7 Tips for Virtual Morning Meetings
Many teachers are asking how they can lead morning meetings remotely. We are trying to wrap our brains around creating meaningful morning meeting conversations while teaching students from a distance. To be honest, it took me a few months of school shutdowns to realize that resources for virtual morning meetings were going to be greatly needed this school year—so in June, I headed down the road of creating virtual morning meeting slides, digital student notebooks, and editable lesson plans for all of my morning meeting units. These digital resources for morning meetings answer a LOT of the “what to do” questions by laying out the topics, vocabulary, discussion questions, activities, reflections, and supplemental resources day by day. BUT, I’ve been thinking about specific tips I would suggest for teachers who are leading virtual morning meetings. I hope these 7 tips set you up for success with your morning meeting time!
ESTABLISH NORMS FOR MORNING MEETINGS
Having norms for morning meeting time is not a new concept brought on by virtual teaching. I’ve always used the book Table Manners by Chris Rashka to discuss “carpet manners” and generate a list of norms for our meeting time (in the glorious days when we were able to snuggle up on a carpet and sit close to one another).
Set aside time to lead a lesson where you generate ideas for manners, norms, and virtual etiquette that students should use during virtual morning meeting time. You and your students may find that many of the manners we would use during an in-person meeting (be respectful of the speaker by listening and making eye contact, use appropriate signals to ask questions and participate, etc) may still be appropriate for a virtual meeting, but you will want to address the specific needs of virtual meetings. Consider things like:
What are your expectations for participation?
Should microphones be muted or unmuted?
Should students raise hands to share?
Are students allowed to use the chat feature during discussions, and what’s allowed or not allowed within that feature?
Discuss how students feel about having their cameras on. Should this be required? (I don’t think so, but I prefer that students turn their cameras on when possible.) You can explain when it is appropriate to turn the camera off and that you’d prefer it was on so that students can build that connection with their classmates and teacher.
Whether you’ve started your morning meetings already or not, this discussion can still be really valuable for setting expectations that will make your morning meetings go more smoothly AND help everyone get more out of your time together. If you’ve already started meetings, just take a few days to acknowledge how things have been going, admit that you made an “oopsie” by forgetting to create norms from the beginning, and talk about how meetings have been going (be sure to highlight the good!) and how you all can improve your meetings.
You’ll want to compile the norms in some visual way for students to see—then go over them at the beginning of each morning meeting lesson as long as it’s necessary.
CHOOSE A FOCUS TOPIC TO USE FOR A WEEK OR MORE
While I know some morning meeting routines pick and choose activities from a variety of social-emotional topics, over the years, I’ve learned to organize my morning meetings into a sequence of lessons focused on one topic for 2-3 weeks. We start the year with the topic of developing a sense of belonging, I teach units on kindness, compassion, perseverance, growth mindset, and a whole list of other themes.
At a time when learning can seem so disjointed, I think it’s more important than ever to choose ONE topic that you think will benefit your students’ social and emotional needs and help create relationships within your classroom community. Plan to spend 2-3 weeks teaching about that topic and developing students’ understanding of it—then move on to another. (You won’t regret it!)
I’ve created 16 morning meeting theme sets that include lots of suggested activities, student journal pages, bulletin boards, and a digital format that includes teacher slides, student notebooks, and 15 days of editable lesson plans. The digital morning meeting activities are in Google Slides that can be used in Google Classroom or downloaded as a PowerPoint to use on other platforms.
HAVE A PLAN! AND OVER-PLAN!
After choosing a topic, the next most important thing you can do to make sure your virtual morning meetings are a success is to plan, plan, plan! Based on your topic, you'll want to pull together a variety of activities to choose from, including read alouds, short videos, related discussion questions, self-reflections, journal prompts, and other activities. I’ve always used these methods for my in-person meetings, but now I’ve created the Google Slides for teachers and student notebooks to help with live teaching and assigning reflection activities to students virtually. And, lucky for you, PLAN PLAN PLAN is exactly what I’ve done with 15 days of editable lesson plans for each theme unit.
I’ve literally pulled together recommended read alouds, created video playlists, found at least 5 inspiring quotations, written discussion questions, identified and defined key vocabulary, and come up with other journals and enriching activities for 16 different morning meeting topics! You’ll have lots of choices so that you can mix and match based on the needs and energy of your students.
You can plan, plan, plan, but you are also welcome to copy my plans!
CONSIDER WHICH ACTIVITIES WILL BE MORE MEANINGFUL AND IMPACTFUL DURING LIVE TEACHING
Once you’ve pulled together some read alouds, videos, activities, and other resources, you’ll want to plan how you’re going to use them. If your students are experiencing a hybrid model of remote and in-person learning, be intentional about what activities you use online and what you do with them while in person—the same is true if you are using a mix of live online teaching and recorded videos.
While you can periodically pre-record a read aloud or assign students to watch a video for your morning meeting lessons, consider which modes of instruction will build community while you are together. I find that reading aloud to students and watching funny or heartwarming videos (often integrated into my morning meeting plans!) are a big component of allowing us to bond with one another.
