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Here are our general observations, a review of where the sentiment is and productivity is, almost a year after Covid19 hit. 02:05 Our hopes 03:06 Teachers are still being very reactive, day to day based on COVID cases coming in and out 04:26 Thinking about our first graders and their teachers 06:10 Administrators putting out even weirder fires  08:01 Teacher confidence – getting teachers comfortable to be in the classroom and bring their best for kids 09:17                  Source: TeacherGoals 11:00 If we are saying that it is this urgent, then let’s prove it with money and our thanks and our time. 12:50 Do good teaching. Think back to what you know is best practice and do that. And that way, whatever you plan will translate back into your school day.  

Why do we pull data and set goals around sub-groups in a school when we have a goal that’s hoping to meet the needs of all students?   02:00 Schools setting goals based on data on student academic success 03:00 Schools also set goals based on specific subgroups  03:30 Trying to understand where some of the goals developed for subgroups came from 04:30 You look into the data, you see some gaps, you want to target success in those specific areas. And then you set those sub-goals based on where those gaps are.  05:38 When we ignore the data indicating that certain subgroups are in crisis, we’re also ignoring their experience.  07:00 How are we gathering as a community around these needy kids?  08;36 Where is your focus when there are subpopulations and sub-goals 09:50 Personalized learning comes in to meet the students at their individual needs 10:50 If you plan for your neediest students, everyone’s going to benefit. 13:30 We need to plan from the student up, not the teacher down.   

What is the impact on relationships that this remote virtual learning world has put on teachers, parents, students, and staff? 02:00 Why this episode 03:00  Building rapport and building relationships 03:19 Transactional relationships 03:45 You don’t have those water cooler moments anymore 04:17 How do you build trust? 05:00 Strategy cycles at Whiteknact Elementary, with principal Laurie Marchand  06:00 “The reason I build rapport with my students is so that they feel safe.” 06:30 We need to continue to make connections and build rapport because we don’t have those in-between moments anymore. 06:53 Why do we default into existing, comfortable relationships?  It’s because we haven’t been able to build trust. 09:42 What are the great work that teachers are doing to build rapport?    

What can potentially engage students virtually? Here are different tactics to lessen the load on the emotional exhaustion that happens from running a virtual classroom all day, and to increase student engagement. 04:49 Flipped model for learning 09:01 Having an agenda or checklist 10:46 Pick sticks 13:05 Waterfall response  

We talk about stamina as it pertains to distance learning from the student and teacher perspective, and the challenge of student engagement. 01:32 Three  buckets of stamina: from the lens of a teacher from a first grader doing distance learning from an older learner, an adolescent ninth-grade student 04:31 Everybody is trying to get some sort of sense of belonging, some sort of sense of connection, but at the same time, you have this cognitive dissonance 05:38 Is this a muscle that we just have to exercise over the next month or is this something that we’re going to be really working for the next year? 07:22 One of the things that’s connected to stamina is engagement. How are we keeping kids engaged as their stamina ends? And as my stamina, as a teacher, kind of ebbs? … What can I do about it? 08:15 Action steps on how to focus on improving virtual stamina  

Continuing our family-facing series on supporting your child at home, we talk about practicing social emotional learning (SEL) at home, what SEL means, and its familiar and unfamiliar applications.    02:00 Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is about being able to manage one’s self and relationships. CASEL defines SEL as the process, through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions.  CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) https://casel.org/ 08:04 What do you suggest that families do for their kids at home to help practice social emotional learning?  09:05 Science behind learning, stress, and mindfulness 10:00 Managing emotions and starting by, you know, engaging in activities around mindfulness and connection. http://mindfulness.org 12:33 Helping kids recognize when they’re feeling anxious, when they’re feeling stressed, when you know that they’re getting that fight or flight response, what are the things that calm them down 15:15 Setting up an emotional or mental break space and laying out the foundation to then apply academics 15:29 Sources and effects of stress 19:00 Another strategic way that families can support kids is by reiterating the value of what they’re learning so that they’re reframing learning from a source of stress, to something that is interesting and relevant and fun and inspiring and can be an empowering force in their lives, a transformative force in their lives. 20:00  How do we help kids just reframe their mindsets around learning so that it has value for them and it’s meaningful for them, and it’s a source of inspiration and even refuge when there are so many stressors that they can not control? 22:00 Start with doing guided meditation together or create a little toolbox of like strategies that you do when you’re stressed out.  23:00 how to motivate kids – concept of the learning challenge 27:39 James Nottingham’s learning pit  The Learning Pit   https://www.challenginglearning.com/learning-pit/ 29:00 James Nottingham’s book, “The Learning Challenge” https://www.challenginglearning.com/product/the-learning-challenge-usa/ BEP052 – What Does “Developmentally Appropriate” Mean? http://meeteducationproject.com/2020/04/14/bep052-what-does-developmentally-appropriate-mean/ 32:36 Teaching kids to know how to name and recognize emotions to help them know what they need to do to shift their behavior 36:01 caregivers, give yourself a break. You don’t need to be an expert. You don’t need to be a tutor. You just have to be a coach for your kids.   

