Distance Learning for Teachers: Part 3 - Setting Up Projects

March 20, 2020 / Oskar Cymerman

Distance Learning For Teachers - Projects

“Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.”

— Dee Hock

This is the third post in the Distance Learning for Teachers series. You can check out Distance Learning for Teachers: Part 1 - Hyperdocs and Distance Learning for Teachers: Part 2 - Activities here and here.

Let’s be real. While we don’t know exactly how long general social distancing and school closures will last we can use the 8-week CDC recommendation to guess that we need to prepare for about two months of distance learning.

Considering some states (Minnesota is one of them) where infections haven’t even begun to peak and we are likely to see the curve grow exponentially before it eventually flattens, it’s easy to forecast a scenario of 10-12 weeks of distance learning. In a nutshell, we might not open school doors to students for official classes until the 2020-21 school year.

But no matter the state you live and work in, preparing daily lesson plans, communicating with students, parents, and colleagues, keeping records such as attendance, going through assignments, grading, and setting up different online structures to make distance learning work in addition to taking care of our stuck-at-home children will be challenging.

The teaching community will get it done - no question about it. But I think it’s important for our sanity to plan a few learning activities that will lighten the load. Enter distance learning projects.

STEP 3: Setting Up Projects

Here’s what my first distance learning lesson/project for my Principles of Engineering class looks like:

Engineering (Robotics) Distance Learning Project

During the first activity, students click on the blue A Brief History of Robotics video link which takes them to the video I uploaded to EdPuzzle and added questions to. They watch it, answer questions, and move on to the 6 Types of Robots activity which is a quick reading that introduces them to the types of robots. The main purpose of these first two activities is to acquaint students with the concept of robotics and the types of robots we manufacture.

The project that follows is intended to have them dive in - they might not become experts in all the robot types but by examining one type more closely and creating a digital product on it they will learn the reasons for having robots and the basics of how they are made and how they work. The image below shows the complete directions for the project.

Notice that I differentiated by allowing each student to pick the type of product he or she wants to create (Adobe Spark video, web page, brochure, or poster).

I also gave students a rough schedule to follow. This is something we might normally communicate verbally on a daily basis as students work on the project in class. Although some (read most) students will choose to procrastinate while distance learning, it’s important to still give them some structure they can follow if needed. I think it will be even more important to scaffold learning and assignments while learning remotely.

In addition, I gave them the starting steps to Adobe Spark so they don’t have to wonder about how to get going. Most of my students have not used Adobe Spark before but I am confident they’ll figure it out. Having a concrete staring point will help as it is often the first step that’s the most difficult one to take. Once they start, they will discover that many online apps and tools are intuitive to learn and use.

Funny note: two students already requested access to the document as I mistakenly posted the link as “private.” They’re not even supposed to start until Monday 3/30. My guess is they are getting bored. Let’s give them something meaningful and fun to do.

The Benefits of Doing Distance Learning Projects

Creativity

Learning 21st Century Presentation Tools (vs. creating PowerPoints and Google Slideshows every time)

Learning the content in a fun way?

Less time spent grading and planning daily activities

Key Points

Set up your project with 1 or 2 front-loading, content-rich activities.
Be detailed in your directions and remember to scaffold.
Projects are fun for students and help teachers stay sane (allegedly).

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Distance Learning for Teachers: Part 2 - Activities

March 19, 2020 / Oskar Cymerman

Distance Learning Guide for Teachers - Activities

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.”

— Rabindranath Tagore

On Sunday, March 15, 2020 Governor Tim Waltz ordered schools to close and gave the school districts two weeks to prepare for distance learning in Minnesota. At this point in time many states have done the same and many teachers are required to transition to some form of distance learning. This post is intended to help teachers in designing and using daily learning activities so students can continue learning from home. It is a follow-up to Distance Learning for Teachers: Part 1 - Hyperdocs which explains the structure I use for setting up online learning in my high school science classroom.

To keep things simple, I will focus on 2 types of activities, front-loading and follow-up or “processing” activities and only on a few tools I use to give you a good start to distance learning. I will also include links to additional resources in the “Key Points” section at the end.

STEP 2: Activities

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I will stick to daily lesson plans that consist of two activities only - one intended for front-loading the information and the second follow-up activity to allow the students to process the information they are learning by using it immediately. My plan is to keep the entire lesson to around thirty minutes; ten spent on front-loading and twenty on practice.

Front-Load First

The front-loading stage involves delivering content to your students. For example, when introducing the new unit you might use a PowerPoint or Google Slides to give them an overview of what they’ll need to learn over the course of the next few weeks. It’s okay to give them too much at first as long as you don’t expect them to remember everything right away or ask them to produce products that show mastery.

The lessons that follow this initial, perhaps a little overwhelming lesson should focus on one or two (and no more than three) main concepts and their processing. The front-loading activity could again be something presentation-like but it’s important to mix it up and include other media such as web pages, readings, videos, and visuals such as infographics or diagrams.

