Welcome to our first issue of GCHS's Remote Learning Strategies. Our goal is to curate a set of strategies to help us make the most of remote learning.

We'd love for some of these to be crowd-sourced from YOU. As you find an instructional strategy that works remotely, we'd love for you to send it along to us (spiggott@d127.org and vlobb@d127.org) or fill out the Google From at the bottom of the page so that we can share these with the staff.

These resources will also be found on D127's REAL HUB.

Create a simple Google Form soliciting (school appropriate) song titles for a class playlist. Use Spotify or safeyoutube.net to play music as students enter class from the waiting room. Simply share your screen, and click the Share Computer Sound box.

As has become increasingly apparent, taking attendance takes a lot more time. And the beginning of class can be awkward as students wait for some instruction.

So share the playlist in addition to a Google Slide with instructions on what to do while you check students in. Click PAUSE share just like you would hit FREEZE on your classroom projector (thanks for that tip, Stacy) so you can take attendance, help students get into Zoom, etc. without them seeing your PowerTeacher tab.

Plus, it'll create a nice little community of learners jamming out to some class curated tunes :)

We heard about this one from Stacy Custodio at the "What I Learned Teaching Remote Summer School" recap (which she brought to us from an Almy Education Webinar).

Pose a question verbally, on a shared screen, and/or in the chat. Tell students to type their responses, but DON'T hit send. Say 3, 2, 1, Go and have them "flood the chat."

We like this one because it's essentially a think-share strategy, which allows students a little time to construct a response before sharing publicly. It prevents the anxiety of watching other people answer a question and measuring your response against theirs. And it might help some students slow down and add to their responses before sending.

Follow up by calling on a couple of students' answers and asking them to respond and develop their responses. Ask maybe 3-4 specific students to start by unmuting their mics, and then prompt them as you'd do in the classroom.

Stacy also had recommended that we try this for both content-specific questions and culture building. It may work especially well as a transition between activities.

This one is a pretty sweet find from Maureen Ritter. When sending students to a breakout room, have each group work on a Google Slide. Title the slides Breakout Room 1, Breakout Room 2, etc. Ask a discussion question, jigsaw some content, have them brainstorm, whatever.

The hack: Monitor the progress of each breakout room by clicking Grid View.

It's hard to figure out which groups need help in breakout rooms, but this way, you have a really visual way of knowing which groups are on track and ready for more, and which groups need some support.

Pop into the breakout room via zoom, or just post a question or instructions in a comment on a group's slide.

We also know that if we don't make instructions really clear and have a specific place for students to demonstrate their thoughts, things go downhill really quickly. By making slide decks like this part of your routine, we can streamline group work in a nice way.

This may also work nicely if students are working independently on a Zoom lesson. A bit more to manage in grid view, but

Shanna and Vic are also loving Jamboard, so if you need something that would allow students to draw or insert sticky notes in addition to all the functionality of a Google Slides, you might want to play around with that.

1. If the students' WiFi is struggling, they'll struggle with the activity. Remind them to close any tabs they aren't immediately using.
2. For your first try, start small. A single question. Come back to the big room and discuss how it went.
3. Have students norm in their small groups. Cameras on? Mics on? Turning your mic on mean that you're "on deck" to speak? These things aren't as intuitive for students as they've become for us.
4. Assign a person to report back. Maybe even include a spot on the slide for them to type the reporter's name.
5. Use the announcement feature to let students know when they have x amount of time left.

We want to hear about the instructional strategies that are working for you. Big ideas and small ideas are welcome. Maybe it's something you figured out yourself, maybe it's a hack you saw online -- we want to hear it!