DC just announced all virtual

[Anonymous]

DC teacher here. K-2 won’t get 2 hours a day of small group. There will be 2 hours- then a special, then lunch, recess, and independent work.
Guidelines for ps3/ps4 are 30-60 minutes live a day- including a snack Time.
You all can keep making up information of that works better for you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least two hours of live instruction is not bad. We got 45 minutes in the spring. It will be tough on teachers who will have to provide much more than than that since the only effective way to do live instruction is small group. They’ll be on for 6 hours (thus the freak outs in this thread about the two plus hours), but at least our kids might learn.

I actually think that two hours a day, broken up throughout the day, would be pretty good, especially if it's half the class (or even smaller groups) at a time. There's a limit to how long ES students can focus on a screen, so mixing it up with self-paced online work, and offline work, and movement breaks, and meals/snacks, is probably about right. Two hours of all-class instruction will be harder, because that's basically just lecturing, but smaller groups might be reasonably effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 hours of live instruction is BS. I would love to tell my boss that I can only work for 2 hours a day and see how that goes.

You do realize that the 2 hours of live instruction is for YOUR child. After their 2 hours are up the teacher will then move on to work with another group.

AND those 2 hours take prep, and at least 3 hours of your child's regular school day consists of transitions, lunch, recess, and specials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC teacher here. K-2 won’t get 2 hours a day of small group. There will be 2 hours- then a special, then lunch, recess, and independent work.
Guidelines for ps3/ps4 are 30-60 minutes live a day- including a snack Time.
You all can keep making up information of that works better for you

No one said that? It’s minimum 2 hours of live a day. Only a teacher who wants to screw over all their students would do 2 hours whole group live and I also imagined they’ll get a poor Impact score.

I’m going to do right by my students and provide as much small group as I can, as well as groups for social emotional learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a middle school teacher who did live lessons in the spring. Overall, it was decent. I didn’t have to worry about the everyday behavior issues, which meant we could actually focus on the content itself. Some of my students who struggled to stay on task in person were able to blossom due to the lack of distraction. One on one tutoring session also worked really well. Overall, I’m excited about finding ways to have student collaboration this fall.

Thank you—that’s great to hear. My middle schooler just completed a summer math class run by his school, and it was very well-done. Three hours each day, 20+ kids in the class, one teacher. It’s possible to do this well.

Are you talking about the Deal SMAC program? I agree - that was super well-done and everyone talking about lazy teachers on here can shut up, because DC’s teacher was teaching three-plus hours, and then doing office hours and study sessions for another hour or two AND grading the daily assignments, tests, and retakes. She was doing at least 8 hours and day and the kids loved her.

Yes, SMAC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 hours of live instruction is BS. I would love to tell my boss that I can only work for 2 hours a day and see how that goes.

You do realize that the 2 hours of live instruction is for YOUR child. After their 2 hours are up the teacher will then move on to work with another group.

AND those 2 hours take prep, and at least 3 hours of your child's regular school day consists of transitions, lunch, recess, and specials.

My friend that’s a reach. I am a teacher and unless you have poor classroom management all of those things take up about 2 ish hours.

Lunch/recess 1 hour - specials 45 min - transitions 15- MAYBE 25 min total.

If transitions take an hour in 15 of the day please get training on that, it’s super important and will definitely make life easier.

[Anonymous]

Distance learning is going to be tough for everybody, but this feels like the right decision, from a safety standpoint especially, for the largest number of people. Teachers varied in their adaptation to DL this spring, but with the time to get familiar with the technology and for DCPS to work with teachers to build out a remote learning curriculum, it should be better this fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Excellent!

The Hybrid was going to be a mess. Teachers would get sick, no subs, half-assessed or no learning on the home days, etc.

Are you a teacher? If so, did you teach live lessons? I don't know any teachers that were teaching live in the spring that want to go back to that - it was a horrible experience. Not until today did I consider applying for leave, this changes my outlook about going back to school completely.

Wait, so there's a whole host of teachers who want to quit based on DL? On what grounds could you apply for leave?

In my teaching community I do not know one person who taught live lessons in the spring that wasn't holding onto their sanity by the time May 29th rolled around and couldn't wait for it to be over. It is thankless, frustrating and emotionally draining. I would guess the majority of teachers were not doing live lessons.

Any other teachers around that can speak favorably about live learning? I need some hope.

I taught live in the spring and while I would much rather be physically in the same space as my students teaching we did a good job! I took feedback from them each week and tried to listen to their suggestions. We had a mix of group work and teacher directed and always debriefed the group work afterwards. We also had some asynchronous work. I teach middle school science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Excellent!

The Hybrid was going to be a mess. Teachers would get sick, no subs, half-assessed or no learning on the home days, etc.

Are you a teacher? If so, did you teach live lessons? I don't know any teachers that were teaching live in the spring that want to go back to that - it was a horrible experience. Not until today did I consider applying for leave, this changes my outlook about going back to school completely.

Wait, so there's a whole host of teachers who want to quit based on DL? On what grounds could you apply for leave?

In my teaching community I do not know one person who taught live lessons in the spring that wasn't holding onto their sanity by the time May 29th rolled around and couldn't wait for it to be over. It is thankless, frustrating and emotionally draining. I would guess the majority of teachers were not doing live lessons.

