Virtual Learning for Elementary School-Description by Our Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That schedule is a hot steaming pile of virtual dog poop.

Yeah. I don't care what anyone says. They broke my faith in DL with what they tried to put forth in spring. You can't come back from that - I saw what was acceptable to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was a sample schedule for upper grades released by our principal, with a total listed as 4 hours of synchronous instruction.

10:00-11:15: Morning Meeting/LA
11:15-12:00 Science/Social Studies
LUNCH
12:30-1:30 Math instruction
BREAK
1:45-2:45 or 2:50-3:50 Specials

The assumption was that kids would do assignments after their synchronous time had completed as well.

OP, sounds like your school is choosing to do less than they could.

Our kids might be at the same ES. During the meeting, he said that this is the sort of schedule that a group of principals had gotten together and developed (as a rough outline), so maybe there will be a bunch of ES with similar schedules.

May I ask which elementary school this is? This looks like a good schedule for DL. I didn't hear anything from our principal. No meeting or emails

Bull Run ES. Our principal was very engaged with the kids and parents during the Spring DL, and has remained engaged over summer. We have been getting weekly emails. He held a townhall of sorts yesterday, scheduled from 6:30 - 8:00, but stayed to answer questions until 8:30-ish.

The OP’s schedule is from Bull Run?

[Anonymous]

We had a really horrible spring distance learning experience at Bull Run for one of our children. Beyond terrible. Less than two hours a week of time with the teacher and it was all time wasted, no teaching. The principal did not care about academics at all.

So it doesn’t surprise me that his idea of a great fall plan is less than an hour of instruction from the classroom teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you counting the reading and math time? Sometimes it’s independent work and sometimes it’s teacher- led, but it still would count as instruction. That adds up to about 3 hours. I’m guessing that the science, social studies, and perhaps other instruction periods would include activities that could add up to a total of 3.5.

I don’t get your math. If the child is working alone, that’s not instructional time. Even on OPs schedule, if it’s the child’s day for both reading and math groups, it’s well below 3.5 hours.

I am counting the independent work as "instructional time". Students frequently do independent work in their classrooms while teachers work with other groups of students in the classroom. I don't see this as being any different.

can you help a student doing independent work if they have a question? If a student gets stuck, can they receive help? If the answer to either is no, it's homework renamed to sound palatable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was a sample schedule for upper grades released by our principal, with a total listed as 4 hours of synchronous instruction.

10:00-11:15: Morning Meeting/LA
11:15-12:00 Science/Social Studies
LUNCH
12:30-1:30 Math instruction
BREAK
1:45-2:45 or 2:50-3:50 Specials

The assumption was that kids would do assignments after their synchronous time had completed as well.

OP, sounds like your school is choosing to do less than they could.

Our kids might be at the same ES. During the meeting, he said that this is the sort of schedule that a group of principals had gotten together and developed (as a rough outline), so maybe there will be a bunch of ES with similar schedules.

May I ask which elementary school this is? This looks like a good schedule for DL. I didn't hear anything from our principal. No meeting or emails

Bull Run ES. Our principal was very engaged with the kids and parents during the Spring DL, and has remained engaged over summer. We have been getting weekly emails. He held a townhall of sorts yesterday, scheduled from 6:30 - 8:00, but stayed to answer questions until 8:30-ish.

The OP’s schedule is from Bull Run?

No. The schedule that is posted above is the same as was shared with us by our principal at Bull Run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had a really horrible spring distance learning experience at Bull Run for one of our children. Beyond terrible. Less than two hours a week of time with the teacher and it was all time wasted, no teaching. The principal did not care about academics at all.

So it doesn’t surprise me that his idea of a great fall plan is less than an hour of instruction from the classroom teacher.

The OP's schedule is not the one proposed by the principal at Bull Run.

We had an excellent experience with our 4th grader at Bull Run, including during DL. The teachers had been exceptional throughout the year. Our third grade experience was less than good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you counting the reading and math time? Sometimes it’s independent work and sometimes it’s teacher- led, but it still would count as instruction. That adds up to about 3 hours. I’m guessing that the science, social studies, and perhaps other instruction periods would include activities that could add up to a total of 3.5.

If a child logs off to do work independently while the teacher meets virtually with other
kids, then no—I would not consider what that child is doing alone to be “instructional time”. Do you? They are working alone at home.

That’s what we do during the school day. We don’t spend all the time teaching directly to the entire class.

