Teacher Expectations K-5
Be Present:
Try to be present in the online classroom. Interact with students daily, check in daily, answer discussion boards and emails, make an announcement, create forums, and meet with students in video meetings. Always remind the course guidelines for students and expectations for the sessions. Also, set up course dates, conferences, and student work deadlines.
Nurture A Supportive Online Community:
K – 5 students need a lot of support from the online community. They need to socialize with other classmates and participate in the class environment. Some ways are creating activities where students can move, create and collaborate with other classmates like group projects, active pauses, games, etc.
Ask for Feedback
Create a form or ask for feedback in the most important lessons of the class. Asking students what they think and the areas of improvement around the task or project will be helpful for future courses. Elementary students are sincere, and teachers can learn to improve their classes and achieve their best.
References
Cooper, S. (2016). 10 Best Practices to be an Effective Online Teacher. https://elearningindustry.com/10-best-practices-effective-online-teacher
Teacher Expectations 6- 8
Acquired Tech Skills and work on it:
“online teachers need to be tech-savvy and comfortable with the latest online tools and technology. Using technology regularly in their day-to-day life can help teachers stay up to date with the latest innovations. In addition, teachers may need to help students and parents learn new tools, especially at the beginning of the school year” (Connections Academy, 2020).
Try not to invent the wheel but, try new things that can be easy for you and your students.
Use user-friendly technology tools.
Maintain hands-on activities to motivate the student.
Provide Proactive Feedback
Provide feedback almost every week. It could be about student performance, group assignments, or student behavior. It must be positive and constructive in a way students can improve. “Check in with students and Learning Coaches regularly to measure progress, anticipate problems, and offer suggestions” (Connections Academy, 2020).
Make Themselves Accessible
Keep communication tools open for students, colleagues, and parents. Teach students how to communicate with you like emails, phone work, and class forums or private comments. Always answer to the questions and support your student and parents.
References:
Connections Academy (2020). 9 Skills that Make a Great Online School Teacher. https://www.connectionsacademy.com/support/resources/article/9-skills-that-make-great-online-school-teacher
Teacher Expectations 9- 12
Prepare for the unexpected.
Sometimes technology can fail. So, be prepared with other resources, technology tools and save work to teach your classes online. Be transparent with your students if your online course gets disconnected or some of the resources fail. Students need to make sure that the class is on, and they need to keep working on the lesson.
Provide a variety of assignment or task formats
Use various resources for the lesson that incorporate different learning styles, a variety of ways to learn a concept, and accessibility for students. For example, teachers can use different tools like videos, readings, video meetings to explain, modeling examples of the work, documents, PDFs, slides, etc. Also, use other platforms to teach in order to make the class engaging and exciting.
Keep it real
“Make the content relevant to authentic purposes outside of school. Connect assignments to career-related tasks, such as memos, profit and loss sheets, business plans, lab experiments, survey statistics, or recorded presentations. Identify an audience from the community whose occupation applies the concepts being taught, or give students a target audience for the tasks they are doing” (McCarthy, 2020)
References
McCarthy, J. (2020) 4 Key Aspects of Teaching an Online Class. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/4-key-aspects-teaching-online-class