My dc is in a well-regarded D2 public in 2nd grade and I'm so frustrated with what our new remote reality looks like. We got the schedule for the week and it's 80-100mins of live instruction a day, 20 of which are PE or another specialty class. tLas week they needed 2 days to train the teachers in remote learning so we had almost no live teaching. This seems like the barest minimum according to the DOE's guidelines and of course the school keeps stressing they don't want kids in front of screens all day. Shouldn't we be past that mentality at this point? Isn't a kid learning from a teacher on a screen a little different than watching videos? And aren't we far enough into this pandemic to realize that hours on screens every day is the least of our worries?
No, I don't think it's that straightforward. I will get Zoom with a small group of kids, 4-5. Then the teacher can actually teach. Observe the kid, provide feedback and guidance. Otherwise, the 80 min is already more than I want and more than what my kid can handle meaningfully. She participates in the first, maybe second meet. After that it's a downhill.
I think online teaching is different than in class teaching. I have had teachers tell me that they can absolutely get done in 30 minutes online what it takes an hour in person. In part because the parents or caregivers are handling all of the interpersonal, child management stuff. All the teacher has to do is teach. Which is a lot, but my point is that outsourcing the classroom management piece frees up a ton of time and inefficiency.
Do they really mean that all they have to do is present the material? Or do they manage to also give the kids an assignment, see how they do, encourage, correct, explain, all within 30 min? That's the real learning. And I suspect is what the caregivers do in RL.
They can't do that in 30 - 40 minutes. They present the material. There is interaction between them and the students to try and reinforce the lesson. The caregivers are making sure the kids are sitting still, paying attention, etc etc and then doing the follow up work that would normally be done in class. The teachers then grade the results and give feedback there. As you can see, the teachers can easily get through the same material with less time on their part, but that's because big chunks of it are outsourced to families.
My kids have about 6 or more hours of actual online teaching per day.
Public school. My 2nd and 4th grader have about 4 hours of live teaching on a regular day. Teachers give the lesson (answer questions), give time for students to complete an assignment and then review the assignment and answer questions. School expects to complete all CC math and ELA and 50% of science and social studies curricula.
which district are you in? this sounds great
Oh my god, my kids have been on Zoom all day. I hate it. The lessons are so clearly geared to the slowest learners but they take up too much time for me to manage to supplement.
I'm also at a well-regarded D2 public downtown and their schedule is bonkers, with classes switching times every day. We'll only be doing what I feel like and I will be adding worksheets and other assignments. I much prefered the videos to suffering through lessons on skills we mastered years ago.
District 2 also, 1st grade. We have about 90 minutes of zoom across the day. they have not changed our schedule to include more time this week with everyone in remote and they also give about the same amount of time to the fully remote kids- I’ve seen their schedule. I don’t want any additional zoom, only so long my 1st grader can be engaged. It’s really tough, just look at all these responses- everyone wants something different
We have about 90 minutes a day too (3rd and 4th grade). It's perfectly fine. I don't want DC staring at a screen for longer than that.
The rest is independent work (reading, assignments started in the Zoom hours, etc).
Mine is in 5th and has 90 - 100 minutes of live teaching a day, three meetings of about half an hour, at the beginning, middle and end of the day with clearly defined to-dos in between. The teachers are also available for "office hours" once or twice a day during the work periods so kids can get help, ask questions, etc. I think it's perfect, actually. Would not want more Zoom.