Units of Study Virtual Teaching Resources, K-8

The Units of Study Virtual Teaching Resources were created to save teachers time and reduce stress as they adapt Units of Study for virtual and blended teaching. As an added bonus, the student-facing minilesson videos recorded by TCRWP staff developers offer great PD as well. The UOS Virtual Teaching Resources allow teachers’ time to be reserved for the more intensive parts of reading and writing workshops—assessment, conferring, small groups, feedback. Lucy’s team has also created teacher-facing videos and additional PDF resources for adapted workshop instruction (downloadable checklists, charts, etc.). Parent and caregiver videos provide additional support to kids when they aren’t with their teacher. 

• Users of the Units of Study in reading, writing, and phonics, grades K-8, who are engaged in blended or virtual teaching
• Schools and districts that have made a commitment to follow the TCRWP 2020-21 Suggested Sequence in the coming school year
• Schools and districts that are looking for ways to reduce teacher stress and promote efficient remote teaching and learning
• Schools and districts that can benefit from new options for struggling students, kids who are absent, substitute teachers, after school programs, and other similar circumstances where video minilessons can be a help

The UOS Virtual Teaching Resources offer abbreviated (5-10 min.), student-facing minilesson videos for every session in each of the Units selected by TCRWP for inclusion in this specialized 2020-21 sequence. Each separate grade-level, series-specific subscription for reading, writing, and phonics includes 5 units per series in elementary grades and 4 units per series in middle school at a cost of $100 per year-long subscription.

Note that not all the units in the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources are from the core sets of grade-level units (the printed spiral units). In some cases, Lucy and her colleagues have included units sold separately from the core sets (e.g. Mystery or Up the Ladder). If teachers don’t already have those units, they will need to order them. The coauthors have also included some new units they have written specifically for the 2020-21 school year, and, in a couple of cases, they’ve borrowed a unit from the grade before to begin the year. Digital access to those units will be included with the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources subscription.

To learn more about which units are included for each grade level and series, please see the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources brochure and refer to the charts beginning on page 5. Those charts indicate all the units included in the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources along with details on where each unit comes from (i.e. core sets, available separately, new and included in the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources). Note that some of the minilesson videos have been recorded in both English and Spanish. A complete list of units tentatively planned to be offered in Spanish can be found on page 7 in the series brochure.

In addition to the minilesson videos, TCRWP coauthors have created teacher-facing videos and have recorded videos to help parents and other caregivers navigate instruction across each unit, along with a Quick Guide to support teachers as they teach remotely. These digital materials will be available via the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources site.

Subscriptions are available for each grade level and each UOS series (reading, writing, phonics, each available separately by grade). Each subscription is set up to be used by one teacher with resources that can be shared with that teacher’s own students (up to 75 students for grades K-5; up to 150 students for grades 6-8). Note that each teacher is required to have his or her own UOS Virtual Teaching Resources subscription (not shareable, not transferrable).

Subscriptions are fulfilled by email. Each school or district must designate one Subscription Delivery Recipient who will be responsible for receiving, distributing, and tracking the school or district’s subscriptions. It is essential that Heinemann receive name, email address, and phone number for the person who will be responsible for distributing codes (Subscription Delivery Recipient) in order to fulfill orders. That individual will receive one Subscription Activation Code for every series and grade level ordered.

Activation Codes will each be set up to allow the number of subscriptions purchased to be activated (e.g. If a school orders phonics grade 1 subscriptions for 5 teachers and reading grade 3 subscriptions for 8 teachers, they will receive one Activation Code for UOS in Phonics Virtual Teaching Resources, Gr. 1 that can be used five times and one Activation Code for UOS for Teaching Reading Virtual Teaching Resources, Gr. 3 that can be used eight times.).

Then, each teacher will use their Activation Code(s) to register their UOS Virtual Teaching Resources in their Heinemann Online Resources account the same way they have registered their print units.