Malika Ali joins us in this series about parents supporting their distant learners; a resource for parents on how to set their child up to be able to learn at home.  In this episode, we talk about how to set up the learning environment, and develop routines and procedures at home that allow the student ultimately to be self-directed.   03:10 This series is essentially meant to support the student to be self-directed, and the parent to manage the process… But ultimately it’s about working with students to really own the process so that we can be their cheerleaders and not so much their coaches, not so much their tutors.  06:36 Creating a dedicated space for learning to help the child to have structure, have some predictability, and feel organized.  09:53 The key to setting up the learning environment, very similar to setting up a classroom as a teacher, is to make the resources student-friendly and accessible to eliminate the need for questions. 10:08 Have a dedicated space for breaks.  13:00 It’s helpful to have kids understand that they can proactively schedule those breaks, but they also, and they should, use it when they need it.  13:37 The key is about also giving students, giving your children, some choice [on their schedule]. 20:09 When you build new routines in a classroom or with your kids at home, there’s definitely a learning curve.  22:07 Constantly use reinforcing language that’s really positive to kids. 23:16 If I was brand new to this, what is one small step I can take?  23:28 Coming up with your own schedule, and modeling that with your kid, showing them how you set up your schedule in the day where you have flexibility, where you don’t, and how you use the time where you do have flexibility, how you manage that, really just narrating your own process for whatever thinking you want your child to do as well.  

This episode is a deep dive on teachers and what they’re dealing with as they go back to school and focus on student success.   01:44 The teachers are on the front lines of this, having to focus on student success, but also, redesign and rethink how they’re approaching these models.  04:39 Polarization of emotions for teachers, like the excitement of being able to see the students, but also, the exhaustion. 06:41 I can imagine being excited to be with students and see students, but are they (the teachers) in general, excited to be in person, or is there a hesitation?  09:38 Things that teachers are nervous about going back to school How do I communicate to families the right kind of help? How do I coach parents and families around letting their kids struggle but not feeling helpless?  How do I get to know my students who might happen to be distance learners? What’s one way I can get to know my students collectively that works in person or virtually? 11:36 Families, you want to help, how do you support your kids at home?  establish a routine set up a learning environment  addressing stress and anxiety  13:08 How do you figure out ways in the classroom to get students moving much more? 15:43 I want to give a shout out to all the teachers out there.You know, pre- COVID you guys are heroes. Now, just super, super, super heroes. So thank you for all you’re doing. Best of luck is as you get into the new routines, going back to school. 16:23 What do teachers need to bring into this 2020 school year for success?  Just a sense of grace for yourself and your colleagues and the kids in front of you. Include family support in the right way and from the beginning.  Take a deep breath. No one’s done this before. You got this.      

How are people making back-to-school decisions for K-12? We share our perspectives on some of the different strategies for going back to school.   01:24 Guidance from the state for how schools should be considering going back to school. 02:58 How are the school leaders impacted and trying to make these decisions and what are some of the decisions you’ve already seen? 03:21 As a school leader, as the school administrator, we talk about teachers wearing different hats. And the same is true for leadership, where you go from kind of being an expert in knowing your people and an expert in the bird’s eye view of your school curriculum. 06:19 It also makes me think about longer term. Does this adversity create some amazing strength in the school leaders and these teachers to be able to adapt? 11:32 And the thing that we feel like we’ve really boiled down, what we’re all about, are people, like putting the student at the center, and really focusing on the experience of the people that make up a school system.     

Today’s One Thing is a series produced in partnership with The Learning Accelerator. Week 6: How do you differentiate remote instruction?   00:42 Recap of past episodes 01:40 What differentiation is and is not 03:35 Tips for looking at differentiation in 3 different ways: Targeting instruction by strategically grouping your students Offering opportunities for choice Universal accessibility of content 04:31 How are you using data? 05:04 Buffet analogy 05:41 Targeting instruction by strategically grouping your students – heterogeneous or homogenous grouping 07:00 Assigning differentiated playlists 07:13 Using leveled reading tools 07:50 Students know when they’re getting different content 08:25 Having interactive online discussions Flipgrid https://info.flipgrid.com/ 09:28 Thinking about what do all of my students need and what do some of my students need 10:56 Why some teachers have been hesitant to dive into differentiation 13:08 Offering opportunities for choice Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ IXL https://www.ixl.com/ NoRedInk https://www.noredink.com/ 14:40 Playlists  15:11 Choice boards 15:49 Offering students choice for how they work and with whom they want to be working 17:38 The data should show you what is the best path for you. 18:01 Presenting the same content in multiple ways 18:56 Offering the content in multiple modalities Combining the written or verbal material with visual material Wave accessibility scanner https://wave.webaim.org/ Mercury Reader https://mercury.postlight.com/reader/ Open Dyslexic font https://opendyslexic.org/ 21:30 Think about ways that you can flip your lesson plans to make them student-facing  

