I Will Screw This Up / Remote Teaching
by Dina Strasser · Published 05/27/2020 · Last modified 09/03/2020
If you’re like teacher Dina Strasser, you may be wondering if your online classes add up to teaching. Yes, she says. You’ve adapted on the fly – suddenly providing virtual school to students who just weeks before greeted you at the classroom door. See if her real-life snippets match your experience.
Heart of the School / Remote Teaching
by Rita Platt · Published 05/24/2020 · Last modified 05/27/2020
After weeks of deciphering digital teaching and supporting students in new ways, educators are reflecting on their changed worlds. Principal Rita Platt reached out to collect some of their thoughts on the challenges, the silver linings, and their concerns about public education’s future.
As Mary Tarashuk leads her fourth graders into full-time virtual learning, insights gleaned from the writings of Diane Ravitch and Rosita Boland are helping her see how the pandemic’s sudden jarring changes could lead to a rebirth of public education in the years ahead.
It's Not Easy Being Tween / Pandemic Teaching
by Cheryl Mizerny · Published 05/11/2020 · Last modified 08/12/2022
Amid global fear and incredible teaching and learning challenges generated by the pandemic, Cheryl Mizerny has decided to take Mr. Rogers’ advice and look for the helpers. Here’s her list of six ‘silver linings’ she’s discovered as her school supports “virtual” students.
Our deep dependency on media for everything from news and entertainment to mail-order buying underscores the urgent need for K-12 educators to make media literacy an essential part of the curriculum in today’s schools, writes author and consultant Frank W. Baker.
Helping students learn to read and love to read are two of the most important jobs of any teacher in the middle grades. You can’t do either without having robust libraries with books of all types, subjects, and levels. NBCT Rita Platt can help you build your collection.
I Will Screw This Up / Remote Teaching
by Dina Strasser · Published 04/20/2020 · Last modified 09/03/2020
“Covid-19 is a red contrast dye,” writes Dina Strasser. “Dumped into the cauldron of schools, it shows us the cracks and flaws that were already there.” Even so, as her students slowly figure out their tech, “they are coming alive to me and for me in ways I never could have predicted.”
If you’re interested in doing some professional learning at home in addition to the on-the-fly learning that comes with reorganizing your classes so they are distance-friendly, take a look at Principal and NBCT Rita Platt’s collection of online and web-free PD resources.
What the Robbs have done so well is share their experiences as researchers and as educators and provide detailed procedures, anecdotes and insights to guide teachers as they help students become avid readers, writes teacher educator and middle grades veteran Linda Biondi.
Articles / Pandemic Activity / Social Emotional Learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 03/29/2020 · Last modified 03/30/2020
For teachers to help students not only survive but also thrive through this frightening pandemic, we need to underscore both their and our fundamental need for kindness and gratitude. Author-educator Dr. Debbie Silver shares the science of anxiety and lots of options to help.
