Our world drastically and significantly changed in March 2020, when students were unceremoniously thrust into distance learning without the benefit of training on navigating CANVAS f or remote learning, decoding electronic due dates without explicit in person instruction and without the support of peers/teachers in the same physical space. This abrupt change was frustrating and confusing for students, their families and teachers ; we have the opportunity to lessen the stress and frustration of distance learning going forward.

In order to reach out to our communities and help them with navigating comprehensive distance learning (CDL), CANVAS and StudentVue, we have a group of amazing staff who are doing home visits, Q and As and presentations to families. This project includes tools (projector, power station, tent) to facilitate remote presentations and live walk through examples while maintaining social distance. Our hope is that by providing live support students and families will support student successes.

Reaching out to students who were reluctant to participate in remote learning was one of the common difficulties our team reported. In addition, teachers reported that students and families had much frustration with navigating CANVAS and associated digital curriculum platforms. Students and their families reported feeling overwhelmed and confused when trying to determine what assignments were due on what day. Often students struggled with small details, such as courses not showing up in the calendar because there was a missing check mark on their course list. Families reported struggling with understanding how to support students and asked about commonly requested information: What assignments is my student missing? What are the assignments due next week? Where can I see my students progress? etc. Having an opportunity to address these questions and have staff navigate canvas live will support student/ family engagement.