Teacher Planning Is Important
Teachers and staff are faced with teaching from home during the pandemic.
They have the added challenge of trying to ensure that students are getting the instruction they need while learning from home.
They may face equity issues that students have. Some students may not have Internet access or appropriate hardware at home.
You may have to deal with students who have too many distractions at home to focus on distance learning.
Some students may be babysitting siblings so parents can work.
In addition, students are used to "in-person" routines when in school, following their schedules, going to classrooms, walking the halls, seeing their teachers and peers.
Teachers have the challenge of creating an online learning environment that somewhat replicates what the students have been experiencing so that the students feel more comfortable as they adapt to this new style of learning online.
Some Ideas:
Establish your goals ahead of time.
Determine what you need to cover
Remember you won't be able to cover as much in an online lesson; determine what is most important
Remember that students still learn at different paces and have different needs. Some asynchronous assignments might be helpful.
Try to structure the way students access materials, do their assignments, hand assignments in, etc. Give them a starting place to go to each day. Keep the structure simple and streamlined:
Sample Remote Learning Starting Pages - School-Wide, Teacher, and More
Sample Teacher's Lessons for Remote Learning - Assignments, Homework, Setting Up Google Meets
Handout For How An Individual Teacher Would Set Up Remote Learning Lessons and Google Meet (PDF file)
Keep the structure simple and streamlined.
Rehearse the steps with students initially
Be patient with yourself. You will have some glitches as you transfer your teaching to the online model