In my opinion, read alouds are better as a shared experience. However, if you need to pre-record some of your lessons, consider trying some of these tactics to keep the community building aspect going:
Begin a read aloud during your morning meeting lesson, but pause the story at a part that leaves students begging for more. Have a discussion related to the theme you are studying and the events in the story. Then, you could record yourself finishing the rest of the read-aloud for students to watch later in the day.
Pre-record yourself reading a 5-10 minute portion of the chosen picture book. Have students watch this video before your live meeting. At the start of your meeting, ask students to summarize what happened at the beginning of the story. As you discuss the events of the story, be sure to ask comprehension questions, and connect to your current theme. Then, finish the story with students live. This option allows you to front-load your read aloud and move through a longer story more quickly because part of it is done outside of your live teaching time.
NOTE: Be sure to follow copyright laws when recording books for online use. Many publishers have given permission for teachers to use their books online during this pandemic but as a teacher, it is your responsibility to check copyright. Likely, you should not post your recorded read aloud in a place that anyone on the web can view to follow fair use guidelines. Oftentimes the authors themselves have read the book on Youtube so using the video created by the author or publisher is a way to make sure that you are not breaking copyright laws and saving your valuable time all at once!
SUGGESTIONS FOR USING VIDEO CLIPS
Video clips are another resource that you’ll want to carefully consider how to use based on their content and the goal you have for using them. I include video suggestions in all of my morning meeting theme units; it’s important to decide whether the videos you plan to use are a good fit for live teaching or independent assignments.
For example, when you are using a video as a launch to your morning meeting unit, I think you’ll want to experience that video as a whole group.
When you are using a video that is more focused on content and teaching students something specific--for example, during our Growth Mindset unit, I choose a few videos that describe the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. In this case, it would be appropriate to assign students to watch the video and take notes as they listen. Students can be encouraged to pause the video when needed and re-watch parts to fill in their notes.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
Just like plan, plan, plan, you’ll want to practice, practice, practice some of these new modes of teaching. For example, if you want to play videos during an online meeting, practice with another teacher. You may need to change a setting in order to allow the sound from a video to play on participants' computers--and you don’t want to discover this during your time with students!
ENCOURAGE PARTICIPATION, BUT
...check-in privately with students who do not participate.
While some students will love participating and sharing their thoughts and reflections, others may choose to sit back and listen. Since morning meeting topics can be personal and sensitive at times, it's important not to force or require participation. However, I recommend keeping a sticky note to jot down the names of students who do not participate OR a classlist where you can check off when students participate.
To check-in with students who have not participated in meetings, you have a few exciting options that WILL help you build a connection with those students.
Check-in on their responses in the Digital Morning Meeting Notebooks. If the students are completing their assignments, write notes in a different color in the margins, or ask a question to get them to expand on their responses. You can even leave a compliment and encourage them to share something they’ve written in a future meeting.
Ask a student who hasn’t participated much to stay on after the group lesson. You can ask what they thought about the discussion, read aloud, or activity. You can ask them which notebook activity they’ve enjoyed and if they have any questions. You can also simply ask them to share their personal goal with you--something that may be fairly easy to share because they’ve already completed a reflection and have something written down.
Taking the time to check in with students that don’t share may encourage them to participate in future meetings. In addition, this will help hold them accountable for still doing the thinking and reflecting during a meeting and assignments even if they are not sharing with the whole group.
I know that having morning meetings in a virtual setting is challenging and not ideal. I also know that morning meetings are a routine way to take care of students’ social-emotional needs and that many teachers are finding success with virtual morning meetings.
GET THE FREE GOOGLE SLIDES FOR YOUR FIRST MORNING MEETING
You can try out my virtual morning meeting lesson plans for free! Get the teacher slides, student slides, and editable lesson plans sent to your inbox! With a few clicks, you’ll be ready with lesson ideas, student journal pages, discussion prompts, self-reflections, goal setting, activities, and more!
OTHER GOOGLE SLIDES FOR MORNING MEETINGS
I am currently working to add teacher and student Google Slides to all of my morning meeting theme sets. These will be added to the original resource listings on Teachers Pay Teachers or my Tarheelstate Teacher website store at no extra cost! Currently, Google Slides for Belonging, Kindness, Compassion, Perseverance, Conflict Resolution, and Growth Mindset are available.
You can check out the full theme sets below, but please be sure to grab your free Growth Mindset materials! I can’t wait for you to get a hold of them and try them out with your students!
THEMES TO GUIDE YOUR MORNING MEETINGS ALL YEAR
If you’d like more social emotional theme units with a focus on encouraging students’ social, emotional, and academic success, you may be interested in the Morning Meeting Mega Bundle of 17 theme units. With units focused on kindness, compassion, growth mindset, gratitude, perseverance, responsibility, managing emotions, and so much more, your engaging morning meeting plans are done for you and your students will love them! You can save 10% on the Mega Bundle of all 17 themes with the code MM10.
Teachers, what other strategies have you found success with this year? Please share the wealth in the comments below!