Distance Learning

How to Sustain Hybrid Learning Models

By Kyleen Gray

Over the past year and a half, nearly every school on the planet has upended its format of delivering education. Some have stayed in classrooms with significant physical distancing restrictions, while others have completely left the physical classroom in favor of full distance learning. Many more have found a (somewhat) happy medium in hybrid learning, with some students learning in the classroom environment while others learn from home, either due to illness or a desire to stay safe in a physically distanced environment.

Using EdTech to Increase Student Motivation

By Ian Kelleher

It is so easy to fall for the siren call of a new piece of EdTech. Someone shares a link and you think, “WOW! I’ve got to use that!” While this new program might be a welcome novelty for your students, they won’t necessarily be reaping all the benefits that EdTech has to offer if the technology is not being used strategically.

Instead of trying to work the newest, shiniest EdTech into your lesson plans, effective online teaching calls for a small, well curated list of tools that work for your students, your subject, your community, and your personal voice as a teacher. Remember: you are aiming for a tool belt, not a tool chest or a basement of tools.

Strategies for Engaging All Students during Hybrid Instruction

By Miriam Plotinsky

Most of us like to imagine that we are effective multitaskers, but research into human cognition says otherwise. The truth is, it is nearly impossible to do more than one thing well at a time, but people often expect it to happen anyway. As when children attempt the classic challenge of rubbing their bellies while patting the tops of their heads, at least one of those tasks is usually lacking in proficient execution.

With the move to hybrid instruction well underway in schools across the country, teachers are concerned about how to serve multiple populations in different places: to simultaneously and equitably teach students in the classroom and students working from home. While it might not be realistic to assume that every teacher can become an absolute hybrid aficionado, certain strategies help to ensure that all students, whether they join class from home or from school, get the attention they deserve.

Spark Your Students’ Creativity with These Zoom-Friendly Exercises

By Shana Bestock

Bringing creativity into the classroom isn’t only for art teachers! Creativity hinges on discovery, and as educators we can intentionally set the stage for those moments of discovery to happen. Creativity is also intrinsically tied to collaboration–whether individually, by engaging different aspects of the self in conversation, or collectively, by communicating with others to build something together. Creativity is about being ingenious, resourceful, and taking risks. Whether your focus is math or reading, science or history, coding or painting, creativity is an essential ingredient to learning, engagement, and sparking curiosity and joy. Every teacher, no matter their subject area, can borrow from the Zoom-friendly exercises below to jumpstart their students’ creativity and prepare them for the lesson ahead.

Three Myths of Distance Learning

By Ian Kelleher

I have a unique and marvelous job. I teach science to high schoolers every day, but I am also “Chair of Research” for my school, charged with answering this question: “How do we use the science of teaching and learning to improve every child’s whole school experience?” The days of COVID have been difficult, but a fascinating challenge – how can the science of learning help us in this unique time?

A special offer for K-12Talk readers!

As a thank you for your loyal readership, Norton Books in Education is pleased to offer one FREE Quick Reference Guide (QRG) to our subscribers. Each QRG is an 8.5” x 11” multi-panel laminated card focused on an important instructional topic. Learn more about these new resources in a past post
here.

Quick Reference Guides from Norton Books in Education

As schools resume classes this month, teachers and students are engaging in online learning to an unprecedented degree. To help educators meet that challenge, Norton Books in Education has recruited experts in remote instruction to address the nuts and bolts of teaching online. The practical tips below are excerpted from five Quick Reference Guides to be released this fall:

Teaching English Learners from a Distance by Laura Alvarez
Teaching Math from a Distance by Samantha Bennett & Alaina Barkley
Teaching English from a Distance, Grades 6-12 by Troy Hicks, Andrew Schoenborn, Sharon Murchie, Janet Neyer, and Becky Schwartz
How to Design Interactive Online Learning by Stephanie L. Moore
Six Teaching Moves to Tactically Close Gaps in Learning by Suzy Pepper Rollins.

Just-In-Time Skills: Creating Videos for Scaffolding

By Jonna Kuskey

Make room, Steven Spielberg. I’m going into the movie business.

Well . . . sort of.

As the old adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention, and the pandemic that forced us to move quickly to online learning forced me to make movies. With a big box office budget of zero dollars, no big-name actors, and no brilliant CGI, I made videos to teach concepts or explain assignments so students could access the information wherever and whenever they needed or wanted. (Thank you, free version of Screencast-O-Matic!)

There should be no “best practices” for in-person teaching during COVID-19 – because it shouldn’t be happening

By David Nurenberg

As a teacher preparing to begin an unprecedented new school year in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been consumed with reading, and writing, tips and best practices for online and remote education. Preparing for this new world alone is an enormous task for teachers already grappling with all the other stresses of this time. But as September draws near, I am feeling even more nervous, and even less prepared, about how to conduct in-person education in this new climate.

The federal and state governments are requiring schools to develop plans for both full and partial/“hybrid” returns to school. That means teachers’ plans for setting up our classroom must account for disinfection and hazardous material handling. We must somehow figure out how to conduct class activities without ever bringing students closer than 6 feet from one another, how to conference with students or intervene in discipline situations from that distance. We have to figure out how to cover required content and meet student learning goals when classes might be meeting only half or one-third as frequently. We must include, and teach, entirely online and remote versions of every lesson for absent students, find ways to catch up students who miss large amounts of school, and figure out how to emotionally support anxious students – and ourselves.

The Spider Web Approach: How to Facilitate Effective Online Discussions

By Alexis Wiggins

Most of us are facing another school year in which at least part of our classroom work will need to be translated to an online environment. Some teachers worry that it isn’t possible in the distance learning environment to have the kind of effective discussions facilitated in the classroom, but I’m here to say that by following some key protocols and staying flexible, teachers can absolutely design for strong online discussions.

I’ve spent the last 15 years immersed in the research, design, and practice of student-led discussions. It began with a job early in my career at a Harkness School and eventually developed into a method I call Spider Web Discussion, which asks teachers to train students how to begin, facilitate, and assess their own discussions while the teachers themselves are mostly silent. (You can see it in action in a ninth-grade classroom here.) In the current environment, I’m getting a lot of questions about how to conduct class discussion online.

Here are my tips for success: