A Template for Distance Learning

Education is in uncharted waters, and teachers have had to adapt quickly. I realized early in virtual instruction that I needed a template for distance learning that would be useful to me and the students.

The last time we touched base, I had just learned that my school was shutting down for a couple of weeks. That was three weeks ago, and just this past Thursday, Georgia joined other states in announcing that school would be closed for the rest of the year.

This introvert loves being at home, but not like this. The uncertainty and the difficulty in touching base with each of our students are problematic. Having to do this on top of helping my middle-schooler stay on top of his lessons seems impossible at times. I needed to simplify further.

In my last blog post, I discussed useful tech for distance learning (or remote leaning, as we were calling it then), and I advised teachers to keep it as simple as possible. I still stand by that. In the three short weeks since this began, my family has been personally touched by death from “complications from Covid-19,” and we are not alone.

All of this is creating fear and stress, so my advice stands: Keep it to one learning target a week.

To simplify this further (and to still deliver quality lessons), I’ve devised a distance learning lesson plan template that works for me and my students. It attempts to round out a full lesson on one learning target each week.

I typically give things like this to my email list only, but since we are all scrambling and overwhelmed, I’ve put this template for distance learning on TeachersPayTeachers for free. I really hope you can use it!

Grab the lesson plan template for distance learning for free HERE!

Here’s how to implement the template for distance learning

1. Make a copy of your original.

 

2. Delete the instructions and terms of use slides before assigning to students.

 

3. Edit text in red to suit your needs. For example, your “Learn” activity may be a YouTube film instead of a reading.

 

 

4. Hyperlink to each resource you are assigning students over the transparent shape in each box on the distance learning lesson plan template.

 

Hyperlink by changing the end of the URL in this way so that each student gets their own copy: replace edit?usp=sharing with template/preview. That way, students can preview the lesson before selecting “Use Template” to make a copy in their Drive. 

 

Here is how to hyperlink in Google Slides:

 

 

5. Suggestions for “practice activities are questions, quickwrites, problems, summarizing, etc.

 

Suggestions for “create” are digital storyboards, essays, Flipgrids, infographics (you get a free infographic activity with example and rubric when you sign up for my email list), etc.

 

6. Create the quiz for the distance learning template using Google Forms and the AutoMastery Add-on. Set AutoMastery follow-up activities to be emailed to students based on their score, so that they are either enriching or relearning. I also end the relearning with a link back to the quiz to see if they improve.

 

HERE is how to create a Quiz in Google Forms. HERE is how to use Automastery. 

 

7. Have students copy and paste the links for their activities in the appropriate spaces on the distance learning template so that you can see them. Instruct them to use the “share button” in Google Docs to grab a link if they’re using a Google Doc or Slide.

I hope you find this useful, and please leave a comment below letting me know how you are dealing with distance learning.

Grab the free distance learning lesson plan template HERE!