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I think that we learned a lot this year. With being asked to start directly with material on day one, I don't think that we were fully prepared to teach our students some of those foundations or how to be successful in ela. In ela7 next year, we are being more proactive by adding additional lessons into our course.

Part way through the year, I became more diligent with providing students with direct instruction on some of those foundational skills which helped many of them tremendously. For next year, our goal is to provide this type of instruction earlier in the year. To do so, we are hoping to add days to the live instruction schedule.

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For my class, I did things a little bit differently for my resources page. Within the course in canvas, I had a resource page for each lesson. This allowed students to find resources based on the lesson that they were on rather than trying to figure out dates. Additionally, is forced the students to look at these resources as they were moving through the course. It allowed me to share all materials like presentations, class recordings, in class activities, Etc for each lesson in a single location for students to easily find and use.

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I found it beneficial to share the resources and assignments in multiple places. I link all needed materials to the particular lesson, put it on my announcement slide for the week, have it on my screen for when students enter, and share in chat during class. Recordings were all on one page on a calendar.

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Once I became comfortable with the new systems, I was able to set a foundation for my classes that was successful. Overall, I feel 6th grade students thrive on a routine. My students learned the routine (to the point when we would deviate it would have them question). The students who attend class, became more self-sufficient, and would be able to answer their peers when they were struggling. I also learned how to make directions clearer for each lesson (that was not a knowledge check) on the assignment page. This simple step, was a huge improvement. (The redundant message saying to refer back to the last slide of the lesson was not useful.)

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For the beginning of the year, I tried to take time in class to show them how to navigate and access different resources in Canvas when time permitted. I would have liked to have more time in my class to show students RACES and other writing strategies earlier in the year, not just when the content allowed time. My students also appreciated the routine of IXL at the beginning of class and then direct instruction as well as student led activities.

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I utilized my homepage, Recordings and Resources page to communicate the same information in multiple places. The Resources page included a link to my recordings page which directed students to specific assignments. Where possible, I tried linking recordings to specific lessons as well. On my recordings page, I highlighted assignments in red (with a key) to indicate that I explained an assignment within the recording which was clearly labeled with the assignment name and number. It still seems to be a struggle to get students to watch recordings, however I did notice more accessing recordings before coming to me for a 1:1 "to explain the assignment."

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After I spent some time looking over Canvas, I reviewed how to access the recordings, resources, and assignments with students. I have also reviewed how to view feedback on various assignments with individual students. Every morning, we would review the agenda, objectives, "why we should know this," and reminders before beginning the lesson. This helped create some structure and organization to the lessons daily.

I am going to echo what Meaghan said in her post regarding additional time to practice other writing strategies is needed. It is difficult to add more when the Canvas lessons are a bit heavy with content. IXL, however, helped with providing students with additional practice for the types of questions they would see on the PSSAs.

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Resources were provided for students under the section on Canvas. I tried to make sure they only had to click on the link once to get to a document. I only included resources that would be useful for a specific assignment or content that they were learning. I don't think students accessed the resources as much; however, it seems like they utilized the recordings more. I am thinking that for next year, the same document should be added for both the resources and recordings section.

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I do not think our current introductory modules provide enough of a foundation. For next year, I have designed a quick foundations module that goes over parts of speech, grammar, plagiarism, etc. I am hoping this will help and give the students something to refer back to throughout the year.

I think there are some features in Canvas, like the resource page, writer's workshop, etc. that I just do not understand enough yet to use. Trainings on this would be helpful.

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Mostly in Webmail, Zoom chat, and links on the assignment pages. I did feel like things were kind of all over the place and hopefully next year I will be able to organize better!

I like Meaghan's idea of color-coding recordings and including helpful resources right there. I'm thinking next year I will have one document with recordings and resources that they can click on for everything.

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Classcraft was a huge help for the students that actually joined LLs. I've been able to push participation and even got the kids to practice their Unit 1 parts of speech module on IXL through a quest.

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Students who are asynchronous from the beginning (and who choose not to watch recordings) are going to struggle with some unexpected glitches that those who attend will not. I spent quite some time helping live instruction attendees understand how to navigate everything. One problem, for example, was a small, floating toolbar that sat right over the navigation arrows for lessons. This made students unable to figure out how to do something as simple as turn pages. Next year, I definitely plan to make a step by step re: getting around in Canvas, downloading assignments, etc.

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Similar to others, I tend to put resource links in as many places as possible. If I think's it's something that will be valuable to most, I will bombard them with it! If it's less likely to be utilized, I'll put it in the Resources button. What is very confusing is that when they go to look for resources they end up in an entirely different place if they click on "Resources" as opposed to the Resources Evergreen Button.

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Eventually, I moved my recordings links to an excel sheet and that seemed to help all of the students, especially this small army of students who are still working on or redoing assignments from the first semester. I intend to start with this next semester because it seems that it was moderately successful for the students who are asking me to reteach but aren't showing up for 1:1 sessions.

