We hope you and your loved ones are safe. We admit that it has been difficult, adapting to create a new “normal” during this unsettling time. For us, it meant learning ways that we could create meaningful digital activities for our students while reaching out to them and their families as much as we can. Even though there have been challenges, we have been uplifted by people in our communities – friends, colleagues, parents, students, and neighbours – who have been coming together to see this through.
Now, more than ever, we’ve been asked as teachers to utilize our flexibility to teach our students and meet their needs from a variety of online resources: from Zoom conferences with staff and parents, to using Google Classroom as the main teaching platform for our students. As a team, we already had digital resources suitable for an in-person classroom presence. This year, we have been updating and creating resources to be more suitable for distance learning and have shared them on our TeachersPayTeachers page.
Distance Learning
We have created a Distance Learning section on our page for resources that are able to be used for a Google Classroom and/or home setting. There are many features on these resources that can benefit your classroom to digitally teach curriculum, whether you are a teacher or parent of a child in grade six. (Although our resources are based on Alberta curriculum, it can be used anywhere to teach particular concepts).
Features
- Interactive Google Slides: Our resources offer the opportunity for students to type in their answers as they work through the slides. These slides can be easily accessed by a class through Google Classroom. This helps to increase engagement and ensure accountability of learning throughout the lesson. (Our Data Analysis and Probability unit has an accompanying video tutorial about the interactive features for students).
- Student Notes – Our Google Slides resources have notes written on slides which allow for guided and independent practice of concepts. Many of our resources also have additional pages of student notes to help them follow along, retain material, and practice their learning.
- Assessment with Google Slides – Students can also reflect and self-assess their answers after they have learned the material to see how their learning has changed. Another option is for students to send a copy of their Google Slides file to their teacher so that he/she can formatively assess their learning and provide feedback on what they have typed.
These are some of the features of our resources that can help you and your class for distance learning. We are working to add more digital versions to our resources to make it more accessible for distance learning for students. If you have already purchased our previous resources that have been updated (such as our Tetris resource), you can get the updates for free.
We hope that you find our resources useful for distance learning. Feel free to let us know what you find most helpful for digital learning! Stay safe – we’re all in this together.
3 Heads Are Better Than 1 