Weekly Learning Guides to Organize Student Learning

With Standards and Learning Targets determined and an overarching reflection and organization document for the semester, I needed to turn my attention to organization on a weekly scale.

HYBRID SCHOOL PLAN

My students are scheduled to return to school on September 8^th. I will see half of each class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the other half on Wednesdays and Fridays (with Monday being a virtual day for everyone). I do not want to rely on in-person instruction once school begins—especially when students become absent (for any reason). Rather than needing to see a student in-person to “catch them up,” I want everything available online. Then, we can use class time for conferring and community.

To this end, I will also be settling on weekly-long explorations/lessons. Each week will include brief instructional videos, readings, an assessment (usually writing), and a reflection. We’ll begin journaling (either in response to literature or as open-writes) early on. Our school utilizes Membean for vocabulary acquisition, so that will also be included once we get going.

WWe are expected to provide “new instruction” each day. Thus, regardless of when students report to class, we will have set deadlines for the week (probably on Tuesdays and Fridays). This will allow for clarifications and feedback during class. The Tuesday deadline will be to delve into the instructional materials, and the Friday deadline will be for the assessment for the week. I have mused over deadlines before, but I will use a 9:00p.m. Friday deadline for assessments. That provides the weekend if students need extended time, but also gives some sense of urgency as we work in class during the week.

I do not have my first weeks planned out yet, but I’ll walk through my template for my Weekly Learning Guides here.

WEEKLY LEARNING GUIDES

First, I liked the idea of calling the document a guide, since it will include an overview of the week, a checklist with deadlines, and all instructional and assessment material (included in the document or hyperlinked).

You can find a draft of my Weekly Learning Guide Template here.

The sections are as follows:

·       Opening Page: This will include the unit we’re in, the dates of the week, a link to a video overview of the work for the week, a reminder of color-coding (green means directions while yellow reminds students they are to type a response), and a list of the Standards and Learning Targets we will be focusing on that week. The Standards and Targets will be the same ones that appear in the rubric for the tasks that week. The overview video will be a screen cast where I will walk through the document for that week (but there will be separate embedded videos for instruction and to explain assignments).

·       Gotta-Do List: This page will be hyperlinked to lead to each individual section of the document, but it’s three columns include “Dates and Deadlines,” “Task,” and “Checklist.” The first column will suggest when work should be completed and also provide a more definitive deadline (always flexible as necessary). The middle column provides an overview of each upcoming page/task, and the last column gives a space for students to mark the task complete with an X or the date they finish.

·       Reading Journal and Writer’s Notebook: I was conflicted on whether to include a journal as a separate document or embedded within each week. I opted to include it weekly so students had fewer documents to shuffle between (across all classes, not just for English). I had also considered including the Standards and Learning Targets that a writer’s notebook could count as evidence for, but I didn’t want to be too overwhelming. This may develop as the semester progresses. There will also be a video attached to think page to help students brainstorm and write.

·       Vocabulary Progress: Our district uses Membean as a vocabulary acquisition program, so students can work and track their progress on this page. I also added a section for students to add words to “own” when they come across a word they want to personally use moving forward.

·       Tasks. Each Task page will have its own title depending on the activity. There will be a video describing the task for each page and there may be hyperlinks. If students need to plan or write, I’ll design or link that space as necessary. I’ll also include a rubric that labels the relevant Standards and Learning Targets for the task along with an assignment reflection and a space for my narrative feedback.

·       Weekly Reflection: This portion was important for me to add. The first half of this section asks students to return to their Weekly Learning Guide from the previous week (“Last Week’s Feedback”). Students can then look over my feedback from the previous week (if I can stay up with everything!) and reflect on their understanding of our learning goals from last week to the current week. The second portion of this section is a reflection on new learning (“This Week’s Learning”). I’ve provided prompts and listed the specific learning targets. I don’t expect students to reflect on every available standard each week (especially as some larger assignments may include many). However, this will provide practice as we build up to mid-quarter and quarter grade pitches. I will also ask students to transfer these two reflections to the one box for each week on their Student Learning Portal.

NEXT STEPS

I know these will need edited as we go. The structures, though, provide me a basis from which to begin. For example, our first week may not have a Journal or Vocabulary section. The Student Learning Portal provides a one-stop document for most of our tracking, and students will be asked to link each Weekly Learning Guide to their Student Learning Portal Document.

Next, I want to redesign the layout of my rubrics to include a space for individual assignment self-reflections and a space for my narrative feedback. Once these major pieces are in place, I think I’ll be ready to start lesson planning!