You can’t think about virtual learning as just like your classroom, only on a computer. It’s a completely different environment. A child logging off to do homework is like a child leaving the school building in the middle of the lesson.

Sure, but how should it be done online? How does a teacher teach a class of second graders synchronously for 3.5 hours a day? What would it look like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since the Spring was a mess, my kid has been doing online classes for a couple hours a day over the summer. The classes are taught by college students. I’m really impressed by how the teachers keep the students engaged for 2 hours. There’s a lot of interaction. I don’t think more than 5 minutes go by without my kid getting called on to answer a question. They also do a lot of small breakout groups where the kids work on problems and the teacher moves from group to group and answer questions.

I don’t understand why FCPS is unable to put forward a reasonable plan to teach kids. What OP put forward looks wildly inadequate. No expects teachers to lecture for 6.5 hours a day, but there needs to be time for students to work on the concepts that are taught and ask questions, like in small groups. Expecting all the problems to be done offline without any assistance available is ridiculous.

What service are you using?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a really horrible spring distance learning experience at Bull Run for one of our children. Beyond terrible. Less than two hours a week of time with the teacher and it was all time wasted, no teaching. The principal did not care about academics at all.

So it doesn’t surprise me that his idea of a great fall plan is less than an hour of instruction from the classroom teacher.

The OP's schedule is not the one proposed by the principal at Bull Run.

We had an excellent experience with our 4th grader at Bull Run, including during DL. The teachers had been exceptional throughout the year. Our third grade experience was less than good.

OP-I took notes at the parent coffee last night. This was explained in detail by the principal towards the end of the meeting. It does NOT match up with the sample schedule in the slide show (which I assume was generated by FCPS).

[Anonymous]

OP-there were a lot of questions in the chat while the principal was explaining this plan because it did not match up to people’s time expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP-there were a lot of questions in the chat while the principal was explaining this plan because it did not match up to people’s time expectations.

I'm getting confused here. Are you the OP, and are you saying that the schedule that you posted was the one proposed by the principal at Bull Run?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you counting the reading and math time? Sometimes it’s independent work and sometimes it’s teacher- led, but it still would count as instruction. That adds up to about 3 hours. I’m guessing that the science, social studies, and perhaps other instruction periods would include activities that could add up to a total of 3.5.

I don’t get your math. If the child is working alone, that’s not instructional time. Even on OPs schedule, if it’s the child’s day for both reading and math groups, it’s well below 3.5 hours.

I am counting the independent work as "instructional time". Students frequently do independent work in their classrooms while teachers work with other groups of students in the classroom. I don't see this as being any different.

can you help a student doing independent work if they have a question? If a student gets stuck, can they receive help? If the answer to either is no, it's homework renamed to sound palatable

In the school setting, when the teacher is teaching a small group, the kids are not allowed to interrupt the reading or math group to ask questions either. Think about why this might be. They might go to the designated students - these kids are the kids who know their stuff and have been tasked with the responsibility to answer other kids' questions - to ask for help. No teacher with good classroom management allows kids to just walk to their table when they're teaching to ask a question like "How do you do #1?" It's all part of classroom management. There are a few emergency cases where the student is allowed to interrupt the teacher that involves safety issues like the kid needs to see the nurse right away, or something to that effect.

So why do you think it would work differently online? You want kids to just show up into the virtual meeting location where the teacher is teaching a group, and demand to have a question answered? Do you want other kids to do that when your own kid is in a group?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP-there were a lot of questions in the chat while the principal was explaining this plan because it did not match up to people’s time expectations.

I'm getting confused here. Are you the OP, and are you saying that the schedule that you posted was the one proposed by the principal at Bull Run?

Yes and yes. This was the schedule he described in the coffee. I took notes. There is a sample schedule in the slide show that is very different than what he described at the coffee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was a sample schedule for upper grades released by our principal, with a total listed as 4 hours of synchronous instruction.

10:00-11:15: Morning Meeting/LA
11:15-12:00 Science/Social Studies
LUNCH
12:30-1:30 Math instruction
BREAK
1:45-2:45 or 2:50-3:50 Specials

The assumption was that kids would do assignments after their synchronous time had completed as well.

OP, sounds like your school is choosing to do less than they could.

Why would online learning start at 10?

[Anonymous]

That's a ridiculously limited schedule.

Distance learning is going to suck in the coming year as much as it sucked in the spring. The whole year will be a write-off for my kid, because I can't afford tutors.