In this Part 2 of the Distance Learning Feedback series, we share what students and teachers want to leave behind once we get to a new normal in the classroom.   01:04 Why talking about the “leave behinds” is important 01:22 Students and teachers miss actually being in person  04:16 Some students are struggling with independent work 06:49 Students think that virtual and distance learning doesn’t feel real 07:05 For teachers, it’s hard to put a cap on communication09:50 For teachers, teaching other kids and their own at the same time is a challenge  

Today’s One Thing is a series produced in partnership with The Learning Accelerator. Week 5: How do I assess learning to inform and improve instruction remotely?   01:12 Data points to be used not to assign grades but as a concrete way to collect information to meet students instructional needs 02:24 What is important is how we can measure how our students are progressing with the assignments we are giving them, and what kind of formative data we can collect to help us inform future lessons that we’re going to be rolling out 03:29 Step 1: What past data do I have access to? Illuminate – https://www.illuminateed.com/ iReady – https://www.curriculumassociates.com/products/i-ready 05:46 Step 2: How are you going to collect progress and formative data now? Poll Everywhere – https://www.polleverywhere.com/ Edpuzzle – https://edpuzzle.com/ Go Formative – https://goformative.com/ 08:38 Using rubrics  11:25 Step 3: Non-academic data 13:39 Creating learner profiles for your students 14:08 How you can leverage any kind of family communication that’s sent by the school Rocketship Care Corps https://www.rocketshipschools.org/distance-learning/community/care-corps/ 15:36 At Highlander, when you’re collecting information or data, your primary goal should be around impact. 16:13 The balance measure 16:38 Kids talking about how they don’t like school anymore 17:39 How can I make my students feel safe, or how can I help their family meet any needs? 19:25 Next step for families: Connect with teachers 20:54 When you’re talking about assessment any time, you should have a purpose behind why you’re assessing.  

Christina did a survey in mid-March, asking students and teachers: What was successful about distance learning? What do you want to keep?   01:29 Reason for the survey 03:03 Use of choice boards and playlists so that students can learn at their own pace 03:51 What is a choice board? 05:18 What is a playlist? 06:11 Why do you think these things (choice boards and playlists)  have worked in this environment? 09:46 Opportunity for more teacher collaboration 10:42 Are teachers replacing this with live Zoom calls or are they doing it to complement it?  12:08 The students liked having choice and they liked being able to have a little bit of control of when and how they complete their tasks 12:46 Teachers liked using screencasts to create their mini lessons 13:05 Using appointment calendars for communications Calendly – http://calendly.com 14:00 Students liked seeing their teachers 14:17 What action can we help teachers potentially take based on this feedback? 14:35 Choice-based asynchronous opportunities with small group follow up is a format to follow.  

Today’s One Thing is a series produced in partnership with The Learning Accelerator. Week 4: How can educators flip existing content or curate content online to personalize and engage students, still with high levels of rigor?   01:41 Teachers, don’t recreate the wheel 02:21 Flipping the content: How can teachers translate their already existing super high-quality materials into the remote space? 05:12 Curating content: Open Educational Resources Commons https://www.oercommons.org/ EdReports https://www.edreports.org/ Teaching Tolerance https://www.tolerance.org/ The Learning Accelerator https://learningaccelerator.org/ Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ Imagine Math https://www.imaginelearning.com/ IXL https://www.ixl.com/ 08:19 Do screencasting for  a kickoff lesson to set expectations 08:52 Think about authentic tasks to challenge kids to get involved in The Smithsonian https://www.si.edu/ 09:43 Providing options around the learning experiences that the kids are going to have Flipgrid https://info.flipgrid.com/ 10:26 Delivering the content Google classroom https://classroom.google.com/u/0/ Edmodo https://www.edmodo.com/ 13:17 Creating systems for help-seeking  

