The No-Nonsense Distance Learning Guide

First, you will need to sign into the account with your 6-8 math curriculum. If your school has purchased Open Up Resources curriculum for use in Kiddom, you should have received an email with instructions. If you would like to bring Open Up Resources digital curriculum to your school via the Kiddom platform, learn more here.

Next, set-up your class on the Kiddom platform. This short video can show you how to get started. You can also read about this easy process here.

Once you have your classroom set up in Kiddom, you are ready to begin planning instruction with Open Up Resources 6-8 math curriculum.

• As soon as you you login, you will notice the Curriculum tab, where you can digitally access the Math 6-8 curricula.

• From the Curriculum Overview, you can read the description and collapse any section that you do not wish to use or view.

• Scroll down to view and download the Teaching Resources, by either clicking on the blue link or selecting the download button.

• Returning to your Class Timeline, you can drag and drop any assignment you have created to assign it to students.

To learn more about navigating OUR with Kiddom visit the on-demand PL.

Before you get started teaching and assigning content, you may want to consider the following as you plan for instruction:

Read the unit overviews for the content you have selected. This will help you understand what knowledge it is building on, and how each unit is connected to future content.

Read the Guidance document for the units/lessons you have selected. Many of the activities have specific considerations that might shake up or enhance instruction.

Read the Narrative, Launch, and Synthesis for each activity and determine how you will execute in a distance learning environment, taking into account any notes within the guidance documents.

Activities can be delivered in alternative formats:

• Teachers can offer a video or reading for the Launch
• Analyze a worked example provided by the teacher (correct or incorrect work)
• Encourage students to get creative with activities that require discussion. Consider asking students to talk with a thoughtfully matched partner in class, or a family member.
• You might have students record their own thinking and share it with others.
• Students can attempt the task independently and then share their process during the online discussion

Assessments can also be delivered in a variety of formats:

• Cool-downs can be completed individually with students taking a photo to submit or working in a collaborative technical platform.
• Teachers can select problems from unit assessment for students to discuss during online sessions

As you think about possibilities and plan for implementing OUR 6-8 in a distance learning environment, here is some guidance for consideration.

Considerations as you select content:

Begin by examining the major work of the grade to select the content you will utilize with your students. Although it is desirable to cover all of the grade level content, the major work of the grade is essential for students in subsequent years in mathematics.

A content- and grade-level-specific guidance document from the authors can be found for each grade level.

• Guidance for Grade 6
• Guidance for Grade 7
• Guidance for Grade 8

This is for consideration only, as we recognize each teaching situation is vastly different. For your convenience, listed below is a high-level list of the major work for grades six through eight that is pertinent to the last quarter of the year.

• Grade 6: Rational Numbers, Independent Variables, Algebraic Expressions & Equations
• Grade 7: Rational Numbers, Algebraic Expressions & Equations,
• Grade 8: Exponents and Scientific Notation, Pythagorean Theorem, Functions

Once you have familiarized yourself with the upcoming units within the relevant OUR curriculum, you can begin using Kiddom for your teaching and learning. Once you login to Kiddom, your selected OUR Curriculum will appear in your curriculum tab.

• Share a list of websites where students can learn more about your module topic. Links to additional online resources can be found in the unit overview.
• Suggest students write letters/emails to friends and family explaining what and how they are learning in this new environment.
• Invite students to write personal reflections on each chapter or excerpt of text. This mirrors the structure from the module lessons, which allows students to process their thinking after reading.
• Invite students to write brief summaries of each chapter or excerpt of text. Guidelines for writing summaries are provided in module lessons for each grade level.
• Empower students to do further research (books or online) on an area of specific interest.

We have an index of resources available to support you in transitioning to distance learning! Find it here.

Once you’ve set up your first few weeks of courses, move to the next section of this guide, or jump to another stage below:

As you consider online options in response to COVID-19, here’s a helpful list of distance learning resources from our Chief Academic Officer, Abbas Manjee.

In light of COVID-19, teacher and engagement director Geoffrey Schmidt offers some hope and advice for those transitioning to digital classrooms.