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I was not here at the beginning of the year, so I don't have a ton to say about this. I do think that next year, I want to spend time at the beginning of the year teaching students how to navigate Canvas, download and upload assignments, organize files, etc. I think adding recordings of that information in resources could be helpful, but I also doubt many students look at the resources page.

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I share most resources in Canvas and in class. I think I want to make some adjustments to how I share recordings next year, to make it clear which recordings they should watch for help on specific assignments.

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There were some learning curves this school year with beginning to use Canvas and all that entails. I do find a benefit in beginning the year with grammar lessons like we did for 7th grade, but there are other foundational skills that some students lack but need in order to be successful (such as creating folders for their work, opening/saving Word Docs, etc). I think that starting off the year with those skills would have saved us a lot of time as we progressed through the course. I do think that a lot of lesson directions could be made more simplistic, because it seemed that many students were getting lost in the shuffle.

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Sharing resources on the Resource page in Canvas was helpful to an extent, but I would be curious as to how many students actually viewed that page (especially asynchronous students). When possible, the best case scenario would be to link a resource directly within the lesson it accompanies so that it is right there for them. It seems that students tend to shy away from seeking things out and need it right at their fingertips. Even when doing something as simple as sharing a Nearpod or Gimkit link, we still have students who will not click that link and log in, which is disheartening. We got to a point in class where my LST and I were direct messaging the link to every student we saw NOT logged in to something. This did seem to help, but it should not have come to that.

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I wasn't here in the first few weeks of the year, but in the first two weeks with kids, I worked on parts of speech, clauses, and bringing in material that students were interested in. The grammar work helped with writing and it let me hyper-focus on those skills that students should have mastered or forgot over the summer. Having engaging material about video games, interesting or rare talents, and other student-centered topics helped us build a community since I was a late-comer. We're beginning with a short grammar unit next year.

I shared resources with kids in the chat, on my announcements board, and in discussion in live lesson. When links were repeatedly not working after fixing them daily, I emailed students attachments if needed.

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My students never really looked at the Resources page, even when I referenced it for notes, enrichment, and help-videos. I think I might try putting an ungraded "assignment" that has the guided notes into the beginning of modules for students so they can easily find them to download or use.

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In the beginning, I felt a little helpless trying to help students navigate Canvas. I learned in front of them, so I think they appreciated my struggle. I think this helped students understand that the new Reach is a big change for all of us, and we are all going through it together. I'm hoping this made them feel more comfortable not having it all figured out. As I grew more confident, I took the time to show students new things I learned about Canvas.

I agree with others on focusing on foundational skills from the start. We spent a lot of time explaining how to download/save documents and navigate Microsoft Word throughout the year. It would be good to cover the basics to set the students up for success in ELA.

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I like to use Canva for my resources. My resources are embedded in a graphic organizer under the Resources and Recordings tabs on my Homepage. It's like a one-stop-shop, and I can update the live document daily. I'm definitely going to prioritize learning how to distribute resources in other ways for next year. I think it would be best to have resources in multiple places.

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I do not believe there was sufficient review of foundational topics at the beginning of the year to refresh student knowledge. I hope this will change next year, as all students need to be reminded of foundational content to build upon for the year. In live lessons, I reviewed how to navigate Canvas and other software platforms that we use frequently. As many have stated, students participating in LL or watching the recordings knew how to navigate the platforms and understood the content; however, students not attending or watching need to be held accountable somehow. I am also thinking of providing a syllabus for students at the beginning of the year with a rough outline of content to be covered and in what order.

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I provided resources in various locations from recordings, to announcements, Zoom chats, email, etc. In the end, I found it to be too confusing. Knowing what I know now, I will revamp my page to streamline my materials according to lessons for both recordings and resources all in one location. I also want to be able to help students become more familiar with Microsoft Suites by creating an ELA folder to help students download their own copies to work on, open and share.

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Throughout the course of the school year, I have provided resources to students in Zoom and Canvas. During live instruction, I give students links to resources in the chat. In Canvas, students can access my resources under my “Recordings” and “Resources” evergreen buttons. Additionally, I include resources in my announcements on my homepage. Lastly, students can access resources on the assignment pages. It seems my students have done well at finding the resources for my class. Sometimes a few need a reminder where to find things, but overall it seems most know how to access what they need since everything is posted in various locations.

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With everything being brand new to teachers and students alike this school year, we definitely jumped into the curriculum way too quickly. We would’ve been better off to spend more time on foundational skills in order to make sure students knew how to get started. I feel if we had, many wouldn’t have fallen behind as quickly as they did so early in the year, and that alone has made it difficult for many to catch up in the course. Moving forward to next year, we definitely need to devote more live instruction time to showing students how to access and navigate everything. The learning curve was great for all of us, but we could’ve made the transition a bit more smooth if we had spent more time on the foundation before focusing on the curriculum.

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I had a lot of fun with Minecraft Education this year--and learned a lot too!

I created an interactive figurative language world for my students to go to.

To make it accessible for all students (asynch/synch), I made sure to post information about how to download Minecraft Ed, how to download and use my world template in the event students could not access the world in class, and alternate assessment activities for those who had no interest or access to Minecraft.