We’re talking about screencasting in the classroom: how is it used and how can it help re-imagine effective learning in this new virtual world.    01:30 What is screencasting? 02:14 Screencastifty https://www.screencastify.com/ 03:07 Making interactions more efficient 04:19 A teacher’s experience, and feedback from students  05:56 What Screencastify can do for thinking and learning 06:32 How do we focus on outcomes first and design backward as to how we’re going to make this the best experience for somebody virtually, and then figure out the tools that complement that?  06:46 Doing synchronous and asynchronous work for blended learning 08:05 Teachers’ challenges and how they can use Screencastify to address these concerns 10:45 How can I best use my instructional time?  11:13 Loom http://loom.com  

Today’s One Thing is a series produced in partnership with The Learning Accelerator. Week 3: How can we develop systems and strategies that help students to self-manage engagement and progress, and also own the accountability for their work?    01:13 Recap of past Today’s One Thing episodes 02:51 4 different things you can do to help encourage accountability 03:24 Identifying your goals 04:15 Each of your students have different learning needs 05:03 Different ideas that you can track for accountability attendance participation completion of tasks how many times students connect with their peers 06:57 Tech tools Jamboard https://gsuite.google.com/products/jamboard/ Padlet https://padlet.com/ 07:40 Turn and talks 08:50 Leveraging technology to help hand over the keys  Google Docs https://www.google.com/docs/about/ Google Sheets https://www.google.com/sheets/about/ Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ 12:27 Making sure that goals set by students or for students are attainable 18:36 I know this language 19:07 Give yourself some grace  

We’re sharing virtual end-of-year activities and ideas in the classroom.   03:08 Compliment trade or compliment exchange 05:46 Digital scrapbook Canva https://www.canva.com/ Google Slides https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/0/ 07:05 Top 10 list 08:05 Letter to your future self 10:32 Dance video 11:17 Virtual awards event Edutopia – https://www.edutopia.org/  

Bianca Davila of The Learning Accelerator joins us again as we talk about how can educators help set up daily structures at home so that students can engage with content, feel supported, and build habits that create independence and autonomy.   The Learning Accelerator – https://learningaccelerator.org/ 02:40 What are the tips and tricks to just make it the best that they can to survive, build both independence for themselves and autonomy for themselves and maybe for their kids? 02:52 Set up clear expectations and parameters for independent work 03:23 Help create structures for students to seek help when needed 03:47 Encourage self-reflection and goal setting 04:43 Some parents are having a tough time letting students submit “messy” work 05:40 What should independent work look like? What are the expectations and parameters? 07:48 Establishing rules and routines is like building a bridge. 08:32 Resources for how students can reach out for help: Outside support and at-home support 13:62 Formal and informal goal-setting 15:49 The encouraging nod – how to replicate it virtually 16:41 Establishing routines – having regular check-ins 18:51 Building connections virtually 19:51 Give yourself some grace. Don’t give up.  

Nando Prudhomme and Maureen Sigler of the Highlander Institute, and Liz Leebens of Baychester Middle School join us to talk about how the school is keeping kids and families at the center, and how that is driving student engagement in this time of a pandemic.   01:50 Background on Baychester Middle School  Baychester Middle School in The Bronx, NY http://www.baychesterwaves.org/ 04:32 What engagement meant before Covid 05:22 Making the transition to remote learning in March 09:45 How else are you using these structures to support this kind of engagement? 10:41 Gap between attendance and turn-in rate of students 11:44 Shifting the conversation from just checking in to the work that students were doing 13:25 Are kids having fun? Leveraging social media to motivate kids Baychester on Instagram: http://instagram.com/baychesterwaves 17:30 Parents are now more involved in their kids’ education 20:07 How teachers are now also coaches to parents 21:05 Parents are asking: How can we make sure that our kids are ready for the next grade? 22:00 How to increase family engagement 24:15 Advisory system and office hours as the new system for middle school setting? 25:05 Students now learning more about themselves 27:15 What are the measurable skills  28:31 What you’re learning about how kids are learning 34:38 Actionable steps 37:20 The importance of connection  

We teamed up with The Learning Accelerator for this series, Today’s One Thing, where we focus on one thing that teachers can enact within the virtual classroom every week to connect with students. In this first episode, Bianca Dávila joins us as we talk about how teachers can continue to provide touchpoints with their students to build and maintain a connection virtually.   The Learning Accelerator – https://learningaccelerator.org/ 00:53 The Learning Accelerator’s mission 01:10 Today’s One Thing – TLA’s response to Covid-19 and the school shutdowns 03:20 What does it mean to build a connection between teachers and students and student families, and to shift that connection virtually? 03:50 How can teachers continue to provide touchpoints with students to let them know you’re thinking about them, etc.? 05:47 Strategies for connecting synchronously or asynchronously 09:45 If you stick to predictability, it might be limiting to some students. Do you have a solution to what stays predictable and what moves to flexible? 14:37 Action steps for teachers and parents