Staff Newsletter

Thank you so much for all that you do! It has been another great start for our students and families and that is because of your amazing efforts. This week we are going to include several resources, some of which we have shared before, because we want to make sure to support you during this time. Please check out some of the topics for this staff newsletter update:

- The Momentum is Strong, let's keep it going!

- District Expectations for Remote Learning

- Canvas Tools are great

- Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning -

- Creating Engagement and Feedback for Students

- Teacher Innovation - Time to Channel Your Greatest Ideas

- Flipgrid is a Great Tool!

- Frontline PD Hours

- Tennessee Educator Survey

- Updated Information about Zoom (If you are using Zoom or plan to use Zoom, please read)

- Instructional Coaches are Here to Help

- Technology Dept. Remote IT set up

Thank you for all that you are doing. JMS students and families are truly blessed to have you in their corner. Thank you for all of your efforts to help and support our students.

Phase 2 for Remote Learning

We want to thank you for all of your efforts during Phase 1 of remote learning. It has been amazing to see the innovative ideas, lessons, resources and challenges to engage students that you have created. As you know from Dr. Borchers district-wide message, due to the recommendation of Governor Lee we would remain closed for the remainder of the school year. As we have discussed in our recent meetings with grade level teams and special areas there are plans to institute a Phase 2 plan to help support learning opportunities for students that can be graded. We want to convey to you the information as to how these opportunities will occur and how they will work to support student engagement and opportunity.

While our buildings are closed as a result of COVID-19, we want to continue to support quality learning opportunities for student success. To do this, Oak Ridge Schools will begin this next phase of learning online on April 27.

- Final grades will be calculated from terms 1-3. We are working to get more details for how this will work, and we will provide further details later. We are working to apportion the nine weeks evenly.

- All students will have opportunities to improve final grades with required assignments.

- Final grades for 5th-8th grade students will be calculated by averaging term 1, term 2, and term 3 grades together (final date March 13). No grades can be lowered.

-All students may submit new assignments to improve final grade. Students may earn 3 additional points (added to the final grade) each week, during the weeks listed below:

Week #1 April 27-1

Week #2 May 4-8

Week #3 May 11-15

May 18 - 29 Laptops & Housekeeping

Questions:

What about a 4th nine weeks rotational class?

There is not a 4th nine weeks, so there will be no grades for rotational classes for the 4th nine weeks. We would recommend and encourage Special Areas teachers to post a weekly engaging assignment, challenge etc. for students to continue to help them promote their skills and learning.

When will this information be shared with our students and families?

School administrators will be sharing more information with our families about student requirements for the next phase of online learning on April 20.

What is a students doesn’t do any of the work?

All students are being given an opportunity to improve their grade. No grades can be lowered for students. These opportunities are only for students to improve the average of the 1st – 3rd nine weeks average. If a student does not choose to do work, they will finish with their 1st – 3rd nine weeks average.

How do they earn the 3 points per week?

Teachers will work to design lessons/assignments etc. for students to achieve the 3 points listed above. This decision is left up to the teacher to design and determine. Teachers will work to communicate in Canvas Announcements the assignments, due dates, and expectations of quality to be completed during the three weeks outlined above. Assignment type, due dates, etc., are up to teacher discretion.

Please keep in mind that many of our students and families are going through this challenging time and may have challenges as they work to complete work. Please be cognizant and provide flexibility for students and families as they are working to complete assignments. Our goal is to work to continue to engage students and provide them with opportunities to learn and grow.

How will we add those additional points to the final grade?

We are currently receiving communications on how best to get Skyward to average the three terms and for you to add those final points in. You will receive information on that at a later date.

When will grades be due?

Student grades will be due on same originally scheduled date for teacher grade books

What if a student does not have internet access?

We are working currently to gather information from grade level teams in reference to any students who may have lack of access to remote learning tools, so that we can appropriately arrange opportunities for those students (i.e. printed packets etc.). We will work to provide all students with any materials needed to complete assignments.

Why is it being cut off May 15th?

In an effort to work out collection of devices and also retrieval of student personal items, we are working to have the final two weeks of school to create plans for those events. Due to current health guidelines and social distancing aspects the district felt a two week timeline would allow for the safest and most effective way to collect.