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I was very consistent with my rules, class procedures, and routine. I think this helps students know what is happening for the week, as well as helps in keeping me accountable to keep my routine (ie. the kids would remind me if I forgot New Word Wednesday or Fun Fact Friday).

I found it a struggle at first but then great success in holding students accountable to reading instructions and doing things themselves. For example, I uploaded PPTs for students to download and use for each assessment/portfolio. I modeled how to download and save the PPT as a personal copy about 100 times this year, but we are now in May, and I feel that all students can now do this with ease.

Another example is offering Classkick as an alternative to downloading a worksheet in Canvas--most students preferred to do their work in Classkick and upload a screenshot. Some are still not reading the instructions that if they choose to complete their work in Classkick, they must take a screenshot and upload to Canvas for credit. They reach out to me, and I am sure to be consistent in my response that they must follow instructions, but am always available to help them upload if needed.

I've found great success in this, as it makes the students read instructions more closely and makes them take initiative.

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I really am loving Classkick this year. The kids LOVE the stickers and it is so easy to add modifications on individual slides. It is great to see the students actively working or not so we can keep them on task.

The biggest challenge was getting the students into Canvas and teaching them how to navigate that. One issue is that we are still learning it as teachers so I am hoping that we have time to learn more so we can teach them instead of learning it as we go. I also think it is important to be consistent across the board.

The students LOVED the novel study and loved being able to read all together. It was really great with both novels.

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I, like a few others, started to school year late, but I have realized that next year, I would like to begin the year by showing students how to navigate Canvas and the other platforms I will be using regularly for class. I almost feel like the first few weeks of school should be mandatory for all students so they can learn how to be successful when using these tools. This would be especially helpful for the asynch students I am not in contact with every day.

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Classkick has been a great way to share guided lessons with students. The students who are regular attenders will be logged on and ready to go at the beginning of class. This is definitely a time saver. It's also a place where I can put links for other resources we are going to use that day. Students then have access to those links any time they need them as opposed to dropping them in the chat, where they exist only during the class period. I have also placed links for resources on my recordings page. That has been helpful for asynch students.

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I think there needs to be more consistent ways to get the resources out to the students. I use Classkick daily and once they know how to log in through Clever, it is much better.

I am not sure if my students watch recordings but I have started doing videos in my Canva to walk the async students through the lessons as well as students that are behind.

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I tried to create a foundation for better word recognition and vocabulary building by teaching Greek and Latin roots and affixes and introducing/highlighting our English words that are created from those affixes. I also introduced/reinforced "Word of the Day" - discussing a new word and writing a correct and complete sentence with it on a Padlet. Finally, I introduced 6 of the "Most Commonly Misspelled Words [for MS]" and played a sorting game with them.

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While this wasn't sharing a resource, I did share by texting a colorful Canva I'd made (of the week's agenda and reminders for students) to CT's. It seemed effective as I received responses and attendance from some of those CT's and students.

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Starting in February was rough, especially as I was unsure of how students started the year. Even being familiar with Canvas, with the different resources and ways assignments were being embedded and uploaded, I have had my own learning curve.

Just like with the beginning of any school year, I feel like the first 2-3 weeks need to be used to teach routines which include showing students how to navigate Canvas, submit assignments, find and utilize resources, so I'm hoping the curriculum starts with some basic grammar and writing skills to practice along with a how to use Canvas tutorial before jumping into content.

I feel like the students who are not attending live lessons should still attend the first couple of weeks of live class or a study hall to become comfortable with "how to do school." I also feel like the prerequisites per module held students back. Once they were behind, they gave up. If they can at least move between modules as the live lessons continue moving through content, I think less students would give up because they could still work with the class and catch up later.

I look forward to seeing what next year brings as students and teachers are slightly more comfortable using Canvas.

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I didn't add anything under the Resources link in Canvas as it was just one more place that I didn't see students using. One my recording page, I would like the recording, list any assignments we went over on the recording in a column in red, and any resources in a third column. I ended up sharing resources in the Zoom chat during live lessons as well as through webmail in Canvas. I still found that many students are not checking their webmail, and have no idea what they are sent.

Starting in February, I was overwhelmed with the number of places and resources used. I would like to streamline things next year by adding pages in modules with every resource, link, and recording that goes with a particular lesson. I think the more we can embed resources into the modules, the more students MIGHT access them, even though I had pages in the module for the novel study that few students utilized.

I think building the foundation of where to find things and how to navigate Canvas from the beginning will help students to know where resources are.

Many of my students didn't use Classkick unless we were doing an assignment in it together. They never went to look at it as a resource.

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I used the announcement page and posted things on my recordings calendar to share with students. I also emailed students along with their observers directly.

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As the year has gone on I have gained confidence in Canvas. IT giving us more storage space was a huge plus. Next year I definitely will be organizing my resources and assignments better. This was a big learning year. My students this year really responded to Padlet when writing short responses. I also used IXL but still do not have full confidence but I am getting there. I would like more training on this program. I would also like to use Classkick more efficiently to gain data and information.