Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Fall Plans -- Face to Face OR Distance Learning?

To the Families of Writing 2 students,

Welcome!  Even though it's summer, many of us are thinking ahead to the next year, so I want to share with you some of my plans for these classes next year.

Firstly, if we're clear to go with a full house at Grace Church, I will follow my regular curricular plans but add in some of the online tools that I've found especially helpful and/or fun.  (Edpuzzle, Padlet, Flipgrid, YouTube, etc.)  I will continue to use an online grade book, Google Drive for copies of handouts, and a blog for each class.  (If you're interested, check out Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3, and ACT Prep)

Because CHAT will have access to the Google Educational Suite, I am considering using Google Classroom even if we don't need to do any distance learning.  I've used Google Classroom for the past 5 years at my charter school, and it's a pretty efficient learning management system.  Assignments are posted and can be turned in electronically with this site.

If we need to be online for any of the year, in addition to using Google Classroom, all of my instructional materials (e.g. handouts, worksheets, quizzes, etc.) would be available electronically, and we would continue classes through video conferencing.  While nothing beats being with one another face to face, the Zoom class times seemed to work well.  If we are online at the beginning of the year, I would take sufficient time to work with students regarding how to be online learners.