Yesterday, Google Classroom revealed to me that my students have received their assignments and some of them even completed them already! Most of my classes receive their assignments today. Our school has divided up the week so that students receive materials on different days based on what class period they would’ve been studying that topic. So, for example, my 3rd Period students received their classwork (which doubles as homework!) yesterday since Periods 1-3 receive materials on Mondays and Thursdays, whereas my 4th-7th Period students (I teach 3rd-7th) all received their materials today and will receive more on Friday.
This morning I used Google Meet to conduct a virtual Advisory. It was good to see my advisees. They seem to be doing well. Most of them shared a basic report: it’s super easy to get all their work done, but they miss being with people. Welcome to online learning, students!
To protect us, and our students, my employer requires that we record our online sessions. Google Meet’s recording option is simple. I imagine the same is true of Zoom. Additionally, this allows me to post the video for advisees/students who may have missed the ‘live’ event.
Today I’m lesson planning for my ‘Religion in the United States’ course. My students will learn about the Latter-day Saints and the Adventists this week. Next week, they’ll be introduced to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostals. I tie these groups together in a few ways. First, they’re all expressions of Christianity that emerged in an American context. Second, they’re all shaped by the glow of the Civil War and world as it was around the turn from the 19th century to the 20th century. Third, each group is ‘restorationist’ in nature, claiming to have found something about the earliest version of Christianity that had been lost and needed to be recovered. Fourth, each group emphasizes the Second Coming of Christ in some way whether it be the very identity of the Latter-day Saints, or the predictions of William Miller for the Adventists, or the mystery of the 144,000 for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or the restoration of ‘apostolic power’ during the ‘latter rain’ for the Pentecostals. I’ll miss discussing these groups in person, in class, with my students. They’re all fascinating in their own right. I just hope my students still get a basic understanding of these movements, their founders, their distinctive identities and such, in spite of being limited to the virtual classroom.
LePort 
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