We’re meeting with our kids once a week: each class is divided into four groups, with each group meeting on a given day. The other days the students are engaged in online learning or e-learning or whatever it’s called now. So here was my question: how do I plan lessons around that. Two options seemed obvious:

1. Teach a special lesson on the day that the kids are with me and something else for the other kids. This seems to make the most of the fact that we’re together, in person. We don’t want to spend that time on activities that don’t need me right there — like reading a short text. We want that time for discussions, for one-on-one help. For things like that.
2. Teach the same thing to the kids at home and at school.

Obviously, from the argument I just made, I was leaning toward option one. But then there’s all the potential disasters:

• It will be almost impossible for the kids to keep up with what’s what.
• Forget the kids — it would be tough for me to keep track of who’s where doing what.
• What happens if we have a fire drill or something on that day? Those kids just lose out on that particular lesson.
• What happens at the end of the quarter? Everyone is not at the same place at the same time. How can I equitably grade them?

Yet the second option has similar issues. I have to make sure that the activities are equitably spaced out among the days: I can’t have Monday kids always doing close reading with me and Thursday kids always writing things based on Monday’s close reading. Then there’s the question of how to assess and provide feedback to the kids who were at home that day. Do I come home from school and spend another six hours going over what kids did online?

The argument for e-learning until things to back to normal grows stronger…