If you have any questions, please let our admin team how we can provide any clarification and how we can be of service to help support you. We appreciate all of your efforts and all that you do to support our students and families.

Thank you for another great week! It has been simply amazing to see all of the efforts, innovative ideas, and creativity that you all have poured into your learning opportunities. The feedback from students, parents and our community has been overwhelmingly positive. Thank you for your efforts to provide engaging learning opportunities for students.

There has been a great deal of momentum for students to come and participate in the learning process. As challenging as it may seem, without grades and attendance etc. we have had a lot of great success for students working to give effort and participate. Those numbers are a direct result of your efforts to provide engaging lessons, communicate with your students and families, collaborate with your colleagues and work together to work to support students. While some students have not taken advantage of these opportunities and others not to the extent that we wish they would, it has been impressive to see the communication efforts being made to encourage students and reach out to see if we can help.

The videos that so many of you produce each and every day as a simple, "good morning!" just to give you and your students the most sense of normalcy possible. The shout outs given to your students for their efforts and the empathy so many of you have shown when connecting with our students. No one would prefer this manner to connect with our students, but in a tough spot you all have risen to the occasion and beyond. You have delivered so much more than content. For some, you have delivered hope, reassurance, and confidence. Thank You! Those words cannot be said enough.

As you know the Governor has recommended closure for schools for the remainder of the school year. As a result, we will begin Phase 2 on the week of April 27th, as outlined above. We will keep you posted as we receive more details and information. As we map out these next few weeks, there will be several questions, needs, concerns etc. and we are here to help. There may be questions, concerns, and ideas that have yet to be discussed, but please rest assured we are working to get as much clarity as possible to help support you. We just want to take this time to thank you for your efforts. The challenges that have been thrust upon the education world seemed daunting only a few weeks ago. However, the grace and professionalism that our staff has shown to take on these challenges has been simply a work of art.

- Keep motivating your students! You are making a bigger difference than you realize

- So many of our kids need us. Keep giving them the great opportunities to learn.

- Keep reminding them that the purpose of learning is to gain knowledge and skill.

- Keep helping them see the light at the end of the tunnel

- Remember this time of year is often challenging particularly post testing period. Think about lesson designs that you know will draw high levels of engagement, enthusiasm and wonder.

- Keep the Innovation, Creativity, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking going. It is in times like this that often we find new ideas

The District Expectations outlined in Phase 1 will remain in place through Friday April 24th. Beginning on Monday April 27th, we will transition to Phase 2 as described above. Please remember over the week of April 20th as you post to Canvas Announcements the guidelines and expectations for Phase 1.

Due to School Closure through April 24th, the following district guidelines will be in place for remote learning opportunities for our students:

1. Teachers in grades 5-12 will share daily alternative, online-based learning and review opportunities through Canvas should the district be closed for an extended period. The Office of Teaching and Learning, in collaboration with the Technology Department will provide guidance, support and resources for teachers.

Assignments must be posted daily in Canvas Announcements

The goal is to provide review or extended learning opportunities, not replace missed face-to-face class time. Use the following criteria for planning:

• Accessibility: No assignments can be required or used for student grades. The materials in home lessons should be prepared so that students of all levels of ability will be able to complete the work. Plans should contain translated materials for English Language Learners if there is a need. For additional guidance on ensuring students’ civil rights with online learning follow this link.
• Type of learning: lesson plans can include small amounts of new learning, but should focus primarily on concepts or principles that students have already been exposed to in your subject area.
• Timelessness: Course content should be posted daily.
• Length: Extended learning lessons should include an instructional component to accompany an assignment. Examples of instructional components include, but are not limited to, video lessons, self-recorded videos, readings, etc. Students should be able to complete the assignment in approximately 30 minutes.
• Resources: All materials for the home lesson plans should be uploaded to Canvas for grades 5-12.
• Feedback: Take advantage of this opportunity to teach with quality, comprehensive feedback. Give clear directions about items that should be returned/submitted for feedback with the understanding that some students may not have reliable internet access or equitable support needed to complete an assignment.
• Teachers in all subject areas should post daily content.
• All teachers must post daily office hours and contact information for students. Teachers may use Zoom, email, phone, Canvas or other online tools for office hours. A minimum of three office hours should be offered daily and can be offered at multiple times or in a single block.
• ITCs will be available by email and phone for technical support.

