The Lower School Online Learning program will include both academic and co-curricular courses that will have synchronous (live) and asynchronous (independent work) components.  The program will use Seesaw and Zoom as the major digital platforms.  
 
The Lower School program will focus heavily on the foundational content and skills in the areas of language arts and math, particularly at the K-2 level.  The materials used and the academic goals will be the same for students in the online learning program as for those on campus, though some modifications to specific lessons may be warranted to adapt to the online format.  
 
This program should be viewed as a parallel program to what is happening in school and will contain three main components designed to meet the needs of these young learners.  They are as follows:
 
Coaches - Faculty, staff and/or other affiliated teachers will be assigned to work with students to provide support, community-building activities, and individual guidance each day.  Coaches will facilitate the use of the platforms, guide in the completion of asynchronous work, and develop a community of learners with those students working in the online program.
 
“Live” Classes - Due to the developmental learning needs of our lower school students, streaming in (watching and participating in their in-school grade-level classes through Zoom) will be limited to specific lessons and activities that lend themselves to this type of learning for the particular age group.

Small-group instruction - Faculty members or others employed by the school with expertise and training in specific content areas and grade levels will be tasked to provide instruction to grade-level or needs-based groups throughout the week.  This will be held through Zoom and will connect to the asynchronous activities provided by the teachers.
 
Specific schedules will be developed for each grade level and will include the following elements:

Morning Meetings - Morning gatherings will be held on designated days. They are designed to connect students in the online program and prepare them for the day.  These may be multi-age groups and will be led by a coach. 
Academic Classes - Small group grade-level or needs-based instruction.  This will be conducted by coaches in these subject areas, but will not be the current grade-level teachers. The small group will only contain online learners. 
Co-curricular Classes - Courses such as art, PE, etc. for online learners will not meet as often as they will for on-campus students but they will have weekly synchronous time with these teachers.  These online classes could be multi-age groups and will include only students in the online program. 
WIN “What I Need” Time - Scheduled blocks of time to check in with a coach regarding assignment completion and receive support for asynchronous work.
 
It is essential that we establish a home and school partnership in order to support the learning of these young students.  Their developmental learning needs dictate support from both the school and an adult at home to facilitate the learning process.
 

 

The Middle School Online Learning program will include both academic and co-curricular courses that will have synchronous (live) and asynchronous (independent work) components.  The program will continue to use the same major digital platforms used in the spring - Zoom and Google Classroom.
 
The expectation is that all online students would be taking as many classes as possible with the Independence teachers, and the materials, curriculum, assignments, etc. would all be very similar.  There might be some modifications of assignments for online learners in certain situations.  For example, if an on-campus science class was having a lesson outdoors on campus in the wetlands, the online learners would be assigned a modified or alternate lesson. However, the goal is to provide the online learners with as similar experience as possible to the on-campus learners. This scenario would be true for all major academic subject areas. 
 
In the event that there are enough students in a grade level (approx 15 or more) who opt for online learning, those students could be put in appropriately placed courses together and taught as a separate online class (similar to what we experienced in the spring) by an Independence MS teacher.  Alternatively, if a small number of students opt for online learning in a particular grade, then the online learners would attend their appropriately placed classes taking place live on campus (again with an Independence teacher), for the synchronous component of the class, through Zoom.   Students would access the asynchronous components of their classes through Google Classroom. 
 
Co-curricular courses such as art, PE, etc. for online learners will not meet as often as they will for on-campus students but they will have weekly synchronous time with these teachers.  These online classes could include students from across the different middle school grades.