One of the major instructional changes that occurred during this unit was the move from normal classroom learning to the move to remote learning. With the on going pandemic the decision was made state wide that schools will be moving to remote learning. This was a difficult decision for everyone that was involved and especially for the students. I was two lessons into my unit so I had to change my last three lessons and the different assessments for the students. Out of all of my students only 6 students do not have access to internet so I was responsible for creating packets for students, and because of the health concerns we are not collecting any of the packets that students got. We have had several students who have been working on packets and their parents have sent us pictures of the work they have been getting done and they have had the chance to get credit for. For the rest of my students I made the transition of making all of my assignments digital and on google classroom.
During this time we had a week off of school for students and teachers to be prepared to move to remote learning. We were given specific guideline that we were not allowed to grade assignments that were given after the move to remote learning, and for the first week to only review content. So my first lesson that we did online was focused on being a review of material covered in class with students. With the week off I had a feeling some of my students had forgotten some of the direct instruction from class. I gave students access to the notes from class to all of my students and had them review the content we had covered. I also decided to break my summative assessment into several different steps, in effort not to overwhelm students. I started off this lesson by being clear with my expectation moving forward with remote learning. Another goal of mine was to have an open line of communication with students and communicating via email and zoom was something new for everyone, but that was going to be my main source of communication with my students.
To add a more interactive aspect to my unit I decided to create a youtube video for every lesson we do online. During my videos I try to give students a basic run down of what we are going to be doing today. Along with the videos we post clear directions of what the assignments of the day are going to be, with links to all of the websites being used. Holding office hours was a smaller instructional decision I made by I felt some students would enjoy meeting via zoom to ask any questions while they are doing the assignment so it would be quick instead of communicating on email. That has been a great decision and my students have really enjoyed being able to communication on zoom.
Removing some of my direct instruction from my unit and trying to make it as simple as possible for students to meet the standard was a big decision I made. I went with the content students had learned during our in class meetings and then ever assessment and activity during remote learning has been based on the direct instruction students already received. I feel that students have responded positively to this, we also gave students a survey seeing if they had any questions or concerns about remote learning so the lessons were also built around that feedback to a degree.
The second instructional change came with the summative assessment. The plan for my summative assessment was for all students to create a survey whether in small groups or with partners. With the remove to remote learning some students had trouble communicating with peers so students had to change who they were working with and their topic which I had to be very accommodating of. My plan was for all students to take each others surveys. Due to the lack of internet for some students I realized that goal was unrealistic so I had students get 5 or more people to respond to their students. Although I wanted students to get enough data for their survey reflection, I had to change my summative assessment to be more obtainable for students.
I decided to break my summative assessments into different steps for students in an effort not to overwhelm them. The first step was the submission of the rough draft of their survey via google survey so students can receive feedback on their surveys. At first I wasn't planning on having students submit the rough draft, but I felt it would be very useful for the students in my class. The feedback process was very important during the remote learning time and it felt it was very critical to have students getting feedback to clarify any questions they may have. For the final part of the summative assessment will be students filling their survey reflection which was a change I decided to make when we moved to remote learning. The reflection I created to give to students felt to me the best way to assess them on the standard from online. Although it wasn't my original plan and I had more different summative assessment in my plan for students, I felt that this instruction decision I made was very important to the effectiveness of the unit. Overall I thought this decision was very important to the whole statistics unit, and it would be a great way to wrap up my unit.