Remote Learning - Blended Learning - Flipped Learning - How can they all connect? How can this change in education help us as we move forward?

In the past, we've talked about the concept of flipped Learning. The idea that a teacher develops lessons and posts them in a learning management system like Canvas as an asynchronous resource as "the homework". Students are assigned the resource posted by a teacher that could be a video, a link to a ted Ed video, a reading passage, driving question etc. Students then take that information and complete a task in preparation for class. That task may be to have questions prepared for class the next day, have notes ready to show understanding and pre-loaded knowledge etc.

This idea is similar to Asynchronous learning that you are doing right now during the Remote Learning phase. You post an assignment/task/challenge etc. maybe as a video of you giving instruction, or introducing a skill or topic. The goal is to engage students and provide details that will help them when you choose to meet synchronously. There is a similarity for Remote Learning to the ideals of Flipped Learning that may help during this time and when we return. Think about how you are using Canvas now? How can that continue when we return to school as we know it?

For years, you have been learning and working towards a blended learning model. The idea that learning takes place both in the brick and mortar building and classrooms as well as digitally. Through this experience with Remote Learning you have innovated, adapted, built, collaborated, designed and facilitated amazing lessons centered around blended learning concepts. While we can't be in our brick and mortar building right now, we can work to build our skills on the digital platform in Canvas. As we move forward in the coming weeks, think about how you can use these concepts and ideas. Education may see changes in the coming weeks and months, but your innovation, creativity and collaboration will shine during this time. While we all wish to return to the same, we can also utilize this time to find ways to promote engagement and learning through these ideas and models.

In so many ways, you are already doing many of the concepts and ideas presented. Below is a short video to help build some of those connections. In the coming newsletters, we will continue to focus on how we can connect this time period of Remote Learning to help sharpen our skills to prepare for our return to school. We have many great tools, resources, strategies and ideas and this time is allowing us to hone in on how we can stay connected and develop resources to connect our students to learning.

We would like to send a a huge thank you and shout out to ORPSEF and our amazing teachers for their efforts in the most recent grant awards. As a school system, ORPSEF was very generous awarding over $ 99,000 dollars in Classroom Grant Programs.

We would like to recognize the following Jefferson Middle School educators who have been awarded our 2020 Classroom Grants Program & would have been highlighted at our annual awards ceremony which was scheduled for later this month: Lexie Scott, Stephanie Hope, David Tracey, James Mitchell, Ed Wright, Jenifer Laurendine & Patricia Wyatt.

Congratulations to all! ORPSEF is working to potentially reschedule the event, but for the time being we wanted to congratulate everyone on your efforts and the amazing awards.

Oak Ridge Public Schools Education Foundation

www.orpsef.org

In this new era of education, we have found more and more that it is vital to have a great Learning Management System like Canvas. It has been a great tool to help support students and staff as we have switched to Remote Learning. Many of you have commented on tips, tricks, and ideas you have learned in this process as you have started to utilize Canvas more and more. As we continue to work in this Remote Learning environment it is going to ever more important to continue to learn, share and grow knowledge and resources to help support one another. The links below are designed to continue to help you learn, share and grow understanding how to utilize Canvas.

Rethinking Teaching with Canvas Tools

"Differentiating Assignments (k-12) in Canvas: Helping All Learners Be Successful"

https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/accessibility/blog/2016/06/08/share-udl-course-design-tips-tricks-and-techniques

When you check out many websites for educational companies, you will begin to see they have packaged a lot of information for "Covid-19" or for "Remote Learning" etc. Canvas has provided some resources as a way to help teachers and schools. Check out the following link:

https://www.instructure.com/canvas/tools-for-online-learning-when-the-classroom-closes . I have listed some of the other links attached on this page with a brief description for how they can provide assistance:

Blog updates from educators utilizing Canvas

Ideas on utilizing Mastery Connect

Video Tutorials on several tools in Canvas

Using discussions in Canvas

Great resource for utilizing Videos in Canvas

Please reach out to Mr. Fowler or Mr. Layton if you have any needs, concerns or questions. They will work to support you any way possible.

