Remote Learning

How we left school. When we switched from in class to online learning, I decided that I wanted to keep with mostly input. This is tough, when you don't see your students and they are beginners. Of course they weren't able to take books home, because we left school on a Friday and found out on Sunday evening that we would not come back Monday morning.

What I do. I decided to continue with stories from home and record videos, then have some short activities. This allows the students to focus on the input and only spend very little time on the activities. Yet, I can see if they watched the videos and have some accountability. (Below is remote lesson 1)

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German diary. Every week on Monday the students receive an activity on Seesaw called German diary. This helps them to keep track of what they have done and what still needs to be done. Questions can also be answered in here as well. All videos are posted to their journal and are announced through a message to families and students. Here are the links to the Seesaw activities I used for this. They can be copied and edited:

1. German diary week 1 & 2
   Videos (week 1) Todd and Vom fröhlichen Monat Februar
   Activity Todd
   Videos (week2) Bibi and Rotkäppchen
2. German diary week 3
   Videos (week3) Die Geschichte vom König and Vom eingebildeten Monat März
3. German diary week 4 (coming soon)
   Videos (week 4) Der Tag an dem Louis gefressen wurde und Narziss
   

This is what I have learned from this so far. KEEP IT SIMPLE. Students and families are as much in a new situation as we are. Some parents have to work full-time and have more than one child to keep up with. Many of the parents won't be able to help with German, so make sure the language is really comprehensible to the students. This is much harder to do in front of a camera than in front of your students. And something I realized is that the length of the stories is too much for some students. Yes, they can follow these kinds of stories in class, but they are harder to follow online. The stories from week 3 are a little shorter, the stories from week 4 are much shorter than the first ones. If this continues for longer, I will pick shorter stories and rather do three shorter ones than two long ones.  And lastly, stay in touch with your students and if they can't do something DO NOT PUSH THEM.
Be compassionate with them and their families. Everyone is doing their best and it's a learning process for all. Be kind and available to your students as you stay at home.

Please let me know about your experiences with remote learning and what was helpful to you,
Kathrin