Notice that in my first “distance” chemistry lesson (image below), I chose to use two front-loading activities: What makes up a solution? and What happens when stuff dissolves?. The first gives students a choice between reading one of the two web pages, which allows differentiation as the chemkids page is more accessible to ELL students or struggling readers. The second involves watching a 4-minute What Happens When Stuff Dissolves? video in EdPuzzle. There are two main concepts I have my students learning: (1) What a solution is and (2) the difference in how ionic and covalent compounds dissolve. I was also deliberate about including some processing during each front-loading activity by asking my students to take notes and including 4 questions for them to answer in the EdPuzzle video. I.f you need help getting started with EdPuzzle click here.

What Are Solutions? Distance Learning Lesson

However, most of the learning magic happens during the last activity…

Give Them the Opportunity to Process

Follow-up activities are about practicing new skills or using new concepts to learn them. Refer to the last activity in the image above and you’ll see that I chose to have my students compare and contrast salt (ionic) dissolution vs. sugar (covalent) dissolution. Doing so forces them to recall what solutions are and how different types of chemicals dissolve in water. It is important to note that any time a student creates a mental or physical image of a concept he or she will be able to encode it more effectively for understanding and future recall.

Another follow-up activity I use and highly recommend involves Flipgrid video responses (check out Activity 3 in the image below from my presentation at an educational conference in Minneapolis). Ask students to respond to questions or assign each group a topic and ask they create instructional videos. Limit them to 15 or 30 seconds or give them the full 5 minutes.

ImpactEdu 2019 Technology Conference Workshop Attendee Activities

You can also use Twitter to keep track of class assignments. Just create a unique hashtag such as #MsJchemZone (does not yet exist) and ask your students to turn in pictures, videos, or typed reflections by tweeting and including the hashtag in their tweets. This will allows them to see each other’s responses as well. Check out #cymdogchem I used in the past.

More Distance Learning Resources

Screencastify - record, edit, and share instructional videos with your students.

Adobe Spark - students can create digital flyers, videos, Instagram posts, memes, collages, web pages, journals etc.

Padlet - students can collaborate digitally by posting to a teacher-created board.

Piktochart and Canva - digital posters, infographics, flyers.

The Key Points

Use 1 or 2 front-loading activities to deliver content and try to keep it to 10 minutes. Include some processing if possible.
Give students the opportunity to process the information by using it. Ask them to summarize, draw, post to a discussion, record a video, make an infographic etc.
Keep it simple - Stick to 1 to 3 concepts and have students dive into them to (hopefully) achieve some deeper learning and stick to a few apps to ease your and your students transition into the uncharted waters of quarantine-induced distance learning.

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Distance Learning for Teachers: Part 1 - Hyperdocs

March 18, 2020 / Oskar Cymerman

“Empty spaces, what are we living for?
Abandoned places, I guess we know the score, on and on
Does anybody know what we are looking for?”

— Queen

Hopefully, you landed here because you are looking for some help in figuring this distance learning thing out because the show must go on.

Below, I show and describe a simple structure I use for online learning in my high school science classroom. Much of what you’ll find can be adapted to earlier grades as well. Make sure to click on the 2 images below so you can copy and use them as templates. They are free.

STEP 1: Hyperdoc - The One document to rule them all

A hyperdoc, which can be a simple table with links to activities and descriptions in a Google doc works pretty great for setting up daily or even weekly lesson plans. It’s easy for the teacher to create and for a student to follow. Check out the one I made to teach covalent bonding in chemistry below. Click on the image to go to the actual document you can copy and use as a template for your own classes.

The hyperdoc is the main document students come back to each time they complete an activity.

To complete Activity 1 students click on the blue “Covalent Bonding Video” text or “video” text which takes them to the video in EdPuzzle. They watch the video and respond to the questions when prompted. I’ll explain how to do EdPuzzle later…

In a distance learning scenario Activity 2 cannot be completed as written in the hyperdoc above so I might skip it or require students to respond in writing using the “Discussion” feature in Schoology or simply create a Google Doc and provide students with a link so they can write their responses.

Then, students would come back to the “Covalent Bonding Activities” hyperdoc and complete Activity 3 by going to the linked grid in Flipgrid and recording their compare/contrast videos.

And here’s the 4-day hyperdoc I used for teaching significant figures. Extra rows can be added for additional days.

Each day consists of a front-loading activity (instruction) such as a video or a slideshow presentation and a follow-up activity (skill practice), which was a worksheet that includes an answer key for immediate feedback. On the following Monday, students took a quiz in Schoology.

Previously, I used hyperdocs for blended learning (online + face-to-face combined) in my classroom. Now, I plan on using them for distance learning with some minor common-sense adjustments.

For one, I will stick to daily lesson plans that consist of two activities only - one intended for front-loading the information and the second follow-up activity to allow the students to process the information they are learning by using it immediately. My plan is to keep the entire lesson below 30 minutes; 10 spent on front-loading and 20 on practice.

As the school district I work in (and I imagine many other ones) is planning on keeping “remote” attendance records the second activity can be used to keep track of who logged on.

The Key Points

Create 1 Google Doc “Hyperdoc” for each day or week of learning with all the directions and links in it.
Stick to 2 Activities - 10 minutes front-loading and 20 minutes follow-up for processing/encoding.

I will give you ideas for the front-loading and follow-up activities tomorrow because

“The show must go on
The show must go on
I’ll face it with a grin
I’m never giving in
On with the show
I’ll top the bill
I’ll overkill
I have to find the will to carry on
On with the show
Show
Show must go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on”

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