Congratulations!!! We all survived another week of digital learning, and I hope that your families are starting to get a working rhythm and schedule that fits your circumstances. I know there are many stressors involved, but I hope everyone is finding a way to make things work and keeping your families safe. As we wrap up week 2 and make plans to start week 3 on Monday, there are several things I would like to share. A couple of these are repeats from last week's e-mail, but I am sharing them again because they are very important. Please take a couple minutes to read through the weekly notes as there is some very important new information.
1) Time On Task Policy
We have been asked to provide 2 hours of instructional material per Target Day. The only difficulty with this is that Target students work at very different rates, and what takes one student 1.5 hours to complete takes another student 2.5 hours. However, you see your child at home, and you are the best judge of how much uninterrupted and focused time your child is spending on assignments. I am doing my best to assign what I feel is about 2 hours of work each week. But in the end, remember that students should be spending a couple hours on their Target day working on Target assignments. If the assignments start taking your child any longer than 2.5 hours total, your kids have my permission and encouragement to stop. I don't want them stressed out during these crazy times. We all have enough stressors in our lives right now, and the last thing I want is for Target to be overwhelming in any way. My goal is to provide healthy levels of challenge and frustration to keep kids growing, thinking, and learning, but not to add to their stress level. As I have mentioned, I am listing assignments in order of importance, so students should do assignments in the order they are given in case they don't have time to finish them all.
2) Target Work Policy
This note was sent from our Target supervisor this week: "Prevailing practice is that gifted students should not be expected to make up regular classroom work or homework scheduled on Target day. We want to make sure your Target students are not doing “extra” work during this period of virtual learning. If necessary, please remind your teachers of this practice and discuss its digital application." As I mentioned in last week's e-mail, this means that on Target day your children are not responsible for the work that is posted by their homeroom teacher. I spoke with administration about this last week during our team meeting and was told that administration would remind all teachers of this policy.
3) Collecting Work
So far, I haven't been collecting work from students. This is because, we are unable to assess the work until we get back to school and give students who didn't have as much access to computers, time to make up the important things. So, I've been providing feedback in a couple of ways. First, I have sent home answer keys to activities that have 1 correct answer (math, brainteasers, etc) and let students self-check their work to make sure they understood the math or logic puzzle. Of course, if they realized they didn't understand a concept or needed help, I've been checking e-mail and providing assistance as needed. On Flipgrid, I provided "vibes" on students' introductory videos, and we have been saving research based work until we return to school so we can discuss it together before I take it up.
However, since we now know that digital learning will resume after spring break, and be longer term, I am establishing a set method for turning in particular requested assignments. Since I have a lot of students, who see me on different days of the week, it gets very disorganized and hard to manage if I receive 85-90 e-mails randomly with work attached. It's also hard to provide feedback in that context. So, I will be setting students up on a Target Edmodo site this next week so they will have a place to turn in certain assignments starting after the break. There will continue to be many assignments where answer keys are sent home or where we discuss the assignment on a digital platform like Zoom, but I will ask that certain things be turned in through Edmodo. In order for this to happen, I need your child's help in getting things set up on Edmodo. Next week, the first assignment for your child will be to fill in a 3 question Google form so I can create a spreadsheet and add all of my students into Edmodo quickly. The first two questions are your child's first name and then last name; the 3rd question asks for the e-mail address that will be best if I have a question about work that has been turned in or if I need to provide feedback. Please take a minute to write down the e-mail address you would like your child to use or alternately, you can just help your child fill in the form. Thanks so much for your help with this!
4) Staying in Contact
It's important to me that I stay in contact with your child just so I know he or she is okay and doing well. This past week, I used Flipgrid as the contact method. In the future, I would like to use it as an instructional tool, but this week, it was so I could see and hear your sweet little one and know that your family was seeing Target blog posts and getting e-mails. I've really been enjoying watching all of the student videos on Flipgrid! If students don't see a comment on their video, it's because I haven't been able to access it. For a couple of students, I can see a picture that was saved, but the video says "processing" and won't open. I have contacted Flipgrid support to see if we can figure out the problem, but they are very busy at the moment since so many people are using their app. If your child hasn't posted his or her Flipgrid video yet, please do that so I know you are doing okay and seeing our Target blog.
Next week, I will be making contact through Target Zoom Meetings :) This will be a chance for us to all video conference together and we will do our brainteaser as a group during our classroom session. The meetings will take place on your child's Target day at 9:00 a.m. I will provide an e-mail that has the meeting link and code that your child will use on the day of the meeting. I have attached a video below about how to join a Zoom meeting and interact.
5) Typepad
My blog is hosted by Typepad, and like many other digital platforms, I think it has much higher traffic than normal these days. This week, I have had some trouble getting blog entries to post in a timely manner. If that happens, please know I will e-mail the blog post to you so your child will have access to his or her work until I can actually get the post uploaded.
6)Thank You
I wanted to end this week's notes by saying thank you for so many things! First, thanks for taking the time to read all of these notes. I know you are busy and I appreciate your investing in what is going on in Target during digital learning days. I also want to say thanks for taking on the added responsibilities of helping your child learn at home. I know many of you are trying to work from home yourselves, and I can only imagine how hard it is to do your own work and help your child with his or her work. So thanks for the effort you are putting into this. And finally, I just wanted to say thank you to the anonymous parent who took the time during all this craziness to nominate me for this month's Staff Member of the Month Award. Throughout the year, several of you have done that and it has meant so much to me. Although I haven't had my name drawn as an official winner for a month, the real award has been reading what you have written on the nomination forms. Those kind words have meant more to me than you know, so thank you for taking the time to do that!
I hope everyone has a nice weekend and that you continue to find fun and creative ways to spend time with your family. Whether that is eating meals together, camping in the backyard, building something, or watching a movie together, I hope one of the silver linings of this difficult time has been more quality time with your family. I'll look forward to seeing everyone in our Zoom meetings next week- enjoy your weekend!
