Managing Make-Up Work - Teacher Showcase

 Here at SMASD we are very fortunate to be able to see our students 5 days per week.  Our face to face instructional time is valuable, and we still do many activities in class, not on a device.  

That said, we want to provide assignments digitally for students when they need it.  Many times students are absent and/or they left the work in their locker. 

Posting every activity that we have done in class online, is no small feat.  It can also clutter up your Classwork page, making true digital assignments hard to find. 

Mrs. Erich and I are brainstorming and piloting a new approach to make-up work for tasks that would typically be done in class. 

The approach involves a Resource Doc full of links to activities that she uses in class.  However we have hacked the urls of these files to "force a copy". 

This document is listed under her Resources topic in an assignment called "Make-up Work".

I then, in a demo student account,  created a How-To video to help students use this resource, and submit Make-Up work for prolonged absences.   Students only access and submit what they need.  You as a teacher have 1 place to check for makeup work. You can see, share and use this tutorial below.

 

This will also create a communication space in the private comments for students who are absent.

We all as teachers are unique. Certainly workflow systems are something that inevitably vary from teacher to teacher. 

What system do you use for providing make up work?  

Are there any aspects of this process that could be useful for you? 

Add to the conversation in the comments below. 

Emailing Groups of Students and Parents through eSD

It's about communication.  Feedback, parental involvement and teacher clarity are all proven influencers on student achievement (Hattie).  One way we can foster those influencers is through communication. 

eSD has an email feature that will allow us as teachers to email:

• an entire class
• a small group of students and parents
• indivdual students or parents

with information to encourage, redirect or focus families on what we have going on in our classrooms.  We certainly found this communication to be essential in the spring with remote learning, and can continue that practice here in 20-21. 

Follow the infographic below to see where to find the Email Students & Parents feature in your Teacher Connect gradebook. 

If you have tried this in the past without success, watch the video that follows the infographic. 

It will show you how to set up a windows device to have gmail.com as your default handler/application. 

Having trouble getting gmail to open after following the above steps?  

Follow this tutorial for a 1-time setup on your Surface, Windows laptop or desktop. 

Remember - we are happy to help, via email, virutally or in person!

jtamburlin@smasd.org  jtamburlin.youcanbook.me