10 Ways Schools Can Prepare for COVID-19
Online education is known for providing students from all backgrounds a path for learning.
From student athletes to hospital/homebound students, online learning can offer students the opportunity to continue their education at any time and from any place. It also allows students to stay on track amid health concerns, disaster relief efforts, and other challenging circumstances.
At Florida Virtual School (FLVS), we serve schools and teachers so they are able to support students despite disruptions. Working closely with school districts, we have collected a number of best practices over the last 22 years of teaching students in this unique online environment.
Here’s our collection of tips to help schools and teachers meet the educational needs of students when transitioning to an online learning environment.
1. Create a Virtual Learning Community
In the event of extended school closures, school administrators can continue their students’ education through an online learning environment. Most school districts across the U.S. have already established various forms of online learning for their students, ranging from full-time virtual schools to blended classrooms.
As a school administrator, establishing a Virtual Learning Community for teachers and families where they can find resources and support will ensure the success of your virtual program.
2. Identify Staff to Support Online Instruction
Teacher relationships are central to success when it comes to virtual learning. At FLVS, 95 percent of students find their teacher to be focused on their success – offering help and providing personalized feedback. This one-on-one instruction is a unique benefit to online education and a great opportunity for your teachers to reach students in need.
Be sure to engage your IT staff early to help scale online learning tools for teachers and students. The technology team will be critical to ensuring staff, teacher, and student information stays secure. They can also help you increase connectivity or server bandwidth to support an increase of teachers and students working online.
3. Assess Student Technology Needs
Schools transitioning to serving students virtually should assess how prepared their students are for an online learning environment. If you’re a school administrator, you can start by collecting information about student technology needs with user-friendly survey tools.
Here are a few questions to ask:
- How frequently does your child have access to an internet connected device?
- Does your child have regular access to a computer?
- Does the device have a microphone and/or a webcam?
Gathering these preliminary insights will help your school respond to individual student needs and provide alternatives for access. If your student is taking FLVS courses, please review the detailed technical requirements here.
4. Find a Champion for Online Learning
Finding the right champion will help you identify opportunities for transitioning your school to an online environment, and to celebrate and share successes. The designated champion can help your team monitor teacher and student data, communicate with parents, and provide ongoing support as everyone adjusts to teaching and learning online. Schools should establish policies and expectations for both staff and students during this transition, including working hours, communication, and grading.
5. Establish Secure Tools for Connectivity
Teachers transitioning to an online learning environment will reap the benefits of having more one-to-one individualized time with each student, as the virtual lessons are, by nature, more self-paced but often require more individualized student support.
- Zoom for Video Calls - If your school doesn’t already have a platform for video conferencing, companies like Zoom offer free online tools for video conferencing.
- Google Voice - Teachers who wish to keep their personal contact information private can create a free, separate phone number to provide to students and parents.
- Emails - Relying on frequent electronic communication is key to student success in the online learning environment. Teachers should be set up with full email access in their home environments.
6. Share Frequent Announcements with Students
In the online environment, teachers can create informative and engaging welcome pages to share important announcements and status updates about their class. The welcome pages will help students find what they need as they become oriented to the online environment. Think of them like bulletin boards for the online classroom! To get started, our FLVS Professional Learning and Training team recommends using Google Slides or Google Sites.
Your digital bulletin boards can include helpful resources for student learning, such as:
- Teacher Contact Information
- Dates and Times for Live Sessions
- Teacher Availability / Working Hours
- Assignment Schedule
7. Maintain Student Records
Our online teachers record student communication and data to maintain a comprehensive record of the student's experience. This is essential to keep track of past conversations and student progress. Individualized feedback can be shared with the student and parent, as well as the local school when a student transitions back to the traditional classroom.
8. Encourage Communication
Clear and concise communication is essential to success for your school staff and teachers, as well as between teachers, students, and parents who are new to the online learning environment. Teachers can keep in touch with online students and parents via email, phone, or text. Maintaining communication will help students stay motivated and connected.
We encourage teachers to create welcome pages using collaborative digital tools such as Google Slides to share important reminders and updates.
9. Prepare Your Students for Success
Online learning requires a degree of self-discipline for the students. Teachers can support students by closely monitoring their progress in the course and communicating frequently. Requiring all teachers to do a first “Welcome/Information Call” with important details about the course, pace, assessments, and ways to stay in touch is helpful in managing expectations for each student and his/her long-term success. You might also want to consider helping students create a calendar or a list of due dates for upcoming assessments.
Seeing student progress amid challenging circumstances is always something to celebrate!
10. Train Your Teachers for the Online Classroom
Specifically for COVID-19 preparedness, FLVS is offering virtual teacher training to accommodate school districts that wish to train their brick-and-mortar teachers in the FLVS online platform.
FLORIDA
For Florida school districts, the new training course, Virtual Teacher Training for COVID-19, will be offered online with FLVS live support.
Designed to be self-guided, the course gives school staff the opportunity to attend live lessons to learn the training material, ask questions, and collaborate with others. The course includes four modules about teaching in an online environment using FLVS curriculum and platforms, best practices, technology systems, and procedures.
Florida Schools and school districts that are interested in the Virtual Teacher Training for COVID-19 should contact their FLVS District Relations Managers.
ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS
For schools outside of Florida, FLVS Global is here to help. Whether you need a content provider, teacher training on best practices, or just a consultation to help map out the online classroom terrain, our team of experts can help meet those needs. Our focus is always to maximize learning opportunities for your students and minimize the amount of time that learning is interrupted. Reach out to the digital education consultant for your state for more information.
As an online school district and educational solutions provider, FLVS is equipped to help students stay on track if or when traditional classroom instruction is disrupted.
We have also collected a few tips and useful information regarding coronavirus and educational impacts:
- Tips from Wall Street Journal on School Closures Preparedness
- Tips from Education Week for Remote Learning During COVID-19
- The Impact of COVID-19 on Academic Integrity
- School Closure Map Tracker by Education Week
- CDC Information on COVID-19
- Florida Department of Education – Virtual School Options in Florida
- Florida Department of Health – COVID-19 Toolkit
Questions or comments?
Join the discussion in the comments below or on LinkedIn using #FLVSTeacherTraining.
Florida Virtual School (FLVS) has been leading the way in Kindergarten-12 online education for 25 years. FLVS provides a robust, award-winning curriculum to public, private, charter, and homeschool families and school districts nationwide. Learn more at flvs.net.
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Last week, when Orange County schools were originally closed for an additional week, we teachers received an email about partnering with FLVS to deliver online instruction. I signed up for a training course with FLVS, but I haven’t heard anything else about it, and the email has disappeared. Are we still going to have this opportunity for training?
Hi Tracy. Please reach out to your principal to express your interest and check on status regarding your training request. Each district is designating teachers to participate and the final list should be sent to us from the superintendent. You can find details about eligibility and registration on our website at https://flvs.net/FLVSTeacherTraining.
Are students from Polk County to be initiated in online classes? If so, when it will begin? Can I set up an account and my child begin to take classes online to be counted for her 9th grade?
Hi Marilyn. You should hear from your school and district administrators regarding next steps for public school students as they finalize your county’s continuity plans.
Will the kids from Seminole county schools be held back if not enrolled in FLVS?
Each district is working on a continuity plan to keep their students on track. Please keep an eye out for communication from your administrators for information specific to Seminole county!