Dear families,
In this blog post, you will find a number of important announcements regarding Cerritoberry Distance Learning. It’s long, but contains necessary information for next week. Please read through all the information, and email us with any questions or concerns.
Introducing TBS student emails
Next week we will be introducing the tool of TBS email as a way to streamline communication between teacher and student. We hope by allowing students to use email, they will be able to ask us questions directly, and we will be able to support them more efficiently. In addition, Google Classroom is set up to send email notifications to students when they have a new assignment, receive a grade, or get teacher feedback on their work. At this point teachers have been verbally telling students to check back on their work to make changes, and giving them access to email will make this communication much smoother.
Student email will be for academic purposes only. Students will only be able to receive/send email to and from the TBS network (@theberkeleyschool.org addresses only) and will not be able to use the chat function. For the first few weeks, we will limit email communication to being with teachers only, but in the future hope to use it as a tool for peer collaboration as well.
We will review all email expectations and agreements on Monday 4/20, and then roll out email-specific lessons over the course of the week. In these lessons, we’ll cover composing an email, attaching items, creating filters, etc. We will also create other videos as necessary in order to be responsive to students’ needs.
Email expectations
Email is a tool for students and teachers to communicate with each other directly. Students should use email to do the following:
- See notification of a new assignment, grade or teacher comment
- Ask a question if they have reviewed assignments instructions thoroughly and still need help.
- Let a teacher know if they will miss a class or why they missed a class.
Teachers will respond to email within 24 hours. Students should only email between the hours of 8:30 and 4:00.
Watch this short video to learn the foundations of how to write an email to your teacher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuzKN7fO8Is
Optional Afternoon Office Hours
In conjunction with opening up email for students, we will be adding on an optional 30 minutes afternoon office hour (1:45-2:15) to our schedule, based on the feedback we’ve received from the class who would like more help later in the day. Students will email us to RSVP for the office hour, and then will be able to sign onto the Zoom meeting to check in. Teachers may also request a student sign onto the office hour if we notice they need additional help
Marine Organism Presentations
If you haven’t yet, please fill out the Marine Organism Presentation Survey. These presentations will take place between Tuesday and Friday of next week. For those who completed the survey, here is the link to the current presentation schedule so that you can see when your child is going to present. This is a live doc, so will be added to as we receive more responses. We will not change the times of presentations that are already listed unless you reach out to us and let us know you can no longer make their assigned time.
Unfinished Work
Families will receive a summary from Google Classroom today reporting their child’s work thus far. Please do not panic when you get this, as it may appear very long and overwhelming. We ask that if you have questions about incomplete work, that you ask your child to walk you through their work on Classroom.