Congratulations to Mr. Corrigan for his most recent news on receiving on his lesson plan being chosen as the 2nd place in the ORISE Math Madness competition. Mr. Corrigan submitted the lesson above highlighting students utilizing math skills for students to connect to the Oak Ridge Cemesto homes. The lesson is a great example of a PBL where students can exhibit skills to identify their understanding in connection to a real world idea and connection to our community.

Another example is Flipgrid and how teachers can use it in their classroom. The article "9 New Ways to Us Flipgrid in the classroom" provides some ideas and thoughts including the following:

"Supporting absent students: Flipgrid can be a catch-up solution for students who are absent. The teacher creates a topic for work completed in class, and if a student is absent during a given class period, one of their peers can post a quick video about what assignments were completed in class so the absent students can quickly learn about what they missed."

Check out these articles for more information on great uses for Flipgrid that so many are already working on with their students across the nation and world:

Flipgrid Scavenger Hunt - fliphunt is a scavenger hunt using Flipgrid. It is a fun way of having your students get out of their seats, participate in the learning, and demonstrate their understanding and application.

Flipgrid and Remote Learning - As educators, learners and families are impacted by COVID-19, know that our entire team is always here for you. Inspired by the ways you foster community beyond the classroom, we have curated a collection of resources to help you and your peers.

Flipgrid - Official site from Microsoft

Flipgrid Fever -

Help Students See Opportunity to Gain Skills

It has been amazing to see the efforts and connections being built by our staff. Working to help students build their skills, review information that has been taught and prepare them for success by showing mastery. Working to help show students how the lessons you post are great ways for them to challenge their meta cognitive skills and critical thinking.

Be Creative and Design Engaging Learning Challenges

Put yourself in the shoes of our students. How can you design lessons that will work to engage students? A goal could be to find standards/skills that students may need to work on and finding ways to build lessons centered around real world application. Design lessons that will promote curiosity, critical thinking, creativity etc. This is a great time to work on standards that have been previously taught by challenging students to exhibit mastery in other ways aside from a test.

Keep it simple to start, establish some Norms and high success rates

Online tools are not new to our students, but remote learning is. Just like our concerns and questions our students and parents will have similar questions and thoughts. Start simple and keep directions very specific and clear. Remember, you will have parents working with students and the learning outcome and goals for this extended learning opportunity should be clear.

Build Connections to the Real World

Often a major need for students is to see connection and authenticity. As you map out the skills you intend to teach in the first week and moving into the second week and beyond how can you connect it to the world outside of school. This may be where using other resources, videos etc. cans be useful because you can utilize those as tools to help promote student learning.

District Expectations for Remote Learning

As we continue with the Remote Learning Extended Learning Opportunities please keep in mind that no assignments are to have a grade nor are any extended learning opportunities. The district expectations are posted below this column. Do not place any grades in Canvas or Skyward as they may unintentionally trigger an alert to a student or parent of a missing assignment or grade. Again, the goal for this program is to provide learning opportunities for students. In an effort to help reinforce student skills, please make sure to provide students with feedback after they choose to submit a product for the learning opportunity. You can have students submit via word documents, videos, Canvas chat etc.

Please exercise sensitivity and flexibility

We would love to have 100% participation for learning opportunities, but for some of our students there are great challenges for them and their families at this time. For example, spotty if any internet provided, may have to take on extra responsibilities at home if parent is an essential worker etc. We need to make sure that the learning opportunities are focused on supporting students to learn and grow.

In education, it has often been said, "if there was more time" or "if we didn't have to worry about the test" etc. Well in many ways a silver lining for education is that we currently have that opportunity. We are in the middle of uncharted territory as we have more opportunities to be innovative, creative and design lessons to engage students into the learning process. As our students have been working over the past week and a half we have seen one common theme as for high levels of participation coinciding with engagement. Thanks to everyone for your efforts to make your lessons so engaging and student centered. In the uncharted territory where students don't have to attend, don't have to complete etc. it has paid dividends to connect with students with engaging lessons connected to real world ideas.

