Screens:

Students should be able to:

Move between speaker and gallery view.

• Speaker view is useful during teacher instruction during which students might need to see documents, posted anchor charts, or pictures, or features in texts.
• Gallery view is useful during a group discussion for students to be able to see everyone at the same time.
• Students should generally use ‘speaker view’ to ensure the teacher or presenting student is largest on their screen.

Teachers should be able to:

• Use the ‘share screen’ feature whenever there is an electronic text, document, or task grounding instruction. This will ensure a clear visual anchor for students during the lesson. 
• Note: Physical documents such as print copies or anchor charts can be shared by connecting a classroom document camera to a video conferencing platform, or using a smartphone as a document camera. 
• Move between speaker and gallery view to ensure observation of all students. If leading a discussion, use gallery view to monitor students. 
• Move students into and out of ‘breakout’ rooms, and move between breakout rooms to observe students.

Chat Box:

Most virtual conferencing platforms allow students to use a chatbox.  Create a classroom set of signals using either the chat box or reaction emoticons to quickly show if students understand, need more help, have a question, etc.

Zoom

• Educating Over Zoom 
• Comprehensive Guide to Educating Through Zoom
• Tips & Tricks: Teachers Educating on Zoom

The links above are external guides we are providing for reference. Please consult with your school or district administrator regarding technical guidance.

Microsoft Teams

• Microsoft Teams for Education
• Teams Quick Start Guide
• Student Video: Working with Classes and Classmates

The links above are external guides we are providing for reference. Please consult with your school or district administrator regarding technical guidance.

General Classroom Management Techniques

Anchor Charts

Throughout the curriculum, an 'Anchor Chart' is employed to create a common space for students to co-create resources based on their learning. It is recommended these anchor charts be large physical pieces of paper that can be displayed and easily referenced during class time. Unfortunately, a virtual or hybrid learning environment does not always allow for this type of visible shared learning. As a result, consider taking one of two approaches that will still allow students to co-create anchor charts, but also will ensure individual access for reference during asynchronous time:

• Shared Documents: If the learning management system or virtual classroom software allows for it, create a shared document where the teacher has 'editing' ability and students have 'viewing' access. During instruction, the teacher can create the anchor chart based on student discussion, but students cannot unintentionally change the content. Allow students to use a comment feature during asynchronous time to continue building collaborative knowledge.

• Individual Documents: Alternatively, each student can maintain their own 'anchor chart' as a 'note catcher.' When this is our recommendation, these documents have been included in the Flex materials to ensure student access and practice with their related standards.

Timing for Work Completion

The Flex Curriculum K-2 and 3-8 schedules (See Teacher Tools Folder) contain suggested time blocks for independent work where students can complete tasks asynchronously. These timings are suggestions only, and teachers should inform caregivers that students can complete this work based on home schedules. For example, students can view the whole group K-2 Skills Block instructional videos while eating their breakfast, or later on in the afternoon. Additionally, grades 3-8 students might complete the work assigned after Lesson 1 and the pre-work for Lesson 2 as a single work block in the afternoon.

Assessments and Feedback

Providing Feedback 

• Submitting completed work products
• Digital: If an LMS is used, and/or students are working on digital documents, completed formative and summative assessment materials can be submitted by the student and accessed by the teacher through the LMS or by email. 
• Print: If students are working on printed copies of documents, there are a couple of ways students can submit materials; however, it will be important to establish a frequency of submission to unnecessary time and costs:
• By mail. On a certain frequency (i.e. bi-weekly) students mail their completed materials in an envelope to teachers. Teachers then mail back assessed work with feedback. Students may need to be provided with postage-paid envelopes to support this form of submission. 
• By drop off. On a certain frequency (i.e. bi-weekly) students drop off their completed materials at a safe drop off point, for example, the school mailbox. Students may need to be provided with envelopes to ensure their materials are not lost in the drop off process.
• Regular check-ins to discuss student progress:
• Consider organizing a schedule of regular one-on-one check-ins with students to discuss their progress, i.e. bi-weekly for 20-30 minutes. If these are calendared for each student at a regular time, a class of thirty students can be spread across two weeks with 1-2 check-ins each day. 

 One Voice:

Only one person, student or teacher, should talk at any given time as video conferencing software often does not handle multiple audio inputs well.

