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A Teacher's Guide to Discussing the 2020 Election
Whether you’re ready to admit it or not, this election is going to affect your classroom. You may not teach about voting or even be a social studies teacher, but the reality is that today’s political ethos stirs up worry, hope, excitement, and uncertainty in students, and likely, you too.
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3 Lessons We've Learned About Distance Teaching
Teachers are heroes. