Daria-Yakovleva / Pixabay

 

When we go back on Monday, we’ll have three weeks of instruction to go until Winter Break.

During “normal” times, during the final week of class before vacation, my classes would have pot lucks, opt-in low-cost “Secret Santas” (with students knowing in advance that if they couldn’t afford it, I’d get it for them), and, thanks to my wife, all students would get bags of pistachios.

It’s a different world this year with full-time virtual instruction.

I’m still thinking of doing voluntary Secret Santas but, this year, instead of gifts, asking students to create fun videos of what they appreciate about the person they get.  There are online tools to “draw names “ out of virtual hats to mimic what we would ordinarily do in a physical classroom, but I think I’ll just assign names to people and try to be a bit strategic in trying to make sure students know the people they get – at least a bit.

I’m also thinking of creating a Quizizz game that is a combination of fun and review questions that students can play in teams or on their own, with real prizes of $5 online Amazon gift certificates that I can send via text (our students often can’t receive emails at their student addresses from outside sources, which can be problematic for a number of reasons, not just for Amazon gift cards!).

That’s all I have at the moment.   I’m eager to hear other people’s plans, and you can contribute them via Facebook comment or tweet, in addition to blog comments, and I’ll add them here.