Online Learning
If you are new to online learning, we recommend you to begin with Google Classroom and Open Education Resources to distribute materials to your students. As you become more comfortable, you will find additional tools that you can use to supplement your online learning "teacher toolbox" you use to interact with your students.
Prior to building your online class, it is important to first learn how to best interact with your students in a virtual learning environment. Below are some resources and tips to help you develop the digital workflow that works best for you and your students. Remember that this is a learning journey for you and your students and that it will be a continual work in progress. As you explore the resources below and on the other pages, think about about just a few simple processes you will use with your students to get started (i.e. a daily check-in post, a daily journal prompt, a math performance task for the day, etc.). If needed, don't forget that you have resources to assist you, as well as other colleagues who can support you along the way!
Online Learning
Methodologies
There are multiple ways to deliver content in an online learning environment. Two of the most common methods are asynchronous and synchronous instruction. Asynchronous Online Instruction is an environment in which teachers post materials that students access on their own time within a deadline set by the teacher. Synchronous Online Instruction usually consists of an environment in which students log into a virtual classroom and participate in a live lecture with the instructor.
Read this article on online learning to gain a better understanding on how you can create a virtual learning environment for your students.
It is recommended to begin with an asynchronous learning environment when beginning your online learning journey. With this type of environment, you can post your assignments and materials at a time most convenient for you and your students can interact with the material at a time most convenient for them. No coordination to communicate at the same time is necessary. Should you wish to engage with students, you can utilize the messaging features in Stream within Google Classroom, or by messaging students individually to provide feedback.
A best practice in an asynchronous online learning environment is to check in daily to review what students are posting and completing, and providing feedback to students as they progress through the material. Some teachers post daily, while others post an entire week's work at the beginning of the week. With Google Classroom, you can also schedule posts ahead of time to automatically post daily.
Check out the article from Online Education to learn about specific practices you can use in your online learning environment.
Tools
The first tool that you will need when building your online learning environment will be access to libraries of resources that you can use with your students. Within MUSD, we have access to online platforms for many of our textbooks. Access to these platforms can be found under the MUSD Digital Tools page for single-sign on. If you have trouble logging in or would like to supplement with additional materials, then there are plenty of Open Education Resources (OERs) that can be accessed and shared.
Open Education Resources are free online resources for a variety of grade levels and subject areas. Many OER platforms have a filtering option that will allow you to sort resources by topic, grade level, subject, resource type (i.e. worksheet, video, lesson plan, etc.), and even content standards in some cases. Review the Open Education Resource page within this training portal to gain additional information about curating OERs for your class as well as links to OER platforms to begin exploring.
Google Classroom is a free tool within our district's Google Suite for Education domain that's primary function is to serve as a Learning Management System for interacting with students and sharing assignments/materials. Google Classroom is the recommended tool for creating your online environment for the purpose of developing a digital workflow for distributing content to students.
Google Classroom is used by millions of educators around the world. With it's simplistic, user-friendly design, it has become widely adopted as the primary mode of communication and workflow distribution, and through the materials within this training portal and beyond you can learn how to harness this tool with your students. With Google Classroom, you can share announcements and materials using Stream. Classwork allows you to share and collect assignments with students in an organized way. You can also grade assignments within the Classwork section and provide feedback to students.
To learn more about Google Classroom and to start creating your class, visit the Google Classroom page to explore materials and tutorials.
Additional Resources for Online Instruction
Below are additional resources you can access to learn more about online instruction and what educators are currently doing to build their virtual distance learning environments.
