MY CLASSROOM

I currently teach high school science courses for Michigan Virtual. I teach a variety of grades and courses that are taught 100% online. Some examples include credit recovery chemistry, biology, AP Chemistry, Medical Terminology, and Anatomy and Physiology. Just to name a few! My students can range anywhere from 8th-12th grade. My organization is a vendor, not a school. School districts contract with us for their online learning needs. This means that I work with students from all across the state in many different districts. We serve every type of school you can imagine! Now that you have a little bit of context, I would like to take you on a tour of my virtual classroom! Below you can find a description of the different components of my classroom, and above I walk you through what my online classroom actually looks like. 

When you walk into a physical classroom, you can instantly see and feel what type of classroom you are in. The goal for an online classroom is no different! When students walk into my online classroom, I want them to feel welcomed and part of a learning community. One of the most important aspects that should be apparent as you walk through my virtual classroom, is my teacher persona. In all of the elements of my classroom, I try to infuse my personality and personal touch so that students can start to feel a connection with me. When you do not see your students everyday, it is easy for them to not think of their instructor as an actual human being. My goal is to make that impossible by infusing my teacher persona in all corners of my virtual classroom. 

Navigating an online classroom can be very overwhelming and confusing to students when they first use a new Learning Management System (LMS). When students come into my classroom, I have resources that will help them learn how to navigate the online space. If they have trouble with navigating (or with anything else), there are also resources that will show them how to get the help they need. 

As with a face-to-face classroom, there are certain expectations and procedures that the students need to learn and follow. You can find these expectations and procedures in a few different places in my virtual classroom. An example would be my Student Welcome Letter. 

The Announcements page of my classroom is where the magic happens! This versatile tool serves a multitude of functions. This is a place where I can give students weekly updates on what is going on in their course. Every week, a pacing guide is posted to help students manage their time. I also provide the students with learning goals, study tips, and supplemental materials that correspond with the work they complete that week. I also use this space to continually build my online learning community by embedding videos and flipgrids for my students to participate in. Here is an example of part of my announcements for my Biology B course. 

The content of the course is located in the Module tabs. This is where students can find all of their lessons, assignments, labs, quizzes and assessments. All content is delivered asynchronously with 100% flexible pacing. The Discussion tab is where we have whole group discussions on various topics throughout the course. To try and foster conversation, we ask students to make an original post, comment on one of their classmate’s posts, then reply to a classmate who commented on their original post. Students are able to step away from the discussion and then come back and engage in a conversation with their classmate. Finally, students can check their grades and read my feedback in the “My Grades” section. 

Not shown in the video is our Student Information System (SIS). This is the tool students use to log into our system, communicate with me, look at their grades, along with many other functions. 

As you can see, the online classroom may look and feel different than a face-to-face classroom, but has all of the same elements!