During our last PD, we explored simple principles that Ednovate teachers are using to streamline their online assignments and maximize student learning. When implemented with fidelity, these principles can help the vast majority of our students (85-90%) make it across the finish line for their assignments. But this begs the question: what are teachers doing do to help that last 10-15% of students who continue to struggle to complete work?

In this PD, we'll explore FOUR tips for helping students get back on track with assignments:

Tip #1: Build in Supports for Time Management

Tip #2: Strategically Over-Communicate

Tip #3: Help Students Develop "Catch Up" Plans

Tip #4: Experiment with Your Office Hours

One of the key skills that remote learning puts to the test is also one of the most important for college readiness: time management. Unfortunately, it's also a skill that lends itself to a process of gradual release in high school, whereas our switch to virtual learning was nearly overnight. To help students along on their journey to developing strong time management skills, Ednovate teachers are seeing the benefits of building in explicit supports that help students manage their time more effectively.

An easy way teachers are supporting students with self-pacing is by including estimates for how long each component or task of a lesson should take (See: Example 1). This can be especially helpful for students who tend to over- or under-estimate how long assignments will take them. My wife Vicki, who teaches at Legacy, mentioned that some of her 9th graders said they weren't attempting assignments because they'd take one look at them and assume they'd take much longer than they actually would. Now that she's added expectations for pacing, her students can quickly and accurately size up each assignment and budget their time accordingly.

Here are some of the other successful strategies teachers with high turn-in rates are using to help students better manage their time/self-pace...

One of the more effective resources that teachers are piloting is a student-facing checklist of daily "to-dos" for each course (See: Examples 2-3). What I love about this resource is that it quite literally puts everything students would need for ALL of their courses into one place. The inclusion of time estimates helps students who struggle with time management to budget their time more effectively, and the "checklist" format makes it easy for students to self-monitor their progress (and for teachers to keep tabs on what work is and is not getting done). You can find another strong example of a streamlined to-do list for students courtesy of Legacy College Prep's Mae Innes HERE and from Myrna Ruiz HERE.

When it comes to communicating with students, the MODE of communication and the TIMING is at least as important as the content of the message itself.

To get a better gauge on when it'd be optimal to contact harder-to-reach students, it can help to ask them what a typical day looks like for them (e.g., At what time do they typically wake up? Feel most productive/able to concentrate? What is the best way to reach them in a hurry?). Equipped with this information, you can be more strategic about when you send out that quick deadline reminder via Google Chat (or text message if admin is cc'd), post announcements to social media (via your professional social media profile), or schedule that experimental block of Office Hours. As a helpful rule of thumb, research has shown that teenagers are most active on social media and on their phones during the following times of the day: 1) First thing when they wake up; 2) During lunch; 3) In the late afternoon/early evening

Teachers who are having the greatest success in helping students get back on track place a high premium on frequent and balanced communication with parents (both positive and constructive). One way that teachers like East College Prep's Janet Martin are streamlining frequent parent-teacher communications is through the use of standardized messaging templates (See: Example 3). It's also worth noting that Janet is as diligent about texting parents with positive updates as she is about missing assignments. Maintaining this balance is crucial for sustaining the morale of students who are only starting to turn a new leaf.

Nearly every teacher I interviewed for this PD spoke about a handful of students who fell off track early in quarter 4 and have been struggling mightily to catch up ever since. What these students initially saw as a fixable problem--a week's worth of missing assignments, say--quickly snowballed into their own Mission Impossible.

To help such students get back on track, teachers like Estela Hernandez, an RSP at Hybrid High, have begun developing "Catch Up Plans" for students (See Example 5). Her aim for each plan is to provide students with clarity on precisely which assignments (or parts of assignments) must be completed, and along what timeline, to ensure they get all caught up. To develop such a plan, Estela meets individually with her students to share their list of missing assignments and to help them design a personalized schedule for completing those at a pace that feels ambitious yet mangeable for that student. To ensure daily accountability for this plan, Estela has each student send her a text message at the end of the day with an update on their progress. She then uses that information to inform how she'll approach her daily one-on-one with them on the following morning.

It's important to note that Estela only creates plans like these for eight students who are furthest behind and most in need of this level of support. It's an approach that works, but that you want to reserve for the students who would most benefit from it.

The Ninth Grade Team at Legacy College Prep recently developed their own version of a "Catch Up Plan," which they successfully rolled out to several students (See: Example 6). I found a few aspects of their document especially noteworthy, but before we dig into those, a bit of context. Early in the quarter, the team was finding that their ninth graders who were struggling to complete assignments self-identified stress and low motivation as their greatest barriers to productivity and learning. This explains why the team spent the first few pages of the "Catch Up Plan" outlining actionable, research-based strategies for boosting motivation and reducing stress. It also explains why students were asked to commit to implementing one of those strategies as part of the "Catch Up" planning process. It's also worth noting that on later pages you'll see that teachers intentionally instruct their students to bypass certain activities that they deemed less essential. This ensures that the students who play "catch up" only spend their time engaging with the most important content from each lesson.

If you have a student who could really benefit from even more support aor accountability, consider working with key stakeholders to construct a Remote Learning Contract like the one below (Example 7). Please note that a plan like this should not replace a student's Individual Education Plan (IEP) or Section 504 Plan. (Special thanks to Kesso Diallo for including some example language in this sample contract. We hope it gives you an idea of what a plan like this could entail and who you could involve in putting it together.)

Before you add new structures to the equation, it can help to consider if you could be leveraging your current structures (like Office Hours) even more effectively.

You can also use Office Hours to pressure test assignment length and pacing estimates. To do this, Kesso recommends having students work for an hour on an assignment and noting how far they get within that time frame. Doing so will give you a real-time gauge on whether your assignment takes students an hour or more. RSPs could also use Office Hours for a similar reasons, and to ensure students are dedicating an hour of focused effort on an assignment. The amount of work a student is able to complete with an RSP during that hour block could serve as useful feedback to staff, and students could also receive a grade on the work they completed in that hour.