So many teachers have commented on how this Remote Learning has given them opportunities to learn and grow as well. Whether it be your growth from trying Flipgrid for the first time or working to set up a Canvas discussion. Our teachers are working to innovate and design lessons based on student centered ideas. As we progress into this unknown territory in education, let's take time to think about how it impacts our professional growth and innovation for our craft. For our students, engagement is critical to success. Take time to think about how you can engage them.

We have seen great lessons delivered with a simple video with a personal message embedded in Canvas announcements. We have seen taking time to construct helpful how to guides for students, orchestrate engaging Canvas discussions, set up weekly challenges etc.

We are sure most everyone has completed or is near completing their 30 PD hours, but maybe at this point has not entered them into Frontline. We are sending this information out as a reminder.

If you have not updated your Frontline account with any information outside of the Wednesday strands or the PD sessions where badges were scanned, please work to do that in the coming weeks. We are working to update each day in Frontline. Also, if you are concerned that you may not reach the needed hours, please reach out to Mr. Layton so we can work to review PD hours that you may not have entered.

The strand hours for Wednesdays should be entered by the strand facilitator, but if you would like to add them to be sure, please do so. Also if you worked on STEM Night, please make sure to add 4 hours for PD for that event.

We are here to help everyone, but we just wanted to provide an update as to the need to place items in Frontline. As always, if you have questions or concerns etc., please feel free to contact Mr. Layton so that we can assist.

Tennessee Educator Survey Update

The deadline for the Tennessee Educator Survey has been extended until Friday, May 1 to give all educators a chance to respond. The new survey questions related to COVID-19 have been added to the survey and posted to the Tennessee Educator Survey website as of Monday, April 6.

Educators who have not received a link to the original survey or the new items may access the troubleshooting portal to have the link resent to their preferred email address. Questions about survey administration may be directed to TERA at tned.research.alliance@vanderbilt.edu.

The 2020 Tennessee Educator Survey is an opportunity for educators to provide actionable feedback about what’s working and where they need more support. TDOE has also added several questions to the beginning of the Tennessee Educator Survey regarding educator experiences with COVID-19 related changes in schooling. The new survey questions have been added to the survey for educators and were posted to the Tennessee Educator Survey website. They have also pushed back the deadline to May 1, 2020. The survey is entirely confidential, and individual responses are never shared in an identifiable manner.

As in previous years, the department will share aggregated district-level results with district leaders by the end of May in time for use in school leader evaluations. They will make results public later this summer. In order to receive data, a school or district must achieve at least 45 percent participation by May 1, the day the survey closes. JMS is currently at a 21% participation rate so we encourage you to participate via the personalized link sent to you via email from the TDOE. You can visit https://www.tn.gov/education/data/educator-survey.html?mc_cid=677ba20efa&mc_eid=77abd6a836 if you have more questions about the survey. Thank you in advance for completing the survey so we can use the results to best support you and our students!

Thank you for your careful consideration of student and staff safety as we transition to on-line learning experiences. We have updated our video conferencing guidelines based on recent information shared by staff, Zoom, and FERPA guidance. Prior to launching Zoom access as an online option, we engaged ORS legal counsel for guidance related to FERPA and HIPAA with video conferencing. Additionally, we secured an ORS specific hosting site and agreements with Zoom to increase security features. We will continue to work with ORS staff and Zoom to improve security features as we learn more during this time. To further increase safety, all staff members should adhere to the guidelines for Zoom and other video conferencing usage.

1. No FERPA or HIPAA sensitive information can be shared or discussed. This means that Zoom may not be used to support activities that may potentially share personal student information. Ex. Individual counseling sessions or an IEP.
2. Staff members must use the ORS version of Zoom access through Clever for instructional opportunities.
3. Staff members must use the waiting room feature to prohibit entry to the Zoom session by students or others that are not members of the class.
4. Instructional opportunities using Zoom should only be provided during reasonable hours for student participation.
5. Follow AccessOR Acceptable Use Policy for use of video conferencing in a one to one instructional situation. Staff members should include an administrator on conference invitations.
6. Instructional opportunities using Zoom may be recorded and posted in Canvas for review by students who could not attend. No private student information should be shared during Zoom meetings. Students should be instructed to use their username or First Name plus Last Name Initial (Jane D) during video conference sessions.
7. Student to student chat room opportunities should be turned off during a Zoom session.
8. Student invitations to participate in a Zoom instructional opportunity should be sent in a timely manner.
9. A building administrator must be invited to monitor a student Zoom instructional session.
10. Pictures of Zoom meetings with students’ faces or names should not be shared on social media.
11. Limit Zoom sessions in an effort to maximize asynchronous options for students who may be working or unable to join at specified times.
12. All Zoom recordings must be saved to the default Zoom location under “My Documents” directory on your local machine.

