Middle & Upper School:

• Finalsite, as our Learning Management System (LMS), is the starting point. All assignments must be posted on Finalsite, and teachers may link from there to other places such as Google Classroom.

Lower School:

• Teachers in Lower School can use Seesaw to continue to communicate with families.

All School:

• Teachers can use email, chat, video-conferencing tools, etc. to communicate with students, provide support, and host virtual class meetings.

• Remote student work can still be pencil & paper, then take a picture and send it in to the teacher. We cannot assume that all students have printers at home.

Please also see the Policy page for specific expectations of teachers and students.

Though much of teaching and learning online is the same as in the shared physical classroom, there are a few key terms that will help you navigate the shift.

The two types of Virtual Classes:

• Asynchronous: Class interactions happen without real-time interaction. Students engage in class materials and complete work at their own pace, typically within a given time frame, often using discussion boards to drive peer-to-peer engagement. If you’re comfortable using Finalsite, you are already totally capable of supporting your classes fully online.

• Synchronous: Class interactions happen in real time, at the same time. Teachers can use tools like Zoom for synchronous meetings.

Most online courses are a blend of synchronous contact and asynchronous study/work. In describing their experience of shifting school completely online, colleagues at the Concordia International School in Shanghai explained that asynchronous instruction worked best for deep learning, whereas synchronous instruction was essential for maintaining relationships.

Modes of delivering virtual content

Screencasts: A digital video recording of your computer screen, usually including audio narration. Screencasts are a form of instructional video. Zoom provides an easy way to make screencasts by recording your screen. Please visit our Screencasting Page to learn more about using this tool.

Video Conference: A virtual meeting in which participants in different locations are able to communicate with each other with audio and video. We will use Zoom for this function.

Virtual Classroom: A place where all materials and lessons for learning are located. Students are also able to interact collaboratively within the virtual classroom. Finalsite is capable of facilitating this, Google Classroom also offers a robust choice for this function.

We know that in the idea moving to a fully virtual school is SCARY!

Let's all take a deep breath...it's going to be OK.

Remember:

• IG/IT is here to support you

• Give yourself grace...this is new to us as a faculty

• Give your students grace...this is new to them too

• We will all be learners together

There is a bright side.

While shifting the delivery of content and instruction to online modes is:

• Time consuming...your newly created resources can be reused in future years!

• Cumbersome as email becomes overwhelming...communicating on Finalsite is efficient and saves time!

• Can be a challenge for engagement...learning to modify instruction to capitalize on meaningful forms of online engagement is a cool tool in and out of school!

Finally please:

• Reduce the scale of instruction/curriculum to smaller ongoing interactions.

• Long term projects NEED to have intermediate deadlines for drafts and to be submitted in stages.