Virtual Learning with The Positivity Project

We know that school is going to look a lot different in 2020. Building a positive classroom culture and meeting your students’ social and emotional needs will be more difficult — and more important — than ever. 

Regardless of whether your district will be teaching students in a virtual classroom or in a hybrid mix of in-person and virtual, The Positivity Project’s suite of digital resources can meet your character education/SEL needs. 

In 15-minutes a day, our ready-made digital suite of Pre-K – 12 resources will help you build a positive culture by developing a common vocabulary and self-aware, empathetic students — who see character strengths in themselves and others. 

All of The Positivity Project (P2) slides presentations are built in the Google Apps Suite — and can be easily integrated with so many different learning platforms. From Edmodo to Google Classroom to Blackboard to Bloomz, we’re working hard to ensure that you’ll be able to deliver P2 content in any way you want!

And, if you plan on leading virtual morning meetings to build community, our slide presentations will easily adapt to your needs.

First, please remember that P2 resources are accessible from anywhere on the internet in just 3 clicks. Our Ed Tech Coordinator, Frank Adamo, explains the easy way to access our resources in this blog post and in the below video.

Virtual Learning – Synchronous (Live)

If you are teaching your students in a synchronous (live) classroom, we have you set. Our engaging and impactful lessons — differentiated by grade-level — are shared through Google Slides. So, all you need to do is share your screen and use the slides to lead a 15-minute lesson — just like you would do in an in-person classroom. 

Please see below for our Ed Tech Coordinator talking about P2 in a synchronous virtual classroom — and the different technology tools P2 will work with.

Virtual Learning – Asynchronous (On-Demand)

If you’re teaching P2 in an asynchronous (on-demand) fashion, there are multiple ways to use P2 resources. Below is a video of our Ed Tech Coordinator talking through some options. 

*Please note that We strongly suggest that teachers consider the Slide Presentations as “Teacher Materials”. These are great for breaking down and sharing pieces, but if sent directly home as a full document, they can get overwhelming for your students and their parents. 

Screen Record 

If you plan on recording lessons that you teach and then sending them to students, you can simply record your screen as you go through each day’s P2 slideshow. Then, send that link of the screen recording to your students. 

P2 for Families

P2 for Families is a brand new feature that we are adding for 2020-21. P2 for Families is designed to be a simple, straightforward, and easy way to connect P2 to your students’ homes. These will follow a 1-1-3 format of 1 quote, 1 video, and 3 questions/conversation starters. These weblinks will be differentiated for grades Pre-K – 2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. 

Character Cards 

P2 Character Cards are a completely open (public) resource, and they provide a 1-page, detailed look at each character strength. These are available as weblinks and as PDF downloads from our searchable/sortable Resource Database. You can directly link any of these cards right into Google Classroom or send home links directly. Many P2 teachers use these cards regularly in the classroom, and we can’t overstate the value that we see in Partner Schools sending these home with students and parents.

Links and Questions

If you plan on sending your students work to complete on their own time, you can go into a P2 slide presentation and then share the link to that day’s YouTube video or an overview of that day’s activity along with the corresponding questions. Please note that you won’t be able to share the slide presentation directly through Google Classroom in an asynchronous manner, as the presentations are private to P2 Partner Schools. 

However, as noted above, we strongly suggest that teachers consider the Slide Presentations as “Teacher Materials”. These are great for breaking down and sharing pieces, but if sent directly home as a full document, they can get overwhelming for your students and their parents. 

Please see below for our Ed Tech Coordinator talking about P2 in a synchronous virtual classroom — and the different technology tools P2 will work with.

Hybrid (In-Person and Virtual)

Many Partner School districts are moving to a hybrid of in-person and virtual learning. If that’s how you’re planning to teach this year, you’ll be all set with P2. As stated above, P2 works in a virtual classroom, but the resources were originally designed for easy and engaging in-person learning. So, if you are teaching a schedule where your students have one week in-person, two weeks virtual OR two days in-person followed by three days virtual, the P2 resources will have you covered.

In conclusion, regardless of your classroom setting this year, we believe that having a common vocabulary to describe what’s good in people is critically important. It’s also important to remember that character strengths aren’t about ignoring the negative. Instead, they help us overcome life’s inevitable challenges. For example, you can’t be brave without first feeling fear; you can’t show perseverance without first wanting to quit; you can’t show self-control without first being tempted to do something you know you shouldn’t. 

2020 is throwing a lot of challenges our way. That’s why it’s so important to work towards building positive relationships and becoming our best selves. Tapping into our positive relationships and our character strengths — i.e. demonstrating #PositivityInAction — will be critical in helping us be resilient and successful in the face of these tough times.

Wondering what The Positivity Project could look like in your classroom?

We’d like to invite you, and any of your colleagues, to see what #PositivityInAction looks like with a free 7-day trial. You can sign up here so that you can get a true sense of The Positivity Project’s benefits: easy and adaptable for teachers, engaging and impactful for students, a schoolwide common vocabulary, and positive culture.