I was going to come on here tonight and blast away at my problems and issues. This online learning thing is overwhelmingly anxiety inducing. But as I was avoiding writing by doing some grading, I noticed a trend that changed my attitude. My students are flourishing with the current work I have given them. 

Last week I decided to try an experiment. I saw a post from someone about how to use the 5 Es (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate) to create lessons online. I took those five components and made one module out of each of them. On top of that, I did some serious brainstorming before creating modules. I did this because creating modules is time intensive. If one doesn’t work, you have just wasted quite a bit of time. 

The first thing I did was I created a bland google slides presentation. In each slide, I put one of the 5 Es as base slides. In each slide I took notes for ideas. For example, in the engagement slide, I wrote down ideas to engage. I wrote open ended questions I could ask that would engage students and beside that I wrote different formats I could use to ask those questions. After that, I whittled down the scraps and decided on the best option for asking those questions and collecting responses. Then I moved on to the next part. 

Once I had completed the slideshow, all I had to do was create the module in Canvas. Since I already knew what I would be doing for every part, it only took me about a half an hour to complete the entire module. 

What is more, the students are working through it really well. I had anticipated some challenges as most of the tech we are using is new to them. But the students are doing great. I created my first discussion post, ever, and have had students writing and responding to each other in ways that they never did in the classroom. 

While I’m extremely disappointed that I will not see my students this school year, I am excited that I am finding ways to engage them.