Dear Parents and Caregivers,
We’ve made it through the first week of our continuous learning. Thank you for riding this rocky road with us. Our hope, as we move on, is the road becomes less rocky. The 7th and 8th Grade Teams would like to share some information with you in order to clarify things going forward.
The first three days students were given a task to complete through their advisory class.
● Monday 3/30 --students shared where their school work space was going to be
● Tuesday 3/31--after watching a video, students created their own “school” work schedule--if`they haven’t shared their schedules with you, ask them to see it.
● Wednesday 4/1--students watched a video starring “Margo and Larry” about video etiquette and shared one thing “Margo” could do to improve her etiquette.
● On Wednesday students also received an activity from Rachel’s Challenge about respect. They will receive an activity from Rachel’s Challenge each Wednesday.
Students are asked to check-in daily to their advisory class to answer the question/do the activity. This way we can keep consistent contact with a small group of students to make sure they’re doing okay.
Students are expected to attend a Google Meet with their advisory teacher once a week or watch the recorded video and respond to it in their advisement Classroom.
Beginning Thursday, work from content classes rolled out. Here’s what you need to know from the parent side of things:
1. Math, ELA, and advisory will be daily.
2. All other classes still operate on an A/B day schedule.
3. Students are not expected to spend more than 30 minutes/class per day. Total work (including
teaching) should not exceed three hours/day.
Here’s where we need your help. As teachers, we’ve estimated about how long activities/assignments should take students. Of course, we’ve never done this before, so our estimates may be off. If your student is spending more than 30 minutes on a specific class assignment/day, please contact that teacher and let him/her know so we can adjust things on our end. We’ll be encouraging the students to contact us as well.
Google Meet --teachers are in various stages of this roll out. This is the video portion of things where students can get on live and video chat with their teachers/classmates. The meet will be initiated by the teacher; all meets will be recorded. A link will be posted in Classroom before the meet starts, students will click on the link to join.
There will be various types of meets --
● Check-Ins--Check-Ins are just that; teachers checking in with a particular class (will typically be advisory) to see how things are going. If it works in the student’s schedule, we would like students to attend the weekly live meet check-ins. This is considered part of a student’s daily check-in. Students who can’t attend the check-in will get the check-in activity sent to them as an assignment in Classroom.
● Question and Answer session--Question and Answer (Q&A) sessions are where a teacher is available to answer questions via video, students hop on--ask their question, get it answered, and then can leave. If students don’t have any questions, they don’t need to attend these sessions.
● Teaching Sessions--Teaching Sessions will be the teachers teaching a lesson. If students can join the teaching lesson, great. If not, that’s ok as well. Teaching sessions will be recorded and posted in Classroom. Students can view the video at their convenience or re-watch a video for clarification. Not all teachers will be holding live teaching sessions; some teachers will record their teaching lessons and post those videos in Classroom.
Teachers will do their best not to schedule meets at the same time --specifically teaching type of meets. Advisory check-in meets might occur at the same time, but because a student is only in one advisory, this shouldn’t be an issue. If a student has a check-in meet scheduled at the same time as a teaching meet, they need to attend the teaching meet.
Clarification regarding office hours. Each teacher has posted office hours on the Continuous Learning Plan (CLP) site. Some office hours are dedicated to responding to student/parent questions via email or student comments/questions in Classroom. Other office hours may be dedicated to some type of Meet session. Students and parents may email teachers at any time; they just may not get a response until their next office hour.
Teachers’ weekly agendas will be updated on Sundays by 3:00 on the CLP website for students and families to preview what’s happening during the upcoming week. When there is no school on the school calendar, teachers will not have office hours and students won’t be given work to complete.
If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to email one of us, email cmsfrontdesk@usd375.org or call the office.
Sincerely,
The 7th and 8th Grade Teaching Teams