Monitor Student Order:

As the teacher, you, or a student you assign, will need to monitor who has requested to speak and either call on that student or directly unmute the student. This will ensure students don’t inadvertently interrupt their peers.

Pre-Determine Groupings:

Choose groups in advance, and maintain them for consistent periods of time (e.g. Unit or Module). Preview the kinds of groupings that will be required for the period (pairs, triads, quads, etc) and provide students with a shared document that includes their groups and roles at the start of each period. As the teacher, you may always adjust the suggested groupings from the Lesson Planner (i.e. students work in quads instead of pairs during a think-pair-share).  

NOTE: One way to provide novelty in groupings is to use random breakout rooms for quick discussions such as think-pair-shares. Use your discretion with this tool as they will not account for the social dynamics of your students when grouping!

Grades K-2

Primary learners typically cannot yet type, and benefit from writing by hand. Given that, it is recommended K-2 students complete work by hand on hard copies, rather than working in Word or Google Docs. Consider:

• Sending home printed copies of documents--both those that students will complete (such as a worksheet) as well as those that they will just reference (such as a personal anchor chart).

• Sending home handwriting paper so that students work on their abilities to form letters correctly using the guidance of the lines.

• To gather completed work: 

• Have students return completed work to school, if in-person instruction is occurring. 
• Have caregivers share photos of completed work by text, email, or the school’s communication system. 
• Have students hold up completed work over video chat and take a screenshot of the work.

Shared Writing

• Overview: Teachers approach this practice in an interactive manner by which students are asked a series of questions that help contribute to the formation of sentences.

• Shared Screen: While students or teachers write, have them share their screens for group discussion about the writing.

• Process: Teachers begin sentences and ask students to write down steps and complete the ending of sentences.  After waiting a period of time for sentences to be formulated, the teacher reveals the answers for the sentences as a check for understanding and confirmation.

Before the Lesson

• Close Reading Guide: Print the Close Reading Guide or locate the guide in your Teacher Supporting Materials book

• Prioritize: Pre-read the Guide and determine for your students which questions, tasks, or portions of the activity are of highest priority. Consider:

• Student understanding of the topic
• Student understanding of the text
• Standards assessed in the next Mid or End of Unit Assessment

• Annotate: Mark your prioritization to guide you during the lesson.

• Gather Instructional Materials: Locate the relevant text and/or activities in the Instructional Materials Document and have them open, ready to share with students during the lesson.

Grades K-8

Synchronous:

Technology Suggestion: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams

• Students discuss the meaning and purpose of the sentence and the focus structure. 

• Teacher can give one student one of the chunks through a private message in the chat box. Teacher can distribute the remaining chunks to several other students through private message. Each student who has a chunk can share in the chat box, and the class can discuss which order the chunks go in.

• Students use Conversation Cues to discuss one or two compelling questions taken from the Reconstruct phase of the Language Dive. 

Asynchronous: 

• Students practice and record saying the Language Dive sentence to different rhythms, hip-hop, or song. Students also practice and record their own sentence that they create in the Practice phase of the Language Dive. Technology suggestion: Flipgrid, Pear Deck

• Students record themselves responding to questions posed during synchronous instruction or in note-catchers. Technology suggestion: Flipgrid, Pear Deck

• Students move, match, and make meaning of sentence chunk strips in Deconstruct, Reconstruct, and Practice phases. Technology suggestion: Seesaw, Pear Deck, Padlet.

K-2 Skills Block

• For the EL Education Flex Curriculum: 2020-21, cycle and end of module assessments are called 'reviews' as the virtual environment will present specific differences than the traditional classroom.  These reviews come in the form of the whole group instruction using video conferencing where students are asked to answer questions about the skills they learned for the week by decoding and encoding.
• The benchmark assessment has been adapted for the virtual environment and is an essential component to determine the correct microphase for students as they engage in small group differentiated learning.  For specific guidance on this assessment, see our Benchmark Assessment Guidance (See Teacher Tools) which includes virtual instruction guidance.

Cheating/Plagiarism

• Since students have access to the internet more frequently during school hours, there are new concerns about cheating. We believe the strongest defense is to create a strong classroom community through the use of norms and the embedded Habits of Character.