Each UOS Virtual Teaching Resources subscription is linked to the teacher’s Online Resources for the corresponding print Units of Study and cannot be activated without the print Online Resources being registered. If teachers have not previously registered their print units in Online Resources, they must register those Online Resources before they will be able to access their corresponding UOS Virtual Teaching Resources. Detailed instructions on how to register print units are located in the frontmatter of the unit books. To complete registration for the print units, teachers must have access to their unit books.

Subscriptions are available for the 2020-21 school year, beginning July 20, 2020 and ending July 19, 2021. Subscriptions that start after the July 20, 2020 date will not be prorated.

Each teacher will set up a class login that will be used by that teacher’s students and their parents/caregivers (up to 75 students for each K-5 teacher and up to 150 for each 6-8 teacher). Teachers will share daily links by copying and pasting them from their teacher dashboard into their regular communications with students via whatever learning management system (LMS) they are using (e.g. Google Classroom, Canvas, etc.). Students will use the links to view minilesson videos and download any related resources needed for each day’s instruction. Videos are meant to be used asynchronously and kids can view them as many times as needed.

In some cases, the units included in the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources are those Heinemann offers outside the core sets of print units. Teachers will need copies of those unit books and will need to order if they don’t already have them.

In the cases where TCRWP has included brand new units or units from another grade level that are not available for separate purchase, access to those units will be provided online (not printable, not downloadable).

All resources needed to teach the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources are listed on the order form, in the brochure, and in the Trade Books required for the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources (see question/answer below for details about trade books required to use the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources). Educators can use that information to do an inventory of the print UOS resources they already have and those they will need to purchase.

The UOS Virtual Teaching Resources have been tested on all major browsers on both Mac and Windows platforms, along with Android and iOS tablets and phones. JavaScript must be enabled, and cookies must be accepted to open the minilesson videos.

In order to use the Units of Study Virtual Teaching Resources, you will need to make sure you have the trade books that are referenced as teaching texts throughout the minilesson videos. In many cases the mentor texts/read-aloud texts that are used are the same as those in the corresponding print product, but in some cases new trade books that are not included in the print product's trade book pack are used in the Virtual Teaching Resources. In other cases, new units and stand alone units that are available for separate purchase (such as Show and Tell Writing for Kindergarten) will require trade books outside of those included in the trade book pack of the core units. Any books that are NOT included in the trade book pack for each grade's core print units are marked in the below list in bolded red text. These trade books are available from a variety of online resellers, but unlike the trade book packs for print products, are not available for order through Heinemann.

View the complete list of Trade Books Required for the UOS Virtual Teaching Resources

Note: The Phonics Virtual Teaching Resources does not require any trade books

Each year, the TCRWP staff developers create a new recommended sequence for teaching the Units. This year, their recommended sequence was written to take into account the disruptions that occurred at the end of the 2019-20 school year and ongoing challenges of virtual and blended teaching and learning. The UOS Virtual Teaching Resources were developed based on the published TCRWP 2020-21 Suggested Sequence, but also depart from that document at points to incorporate TCRWP’s newest thinking on how best to meet students’ and teachers’ needs in the 2020-21 school year.

A few of the minilesson videos are being recorded in both English and Spanish. Units with minilessons tentatively planned to be offered in Spanish are listed on page 7 of the series brochure.

• Once the order is processed, the Subscription Delivery Recipient whose email address was provided on your pdf/excel order form (or the person placing the order in the case of online orders) will receive an order confirmation email listing all the activation keycodes for the subscriptions that your school or district ordered along with information indicating how many times each code can be used to activate a new subscription. DO NOT TEST THE CODES UNLESS YOU ARE MEANT TO BE THE END USER OF THE SUBSCRIPTION.
• Please note that this confirmation email contains the codes for ALL subscriptions purchased, so the email must not be forwarded to all teachers.
• Instead, you can copy/paste the keycodes for each teacher into the Subscription Activation Email Template.
• Edit any fields that are in red and insert the appropriate information from your order confirmation email and, if you wish, delete the unnecessary rows.
• You should create a separate email for each teacher who will activate subscriptions.
• The email template provides instructions for activating subscriptions.