Any other teachers around that can speak favorably about live learning? I need some hope.

I taught live in the spring and while I would much rather be physically in the same space as my students teaching we did a good job! I took feedback from them each week and tried to listen to their suggestions. We had a mix of group work and teacher directed and always debriefed the group work afterwards. We also had some asynchronous work. I teach middle school science.

+1 I taught live in spring and it was like being in class. Would rather do that than record and drop lessons. Boring!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a middle school teacher who did live lessons in the spring. Overall, it was decent. I didn’t have to worry about the everyday behavior issues, which meant we could actually focus on the content itself. Some of my students who struggled to stay on task in person were able to blossom due to the lack of distraction. One on one tutoring session also worked really well. Overall, I’m excited about finding ways to have student collaboration this fall.

Thank you—that’s great to hear. My middle schooler just completed a summer math class run by his school, and it was very well-done. Three hours each day, 20+ kids in the class, one teacher. It’s possible to do this well.

Are you talking about the Deal SMAC program? I agree - that was super well-done and everyone talking about lazy teachers on here can shut up, because DC’s teacher was teaching three-plus hours, and then doing office hours and study sessions for another hour or two AND grading the daily assignments, tests, and retakes. She was doing at least 8 hours and day and the kids loved her.[/quote

]
This makes me upset that all kids in DC can't get this. Why just Deal students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 hours of live instruction is BS. I would love to tell my boss that I can only work for 2 hours a day and see how that goes.

our kids will be on for 2 hours but not as a whole 26 student class. Teachers are going to have to break the class into groups of three - so 6 hours Of live instruction for them. Be kind to teachers, they will be teaching more than they ever have in their lives.

You had me til that snarky bit.

I don't think that was snarky. Instead of being able to teach one thing for an hour, they now will have to teach that one thing three times, but will still need to grade work, prep etc. So yes, they are going to be doing significantly more work.

PP here. it wasn't snarky at all. Teachers work hard in the classroom but they will be working at least twice as hard now. I do trust my kids teachers will do it - teach live 6 hours a day to groups of 7 or 8 kids - because that is the only way for kids to learn. Be kind. They will be killing themselves just like we will be killing ourselves. Ideally the only ones not stressed and overburdened will be the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Distance learning is going to be tough for everybody, but this feels like the right decision, from a safety standpoint especially, for the largest number of people. Teachers varied in their adaptation to DL this spring, but with the time to get familiar with the technology and for DCPS to work with teachers to build out a remote learning curriculum, it should be better this fall.

100% agree. I am also glad they made a decision and my family can now do some serious planning for the next 3 months.

[Anonymous]

I would prefer less instructional time if it meant that my child had more time with kids in his group level. I think my son's teacher did an excellent job during the spring because she had small groups of kids based on their level in English and Math. I don't see how that can be replicated if the teacher has to provide 2-3 per day of instructional time. I think that the only way that can be accomplished is if the teacher provides instruction to the entire class without small group break outs. Am I wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a middle school teacher who did live lessons in the spring. Overall, it was decent. I didn’t have to worry about the everyday behavior issues, which meant we could actually focus on the content itself. Some of my students who struggled to stay on task in person were able to blossom due to the lack of distraction. One on one tutoring session also worked really well. Overall, I’m excited about finding ways to have student collaboration this fall.

Thank you—that’s great to hear. My middle schooler just completed a summer math class run by his school, and it was very well-done. Three hours each day, 20+ kids in the class, one teacher. It’s possible to do this well.

Are you talking about the Deal SMAC program? I agree - that was super well-done and everyone talking about lazy teachers on here can shut up, because DC’s teacher was teaching three-plus hours, and then doing office hours and study sessions for another hour or two AND grading the daily assignments, tests, and retakes. She was doing at least 8 hours and day and the kids loved her.

]
This makes me upset that all kids in DC can't get this. Why just Deal students?

You know it’s an accelerated summer math class, right? So they do four terms worth of math 7 or math 8 in order to move to math 8 or algebra 1 in 7th grade. I don’t think all kids in DC want to do six hours of math (that’s what DC was doing this week). There were numerous summer learning opportunities provided by DCPS for different grade levels - you had to sign up and they were all virtual this summer - but they are not to be confused with summer school or ESY (which is for special needs kids.) DCPS provides a lot of summer stuff and they put the information out at kids’ schools, or this year, online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 hours of live instruction is BS. I would love to tell my boss that I can only work for 2 hours a day and see how that goes.

You do realize that the 2 hours of live instruction is for YOUR child. After their 2 hours are up the teacher will then move on to work with another group.

AND those 2 hours take prep, and at least 3 hours of your child's regular school day consists of transitions, lunch, recess, and specials.

My friend that’s a reach. I am a teacher and unless you have poor classroom management all of those things take up about 2 ish hours.

Lunch/recess 1 hour - specials 45 min - transitions 15- MAYBE 25 min total.

If transitions take an hour in 15 of the day please get training on that, it’s super important and will definitely make life easier.

It’s actually not a reach. Every school's schedule is likely different. For example, students at my school have one hour for lunch and recess, 45 minutes for specials four days per week and two 45 minutes specials once per week. So yes, there can be days where students are out of the classroom for up to three hours. We also have nearly 800 students at my school. If multiple grades transition at the same time, the transitions take longer. It is not directly related to classroom management.