When it comes to catching up a child (or multiple children) up on work in a virtual environment, it requires the cooperation of the student and the planning on the part of the parent for it to have a chance to work. Communication with teachers can be key, so maintaining that open line between parents and teachers is necessary. Hopefully, the issue is caught much more quickly than it was on the part of my children, which makes the solution easier to implement. The first step, though, is to decide that it can be done and to find the determination to make it happen.
Read Part I here.
Once every one involved is on board with getting your child caught up, the next step is planning and evaluating. I had to take a look at exactly what was missing from the work my children were supposed to have done. Keeping in mind any deadlines that teachers have to maintain due to grading turn around, I started with the work that was most critical (tests). I had to look hard at what would be required to have my child prepared to take that test and worked backward.
For example, in math the material builds upon itself. There is no skipping around as a general rule. When I found my daughter behind in math, I looked at all of the material involved. We were lucky in that at least one unit was just a review. Instead of having her go step- by- step through the lessons and complete all of the homework assigned, we reviewed what she knew and she went straight to the tests. That did half of the work of catching up for us.
In a subject, though, where you can skip around we looked at what weighed the most grade wise and tackled that first. For example, my son had an essay that weighed like a test. He started with that assignment and turned it in. From there we started from the beginning and worked through the assignments to fill in the gaps as much as we could.
For both of my children, though, the work required a week worth of working 8-12 hours on school work. This was critical, though, as they were also trying to prepare for mid-term exams at the same time. They had to fill in the gaps of assignments, as well as learning the material. I’m fortunate that my children knew the consequences of not putting in the effort, so they made the extra effort to work with me to get it done. The teachers knew what we were doing and were on board with our methods of catching up as well, which helped. In our case, though, it was up to me to do the planning and evaluating as the teachers had little to no input to give me. We were constantly getting the “we fear your child will fail” message from the staff without much constructive input.
Not to put a negative spin on what happened, the children getting behind was as much my fault as it was my children’s fault. Also, not all virtual school teachers are the same. If you can get your teacher on board, they can help you help your child do what needs to be done. They may even be able to help you plan what the most important assignments are. It’s a difference between schools and teachers and something that you have to keep in mind when enrolling your child in a virtual environment.
Now my Educator’s Room family, what would you do if your child got behind in school?
