First E-Learning News Letter

I will do my best to post a newsletter on the class website blog each week and then share the link on google classroom. There are several updates to share.

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OFFICE HOURS

Science office hours will be between 1:00 and 2:00 or 2:30 everyday. I will post a link to a zoom discussion meeting. You can come and go as you please to ask questions, video chat or just to say hello. You will not be required to come to the meeting. You can still send me questions at any time through google classroom or Remind. These office hours are meant to provide guaranteed access to me daily.

ASSESSMENTS

For 802, 804, 805 and 809, there will be an upcoming assessment on ecology. Assessments will be posted on edulastic and you will have a window of a few days to begin an exam. Once you begin the exam they will be timed. If you stop, the timer will pause and start again when you log back in. You will have a specific amount of time to complete the assessment.

GRADES

As of right now, we are being told to post grades for e-learning assignments in pupilpath and to use that as our main grade reporting location. So unless told otherwise, you should use any feedback or scores in google classroom to help guide your e-learning experience, but pupilpath grades are the ones that are going to count.

You may see some assignments from before the school shutdown that have no grades. There was a substantial amount of material left to grade when the shutdown began and as far as I know there will be no opportunity for me to retrieve that material. You obviously will not be penalized in any way.

STATE ASSESSMENTS

To my understanding all NYS Assessment have been canceled except for regents exams. This includes the Intermediate Science Exam for 8th grade. Little information is available about the regents and lab hour requirements, but it seems that they will be administered in some way. 801 will proceed under the assumption that we will be taking the exam.

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A NOTE ON COVID-19

If you have a chance, take a look the last blog post I wrote. Take time to reflect on what is happening around you. When we ask the question 'When will this be over?' the unfortunate answer is... never. This will never be over. Global disasters change the world, and so will this one. It will likely be 12-18 months before this pandemic gets to a manageable state, but SARS-CoV-2 isn't going away. It will take even longer for society to recover, and we are only at the very beginning of this.

This Herculean push to advance our content and learning is admirable and noble, but it is also denial-ism. It's a hard sprint to a finish-line that is much much farther away than it may seem. Slow down. Pay attention to what is going on around you. You will adjust. You will adapt. It will be hard. Your life, your future and the world has been changed in a way you never thought possible, but so has everybody else's.

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