After several months of distance learning, teachers have found ways of making virtual teaching easier. Implementing systems such as simple morning starters and efficient grading can make your job easier and reduce your overall workload.

I’ve invited Monica, an Upper Elementary teacher from Los Angeles, to share the tips she’s learned for making virtual teaching easier.

Just like many of you, I have spent most of 2020 teaching online and I have learned a lot on the way. The biggest thing I have learned is having simple systems for your day can make your entire week (and weekend) go so much smoother. 

Using digital tools, having simple warm-ups to start class, and having an efficient system for grading are all ways I’ve found to make my job easier. Here’s how these systems can work for you too.

Three ways to simplify virtual teaching

Use Digital Tools

If you find yourself repeating directions over and over again, let’s try something new! Classroomscreen is an amazing site where you can add different widgets to your screen. For example, you can add a timer, add a text box, roll dice, use work symbols, and so much more. I live by this amazing site and let me tell you, every single time I use it I find something new that I love about it.

What makes this site so impressive is that you can add all these things onto the screen at once! Seriously, this is going to save you so much time. It is a free site, but if you use the paid version you can save each of your screens so you do not have to remake them. Helloooo time saver!!

Here are just a couple ways I use Classroomscreen:

• Zoom Break: I will leave a note and a timer on my shared screen and it makes it easy for students who come in late, so they aren’t always asking “what are we doing?”

• Brain Break: There is a draw version where you can play pictionary or hangman or anything you can think of. You can also add a timer or stopwatch onto the screen as well!

• Random Questions: I don’t know how your students are but mine always need a little push to get them to answer. I love using the dice to have the students answer the questions out of order.

I love that it is super user friendly and even my students will use it on their own! Classroomscreen.com has easily become my bestie this year!

Simple Warm Ups

I know that you might be thinking, Ok, I already do warm ups, what else you got?! But if you aren’t doing them first thing in class, let me convince you to start! 

I love doing a warm up first thing because it buys me time to get attendance taken and makes sure students who come a little late don’t miss out on essential lessons.

Instead of having a complicated warm up, I give students an opportunity to do a few different options to check in for their warm ups. Allowing students options can ensure students do what is comfortable for them and alleviate stress for you.

One way to do this is by asking students to respond to a question. Our LMS allows for us to post a discussion question that students can choose to respond online or share out loud. This has led to some really great discussions and if students don’t feel comfortable unmuting themselves, they still get to be a part of the conversation. 

If you are looking for other options, here are a few great shows that work really well as warm ups:

• CNN 10: CNN brings world news and current events to students in understandable language/content which works well with grades 5 and above.

• Sci Show Kids: This show is so fun to explain all types of Science concepts and while it does aim towards a younger audience, even 6th graders have asked for more. 

• Wow in the World: Put on by NPR, this podcast explores the wonders of the world around all us. I love that there are a range of Episode lengths so if you can decide which episodes fit into your schedule best.

If you are feeling overwhelmed with warm ups or just need to buy yourself a few minutes in the morning to down your coffee, try simplifying your warm ups and free up some of your time!

Efficient Grading

When I was in the classroom, I felt like I had a good system on what to grade, when to grade it, and just be overall efficient in my grading procedures. Ohhhh the good ol’ days, right?

Enter Virtual Teaching and suddenly my virtual desk had piles and piles of things to grade. Between all the daily slides we were doing and the amount of late work students were constantly turning in, I was drowning in so much digital work to grade. I just couldn’t figure out how to make this easier on myself and also fair to my students. 

While I haven’t found a perfect solution, I have found a few tips that have kept me from losing my mind in grading!

First, I had to evaluate what really needed to be graded and which work could either be ungraded or just a simple complete/incomplete.  Why was I trying to grade every single thing?! Don’t ask me because I have no idea! I did not do this in the classroom, so why did I think this was important now?  Instead, I decided to look at my week/month and figure out what I was going to count as an assessment and as grade. 

While this seems pretty obvious, it is amazing how giving yourself a set number of grades for the week, allows you to really choose wisely on what assignments are going to reflect progress. Once I had that down, I was able to make everything else an ungraded assignment! Wowwww, so simple and a load off my plate each night.

Next, I had to find a faster way to grade certain items that had multiple slides or were just taking too long to open or sort though. Sometimes I would have a slide deck that I really only wanted one small portion to count towards their grade.  Time to simplify!

I started creating a separate Google form or something on my LMS (we use Schoology) that allows me to quickly assess just that short answer or that one question I wanted to assess. 

The kids groaned the first time I made them transfer their work. But I told them I would grade their work as they turned it in, which meant they would see their scores much faster. I guess that bribery worked and it allowed me to get some of the grading done while class was in session. Hello to free weekends again!

Finally, I decided to close assignments so students could not turn in work late. Since I use Schoology, they have a Publish/Unpublish feature, but your LMS may not. One workaround is to use Google Forms where you choose not to allow responses after your cut off date/ time. To do this you simply go to your form, click on responses and then uncheck the accepting responses.

This will help you save time not having to go back and forth between late assignments and ones that were submitted on time.

Bio information

Hello! My name is Monica and I teach ELA and History in Upper Elementary in Los Angeles. I love finding new ways to engage my students and creating resources for other teachers that are simple and easy to implement. If you love Starbucks and like to spend way too much time on instagram than we will probably be instant friends! Happy Teaching!

Looking for More Help?

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