Seabury Middle School: A Digital Parent Night - Post 1

We thought it might be helpful to share some information about what digital school looks like and some tips that might be useful to parents when navigating the at home aspects of digital schooling.

Thank you!
First and foremost, thank you for everything you are doing to help digital schooling run smoothly. We are so appreciative of your communication, your time, and your patience. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We are so fortunate to be in this together.


How to Help Your Child(ren) Make Daily Schedules/Manage Their Time

1) See if they can do it on their own--this is a great learning experience, and we are here as a safety net. They might have some missed assignments and meetings, but better to learn how to mange their time now than later. They will be okay. We are being really flexible during this transition.

2) They have made the transition pretty seamless and are mostly managing their time well in terms of assignment completion.

3) Google Classroom connects to Google Calendar, and that is a great tool!

If the video does not work, I am also sharing it as a Google Drive link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=16GbIpZRnF-J0kylWJWk3Bvnr5sASoPLK


Attendance and Flipgrid

1) Flipgrid is an app the teachers are using, but that students do not need to download (unless they are using it on a phone or ipad instead of a computer).

2) The only people who can access our Flipgrid our people with seabury.org email addresses.

3) Right now, students are using flipgrid to post "morning talkings," which we are using in place of morning journaling. We will likely also use it for classwork in the coming weeks. In the past, some students have used it for current events assignments in social studies, for example.

4) Attendance: We are checking students in each day by whether or not they having completed morning talking by noon. It would make things a little easier if they could try to make sure they do that. If they do not submit it by noon, Jenn and Gabrielle will contact you and them.

5) Students should not share any other students' images or videos from flipgrid without explicit written permission from the other students' parents.

6) Here is what Flipgrid looks like:

Prioritizing Deep Thinking and Skill Building

Right now, we are trying to lower students' workload as compared to before the school building closures: they do not have homework in addition to school work, and they should have a little less than a full day's work load. In part, that is because sometimes assignments take longer at home. In part it is because families have a lot going on right now, and some students are spending a good portion of each day helping younger siblings with their work or doing tasks for their families.

At the same time, we want to make sure our students are still feeling challenged and having opportunities to engage in thoughtful and meaningful learning. We are also highly aware of the skills they need to continue moving forward academically. As we continue with digital school, we continue to prioritize necessary skill building and work in accordance with best practices in gifted education and learning sciences.

If you feel like your child is taking an extremely long time to complete work or is overwhelmed, please email us and let us know (or have them do that!!!). It is possible that a quick conference with us can help them with time management and focus. It is also possible that your middle school aged child is extremely adept at switching between a game screen and word: we have become experts at identifying the signs of screen switching. Perhaps you will too! Remember: this, too, is a learning opportunity.

Tune in for post 2:

Turning in Photos of Work (Mostly for Math): Tips and Tricks

Avenues of Communication