Reply to What should MCPS' virtual learning plan be ?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Elementary School:  Send on-paper worksheets home.  Preferably a lot of them (but not so many that kids can't also go sledding).  It's a great opportunity to have kids work at their own pace.  Offer teacher office hours (or a required teacher check-in if that's what is required to have the state give 'credit' for the school day.

If it's feasible to send ES kids home with chromebooks (I think that's why MCPS has been relucatant to do virtual til now), then have kids work through Khan Academy lessons at home.  These are adaptable.  Teacher can track the kid's progress and see how much time was spent.  Teacher isn't overwhelmed with a lot of grading on return. The actual work can adapt to the kid's needs so can provide more differentiation than is usual at school.  This could actually make virtual days more effective than in-school days because kids who need more help can get more remedial lessons and other kids can work ahead on challenge problems.

High School:  Regular online zoom sessions a la 2020 but give teachers flexibility to record lessons instead, or only come online to introduce the assignment and then let kids work offline.

In both cases, deadlines should be strong suggestions to keep kids on track but everything is due 24 hours after the return to school -- in case there are power outages or kids have special scheduling challenges during that week (taking care of siblings or whatnot).  Maybe this is set up as actual deadlines during the snowweek, but extensions on request.[/quote]

Are you actually a parent? This is wishful thinking.

Good luck getting all the kids to do the worksheets or log on to Khan Academy.

For present and engaged parents at the elementary, it will be an absolute power struggle as kids will fight tooth and nail about having to do any work on a snow day.

At the high school level, only the motivated, disciplined and responsible kids who already care about their education will do any kind of synchronous or asynchronous work on a snow day.

You all have to start dealing with the reality of kids and adolescents and not what you wish them to be.

They are not small, fully developed adults. If they think they can take the easy way out of something they think is either boring or a waste of their time, they will. Everyone involved in education policy should know this and make plans accordingly. Plans like this are absolutely a nonstarter for a public school district. This can, however, work with small or selective private and charter schools.[/quote]

And here's a microcosm of why kids are not performing well in school.  "Kid's are going to be lazy, don't try to have expectations of them" is not a good excuse to not have virtual learning for extended closures.[/quote]

Seriously.  I don't understand this screaming about virtual learning when so many schools offer virtual instruction.  In NYS, my friend's school district has an automatic rule--two days of consecutive snow days, if conditions still aren't clear, then virtual learning kicks in.  Four snow days are built into the calendar.  There's no chaos about "what will be done" because things are automatic.

Everything in MCPS seems to say that they must agonize over every decision because they're so different and special.  We're not different and special.  Other school districts have kids under Gr3, and kids with IEPs, and kids who are poor.   They have approved virtual learning plans, because it's the best option rather than having no school at all.[/quote]

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