First Considerations : Online Learning

1. Stick to Mission and Values

Your school is your school no matter what, and its community will go through this together and emerge even stronger. Think through the essentials values of your school. How will “moving the school online” match those values and be right for your community? For example, you may consider:

The technological readiness of your faculty and student body. Have you done any online or blended learning before? What are the systems that everyone uses most comfortably already? (Lean into those!)
The elements of the school day that are most important and how you might recreate them.
The various ages of your students. How much scaffolding will they require to learn more independently and from home?

2. Assess Student and Faculty Technology Resources

The recommendations below rely on internet and technical resources. Not all of your community members may have reliable internet access at home. Similarly, not all may have a laptop at hand. Take the pulse of your student body and faculty on this issue, as every community will be different.

At home internet and device guidelines:

In an ideal world, each of your students would have access to hard-wired ethernet, i.e., a wired ethernet connection to a modem, and a personal laptop or desktop computer. For full-time students in many online schools, this type of connection is recommended if not required.
A wifi connection is your second-best option. Wifi is not as stable for video conferencing as hard-wired ethernet, but it certainly does the trick. In the worst case scenario, hot spotting from a phone can work well.
Families with no at-home wifi may nonetheless have smartphones with internet access. Most of the LMS and video conferencing options for schools have app versions. Families in that situation should download those apps. Families with no wifi may be able to create personal hotspots using smartphones to enable internet on laptops.
For video conferencing, we recommend headphones to reduce background noise and improve clarity. (Headphones also tend to discourage inappropriate parent involvement in class—particularly an issue for older students.)

3. Leverage Your Hub

Make your school's website (or LMS) the hub for everything: If you know that everyone has to go to one place to access classes and information, you know you can post emergency bulletins, pop-ups etc. Your communications department (or equivalent) will be a resource there.
Use your LMS: Most of our schools have in place Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Canvas, Google Classroom, Schoology, etc. Teachers should build out LMS pages for their courses if they have not already. It’s most important to include a syllabus and set up all assignments with a way for students to see the assignment, complete it, and upload the work. In most platforms, you can also set up a grade book, take attendance, and so much more.
Avoid trying to manage through email: Email is great, but it can turn into a mess. Put information into your hub in a curated, careful, connected way to ensure people can find the info they need now and later.

4. Teach like an MSON Teacher

Hold synchronous meetings: Use video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Bluejeans, Google Meet, Skype, or Adobe Connect. Meeting this way is absolutely essential to keeping students connected to their work, their peers, and their teachers, and to maintaining a sense of normalcy and safety. If the school does not already have its own license with a provider like BlueJeans or Zoom, MSON can set up virtual meetings for you. While we cannot set up a meeting for every one of the school’s classes, we could do so for key meetings. We can also advise on what service may be best to use and how to prepare your teachers and students.
It's not that important for the video conference to be undisturbed and sterile. Dog barking? Busy background behind your video? These elements make it all feel real and connected, and often start meaningful conversations. Be human, be real. Great teachers are great online teachers too!
Reduce the number of class meetings to 1-2/week: There will be a lot going on, and a lot of x-factors. Reduce the schedule to make time for the fact that teachers will be with their families and will have plenty to deal with at home.
Make the cuts: Cutting class time in half means using class differently. Class time should be reserved for interaction (discussion, debate, presentations, etc.), and out-of-class time for watching recorded lectures, reading or lab work, and completing assignments, some of which might even be group activities. Take a look at MSON’s “Making the Cuts” worksheet. This activity will help teachers determine what they absolutely must do live with their students and what might be done in an asynchronous format.
Learn how to screencast! Making video content yourself is a powerful thing to make asynchronous work feel connected. Click here to learn more!
Leverage powerful tools for communication: Besides making great screencasts and digging into your LMS, you can create interactive assignment documents and worksheets, and make a website if your LMS doesn't have class pages built in.
Ask for help! That's why we're here.

5. Keep it Real

As we discuss extensively in our teacher training, great teachers make great online teachers. Your ability to relate to students and create a true classroom community carries over into the online classroom.

Use your time together in virtual meetings to connect. Especially in a situation like a pandemic-induced quarantine, students will be anxious and feel a major sense of disruption. Take your time together to care for one another.
Break the ice in the new format by asking each student a question. Emphasize participation. Get students accustomed to sharing and speaking openly.
Be yourself. Engage in content the way you would in the school building. Students yearn for a sense of normalcy in these situations. Structure familiar activities, and bring out class rhythms, traditions, and even inside jokes

6. Move Beyond the Classroom

Full-time online high schools, such as Stanford Online High School, build community not only in the classroom but also outside of it. Many of the activities our schools cherish can exist online: homeroom/advisory, assemblies, extracurricular activities, counseling, college counseling, etc. Even physical education can morph into the online space!

Here are some basic tips:

Hold assemblies via video conference
Create a “lunch” period—a video conference, chat, or whiteboard space where students can actually eat their lunches at the same time when home and still interact. Use it as an excuse for students to share more about their home situations, families, cultures, etc.
Create an LMS page for physical education. Have students log activity and share creative ways to be active at home. A jumping jack contest perhaps? A yoga flow found online that everyone follows?
Move clubs online. There is no reason students cannot practice debate speeches in video conferences, watch French television in French club, or collaborate on the Yearbook from home.
Hold college counseling sessions via video conference. (Administrators can use online scheduling tools such as Doodle or Calendly, or even a simple Google Doc to schedule sessions.)

7. Start Now

Before a quarantine goes into effect, fire up the systems. Even if you think you know “how it all works,” try it out, and go deeper with your tools. For example, teachers should:

Post assignments and collect student work through the system.
Use a message board function to answer class questions.
Record a funny video answering student questions or presenting content via a screencasting tool.
Have students connect to video conferences from laptops from within your school building and ensure their ability to connect.

Your school may even consider an “online period.” Pretend you cannot meet in person for one period, even if everyone is in the school building. Meet from laptops in a video conference, and assign (and later collect) an assignment.