Communicating with Families Long Distance

One thing that has changed quite a bit during this distance learning venture is how I communicate with my students and families.  So much of what I did was face to face feedback.  We would talk and discuss and work together *in person* to make work better and ensure that learning was taking place.  Now, though, that just isn't possible.  

 

Since I am not seeing my students and their families face to face like I was before all of this distance learning began,  keeping the lines of communication open between myself and everyone is even more important now than it was before.  Conferencing with kids about the work they need to do or catch up on is more difficult now.  Parents knowing exactly what is and what isn't done is much harder.  Everything is just different.

So in order to keep us all on the same page, I started using these Weekly Report One Pagers with my families. They are a simple, one page document I made on Power Point that I fill out each week and send to the families via email.  They can see on one page exactly what assignments are due, what had been graded, and read some comments from me.  This has helped to sum up our week and keep us all moving along together.  No one feels in the dark or disconnected, and learning is able to move smoothly.

I love the feedback space where I can write some good things I see and areas to work on.  Each week, I change out the headings to match better what we are working on.  For example, one wee I might be focusing more on turning work in over participation, so those headings would get changed.  I also take a screenshot of the Missing Assignments page and the Graded Assignments page on Google Classroom.  I find that those two areas are the most needed for everyone to see, so I highlight that. It gives everyone more of a focus to work on, instead of saying "just do your work". This becomes like our "Must Do" list and allows everyone to prioritize things better.  

Since implementing these, I feel like parents have been less stressed too.  It just keeps everything organized and in one place, and nothing is getting lost in the clutter that has become online learning.  

Would you like a copy of these  EDITABLE Weekly Report One Pagers to use?  You can grab them here in my store.