building goals and expectations and read UDL in the Cloud! I would have been miles ahead and not lost so much time if we had been trained in the blended model instead of our LMS.
Or, where have you fallen short in supporting time management skills with your students? As you analyze the updated syllabus on pages 114-118, what strikes you? What "aha" have you had and will be using in your next course syllabus?
Again, I love the idea of a time management course. The striking aha for me is the synchronous meetings and availing learners with short, up to 6 minute instructional videos. For my fall classes I will definitely include time estimations for each assignment so students will not be over or underwhelmed.
What suggestions can you add to this chapter? What should teachers, new to flipped classrooms and blended learning, keep in mind when planning for a virtual snow day? What have you learned from your experience and student feedback that is important when planning for virtual learning? For example, the 6-minute video rule is helpful for those teachers who might record an entire 50-minute lesson and post (yikes!)
ReplyDeleteI don’t know that I have a suggestion for an add. Instead I am taking away and bringing this information to my collaboration. Chapter 8 seems like the missing link for my building. All of the specialists, myself included are working our tails off teaching and reteaching a single lesson many dozens of times. This is not cost effective and begins to generate aggravation. If synchronous meetings were embedded as required we may be able to foster student curiosity and not just the desire to finish an assignment.
I wonder if instead of posting to a discussion board we could ask students to post their own video responses. I’m imagining greater ownership and inquiry a student may present if they had another platform to incorporate their ideas.
I love the idea of having the students post their own responses w a video! That would likely result in students being able to "transcend into a state of flow" (112) and what fun learning that would be for ALL!
DeleteChapter 6: Montana Digital Academy has done an excellent job communicating with their design the importance of time management. Classes are set up in weeks with clear expectations for each week or set up in Modules with checklists provided. Each assignment is label with a due date, but additional students are given a pacing chart at the beginning of the year to help students plan. Teachers also send reminders in the form of inactivity and low performance to students that struggle with time management and scheduling. I have found that the minimum of three hours as mentioned in the text is not always enough time for students and planning the amount of work required each week always needs tweaking. To accommodate students who need additional time to complete assignments, I give students a one-week grace period. Reviewing the time chart proposed for Jose, it is obvious that for some students, there just isn’t enough time in the day.
ReplyDeleteChapter 7: The idea of a virtual snow day seems like an obvious solution for weather related missed days. However, the requirements associated with that would be somewhat of a burden for some of our students. Montana is a very rurally populated state and as such we have high poverty in some of our school districts. However, chronic absenteeism is also high in our school district. A blended or flipped classroom has proven to be somewhat helpful. Those classes which have more presence online tend to be the ones struggling students are successful in. Our school district is looking into purchasing a Learning Management System and I believe it will be a great step in the right direction.
How do you support students in planning how to complete coursework on time? In the classroom I use a variety of tools to signal the passing of time at various intervals. One thing I've found effective that students can easily grasp is to post a circle divided into quarters, thirds, halves etc and shade in the section as the time passes. I believe something similar would work in an online format. I haven't taught online, but use Boomerang w/emails so I can schedule reminders etc. This is also an option in Google classroom and I have used it to prompt students with completion dates for sections of longer range projects and upcoming due date reminders.
ReplyDeleteI think that in some ways, we do a pretty decent job of showing kids how to pace themselves through work in the schools i work in…. But kids are always going to struggle with this part of an online class. Hand a student a computer, and they have ideas of 73 things they’d like to do OTHER than their online classwork! One of the most successful things that we have done is organizing classwork and assignments into “weekly” folders”. In one school, they can only access course work one unit at a time, while at the other, they can access the whole course at their own pace. I think both have their advantages and disadvantages, but overall, they both give students an idea of how much work needs doing within a time frame.
ReplyDeleteOn the syllabus, I feel like the organization is ok, but it’s a little hard to read. The “week __” is lost, and what sticks out are the words “final project”. If I was designing this for a student, I’d bold face the week and the focus so that there’s a clear break between topics, and then I’d choose to simply underline “final project” as it appears. Sometimes, readability is just as important as what we write for students!
Virtual snow days sound great, especially to administrators… but I always wonder - how easy is it for a teacher to pump out a quality lesson for students at 6am when a snow day is called? I’d venture to say it would take a few hours, and then you have to deal with… how many kids will do it and how many will find excuses? How many simply can’t do the assignment because of lack of technology or decent internet?
When i plan flipped lessons, I use Google Classroom. I make sure to let students know that there’s a flip happening so that they can plan in advance to watch the video somewhere/some way if they don’t have reliable internet or computer access. The thing I like about Classroom is the ability to post more than one video… to embed some comments or directions with it, etc. Ideally, it’s nice to have an embedded video in a Google Form that students can fill out with some simple questions, feedback, or very short written answers to let you know that they know what they’ve read!
I forgot to add Remind! If you're not using Remind, you're doing school wrong...... I use it in my face to face classroom as a way to communicate with my students and remind them about upcoming tests and due dates. At the school level, my local online school gives students an option to enroll in a "class" with Remind that we use to communicate from the school level. So, when I send out a message that way, I'm in touch with hundreds of parents and students at once to let them know what percent complete they should be by the end of the week, if office hours have been adjusted, etc. In this way, there's a school-level layer of pacing information sent out to both parents and students about where they should be. It's been incredibly helpful in keeping everyone informed in a low-key way!
ReplyDeleteTeaching with IVS, I do give all students a Pace Chart to keep them on track. Since the course that I teach is all virtual, there is no need for virtual snow day. Reading some of these responses, I would possibly like to look into using Remind for my virtual class. That could be very helpful.
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