While it is always helpful to provide flexible learning environments, it is even more so when schools are facing temporary closures. Empower Learning is currently evaluating how we can support schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consolidating resources, such as those below, will hopefully help support teachers if they need to work remotely. We are also looking at providing free webinars for schools and districts to come together to discuss how to best meet student needs. Information about these additional supports will be emailed to administrators as soon as possible. 

There are many times where it is beneficial to be able to provide instruction, support, and assessment opportunities for students outside of a traditional school environment. Sometimes this is a part of a blended learning model. Other times it can be a way to mitigate lost time during extended absences, illnesses, snow days, or other cases where school buildings are unfortunately required to be closed.

While it is difficult to replace the rich learning environments that exist in classrooms, Empower can provide a few tools that will help minimize the impact that these otherwise wasted days would have on the students. Check out some of these tools below, and explore the links to view these important resources and support.

TEACHER SUPPORTS

Getting Set Up

Create Groups

Instruction and Assessment Resources 

Playlists   Simplified Playlist Handout In Depth Playlist Help Article  Playlist Overview:

Organizing your activities, quizzes, and resources is essential if you are going to allow students to work through content at their own pace. Distance learning is the perfect time to see this in action. Feel free to start you students in your Playlist before it is "finished", as you can always add additional activities and quizzes to it while it is being used in a class!

Activities  Creating Activities Handout Activities Overview: Viewing Student Work Viewing Student Work Handout  The Scoring Inbox How to use The Scoring Inbox: More about Scoring How Students Submit Work For more on this, scroll down and see the Student Supports section of this article.  How Students Submit Work Handout How Students Submit Work tutorial:

Activities in Empower can be created to be extremely detailed and engaging. Don't let that prevent you from getting started with something simpler though! Many teachers have found that it is easiest to start developing Anytime/Anywhere learning opportunities by providing a resource or two, and asking the students to summarize what they have learned. Short essay prompts in a Google doc, links to external practice or assessment resources, and reading/responding to literature are other ways teachers have been able to keep kids learning and engaged while they are not in school. 

Pinning Activities is a great way to make sure an assignment is front and center when a student logs in

Quizzes  Quizzes Overview: Creating Quizzes Handout Scoring Quizzes Handout

Imagine if you had an assistant who assessed all of your students as often as you wanted. They then reported back to the students and entered those scores into your Empower gradebook, connecting each and every question back to a specific standard. That's how teachers feel when they use the quizzes in Empower! While it does take more time to build full and rigorous exams, feel free to start small and see how it can take a load off your plate. Empower quizzes are prefect for assessing vocab and other foundation knowledge. Other teachers have reported using them as pre and post checks in conjunction with a recorded lecture or unit of study. Many teachers report that quizzes are actually one of the most useful tools in Empower! 

Communication

Messaging

In order to help make communication easier, all teachers and all students from the same school can communicate with each other in Empower. While students can message groups and teachers, they are not able to privately message other students. Parents are also able to message in Empower. They can communicate and see messages from their own children and their children's teachers. Even in a thread with a large group, parents won't see any messages from children who aren't their own, nor will those children see theirs.

Messaging can be a great way to ask and answer questions, but it can be so much more! We have heard of teachers who send out a message to their classes every day they have to miss school. They are using these messages to let learners know what new assignments have been added to Empower and provide additional resources. At the end of the day, they are using another group message to send a poll to their learners. This is a great way to help set daily expectations and collect simple feedback for a digital exit ticket.

Parent & Student Portals

Empower offers students and parents access to manage and support learning.  For more information on this, scroll down to the Student & Guardian Supports section of this document.

Parent Emails  

Do you have the need to send an email to all the parents and guardians in a class or group? Click the “Copy Guardian Emails” button in any roster, then paste them in the BCC field in your email client. Doing so, will keep their emails and responses private!

Keeping parents in the loop is oftentimes essential when moving to a distance learning situation. Sending a daily or weekly newsletter to all families will help them understand what your expectations are as their children navigate this new learning environment. Remember to send these group email with the addresses in the BCC field to protect their privacy!

ADMIN SUPPORTS

Attendance and Accountability

It is important to remember that these data points are part of a larger story. We recommend using them to start conversations, identify areas where additional support is needed, and celebrate your successes. Your students and teachers should be lifelong learners. That means learning how to teach and learn online as well.

Admin Webinars

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Recording of the live webinar:

Activity Reports

You can monitor Stakeholder activity with Empower's Activity Reports. This is a simple way to see who has logged in when and what they did, in broad strokes. 




Teacher Activity Report Tutorial:

For many more Admin tools, see our Admin Quick Start Guide

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STUDENT & GUARDIAN SUPPORTS 

Student & Guardian Portal

Managing Access

How do these stakeholders get logged in? What options are there? This article goes deep on all of that. 

Portal Options & Setup

This Article labels and explains every piece of the parent & student portal. It is the most comprehensive place for any questions you may have. 

Video Resources

A Simpler video for younger learners:

Send it to them with this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59TarUJfUw