School closures due to community emergencies, inclement weather and other unexpected events can’t be helped, but they can quickly put students behind, especially students who are working through a tightly scheduled and mandated curriculum. Fortunately, with a little planning and the help of technology, days when school are closed don’t need to bring a halt to learning for school students.
Here are four multidisciplinary rules of thumb to ensure that learning continues on school closure days.
Implement online learning days when students are out of the physical classroom
Schools can take advantage of online learning during community emergencies like widespread illness, bushfires or freak weather events, or during planned occasions like professional development days and parent conferences, to continue instruction outside of the physical school environment. Teachers should be sure to establish and communicate time periods when they will be directly contactable by students and parents to facilitate and support instruction in the online realm.
Develop and make everybody aware of a protocol for determining student attendance for online learning
Do you expect everyone to be working online by a certain time so you can check your usage reports as a form of “taking the role”, or are students intended to respond to a question via your social media page as a “smart start” activity and participation within a given time frame tells the teacher that the student is engaged? Whichever means of verifying student involvement you choose, consider how technology can help support this practice.
Give assignments in chunks
Many teachers like to give bundles of homework to be done over a certain time period, usually a week. If you are expecting an upcoming school closure, consider adopting this approach. That way, if students are stuck at home for a few days they will still have the materials they need to keep their minds active and stay on track with the curriculum.
Preview classwork to keep students prepared
If you have some advance warning of your school's closure, spend a few minutes while you’re still in the classroom with students outlining what you would like them to be thinking about and investigating while they are off-site. All this lays the foundation for students to hit the ground running when they are able to return to school.
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