Norms to establish safe and productive Zoom meetings:

1. This meeting will be recorded/not be recorded and available/not available on my Canvas page.

2. Chat room capabilities are not enabled. Please use the “Raise your hand” function to ask a question.

3. Students are not required to use the video function. Please be aware that others can see your surroundings when the video function is used. Pick a location that will minimize interruptions. If you are in a room with others, please let them know that you will be using video/audio for a class.

4. The teacher may mute the room or student if background noise interferes with the conference. Please check the mute status and minimize background noise before you speak.

FERPA and Virtual Learning Webinar https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/training/ferpa-and-virtual-learning-during-covid-19-webinar-recording

The instructional coaches asked to have their contact information shared, to let staff know if they could be of any assistance to please reach out. The same goes for Mr. Fowler, our amazing ITC and our JMS admin team. If you have questions, needs etc. please let the appropriate person know and we can work to provide resources, ideas, and support to the best of our abilities:

Instructional Coaches

STEM

Callie Painter – (865) 661.7173 - clpainter@ortn.edu

Alex Goldberg – (865) 748 - 4485 - agoldberg@ortn.edu

DATA

John Smith – (865) 712-7877 - jrsmith@ortn.edu

PLC

Carmey Sears - (865) 360-0568- crsears@ortn.edu

Nick Corrigan – (865) 776-0010 - njcorrigan@ortn.edu

ITC

Ben Fowler – (865) 748-3975 - bjfowler@ortn.edu

Administration

Phil Cox – (865) 806-8939 - pcox@ortn.edu

Chris Layton – (865) 306-3452 - calayton@ortn.edu

Jenifer Laurendine – (865) 338-2904 - jllaurendine@ortn.edu

Technology Department Remote Support for Extended Closure

Faculty/Staff/Students

· Create a ticket using https://support.ortn.edu or if you don’t have a working device (or cannot login), call 865-425-9039 and follow prompts

· Technician will schedule a support time for call back

· Technician will fix the device starting with voice commands

· If needed, technician will start a Zoom session to gain remote access

· If all remote support fails, technician will schedule student for drop-off of laptop and pickup of spare.

Drop-Off (All at Oak Ridge High School – TD Portable 3):

· Must have a work order so that we can prep a spare machine

· TD Tech will open a Work Order and collect

· Username (and password)

· Contact phone number

· Brief description of issue

· Drop off will be at TD portable 3.

· Drop-off times will be from 9:30a-10:30am on Mondays and Thursdays, and 3:30-4:40, TBD

· Students can pick-up a loaner device at this time (see pick-up section below).

· No drop-offs outside of this time. *Unless a special circumstance requires an alternate drop off time scheduled with technology employee

· Drive-thru lane setup for users to pull up and drop off device as quick as possible.

· Maintain Social Distance of 6ft.

· If you are sick, inform us immediately.

· We will verify appointment info (only those scheduled).

· User will keep their laptop case, adapter, line cord, stylus, or other accessories that are not needed for the repair.

· Users will remain at curb. They will NOT come to the doors or ramp at portables.

· User may leave.

Pick-up:

· After dropping off laptop, user pulls forward to pick-up table.

· Tech at Drop-off table will alert pick-up table.

· User to verify login, apps, and OneDrive setup.

· User may leave.

Cleaning and Repair (TD Staff):

· Wipe down laptop

· Bag laptop

· Write date on bag

· Attach contact info to bag

· Place laptop on cart for delivery to quarantine area

· Device will remain in quarantine for 5 days

· After day 5 those devices will be brought to the Image room.

· Cleaning and repair performed