Preparing for Remote Learning Days: 5 Ways Educators Can Use Courseware to Keep Students on Track
Instructional time is finite. When school is intentionally closed or classes are unexpectedly canceled for a day or two, it provides teachers with an opportunity to engage their students to learn, practice, complete assignments, or master content from the comfort of their own home. With Edmentum Courseware, instruction doesn't have to stop when school doors close—students have access to engaging, pedagogically sound digital curriculum anytime, from anywhere they have an internet connection.
Whether you have a dedicated day off for e-learning and development, or want to have a remote learning plan ready just in case, here are five ways that you can use Edmentum Courseware to keep your students on track during remote learning days.
1. Stay the course to completion
If your students use online courses as their primary mode of content delivery, which is often the case in credit recovery programs, then encourage them to continue working on their courses from home. Some students will be intrinsically motivated to do so because they want to complete their courses as quickly as possible, while others will benefit from being given a goal to master a certain number of modules before returning to the classroom.
2. Preview new content and give students a head start
If you use online courses alongside traditional instruction, one of the ways your students can make the most of their time off is to preview content that will be taught when they come back to school. Use Edmentum Courseware's Flex Assignments feature to assign your students the exact module or modules you want them to complete. You can even pull in content from multiple courses into the same assignment.
As your students are working, you can view their progress and their levels of mastery of the content. When school resumes, use the mastery data to drive your instruction. You may learn that most students were able to master the standard using the online course, so you only need to provide a brief review instead of a full lesson. Or, at the very least, you can help accelerate learning for your students with the option and opportunity to master new concepts and content.
3. Reteach to address student's unique needs
A day (or more) away from regular instruction can provide a great opportunity for students to work on content that they may be struggling with. For example, if a student had trouble with graphing linear equations when you taught it last week, assign the corresponding module from the Edmentum Courseware Algebra I course to reteach it. Teacher-friendly reports let you see how the student responds to the questions within the tutorial, the practice, and the mastery test.
When school resumes, you will have a clear picture of how to best proceed. Because the online module presents the content in a way that is different from traditional instruction, working through it independently may be enough to clear up any misconceptions and move the student to mastery without taking up class time.
4. Review and prepare for assessments
A lot of content is covered throughout a school year, and by the second semester, students may forget some of what they learned earlier in the school year if that knowledge isn't accessed often. You can use remote learning days as an opportunity for students to review concepts you taught earlier in the school year, especially if those topics will likely show up on end-of-year assessments. For instance, if your students learned about the Civil War back in September, and it will be on an advanced assessment in April, have them work through modules related to the Civil War in the Courseware U.S. History Course. Students will be better prepared for the assessment, and you will save some class time that otherwise would have had to be dedicated to test prep.
5. Extend undertsanding of subjects and concepts
As mentioned, classroom instruction time is finite. There are often many additional topics that teachers would like to explore with students, but they can't because there just isn't enough time. When school is closed for a remote or virtual learning day, use students’ time at home to have them dig into a topic that takes what they have learned in the classroom one step further.
For example, have you been wishing you had the time to teach your high schoolers basic personal finance concepts as a part of the math curriculum, or extend your students' understanding of persuasive writing through lessons on marketing? Assign students modules from Courseware's Career & Technical Education courses to align to the specific extension topics you want them to work on while school is out. When school resumes, engage students in a discussion about what they learned and how it ties back to the original subject area. Your students will come back with a new understanding of how the concepts they are learning in school connect to the real world.
Want to learn more about how to use the Edmentum Courseware features mentioned in this post? If you already use Courseware, check out the Help Center inside the program for lots of helpful tips, tricks, and tutorials. Learn more about Edmentum Courseware here!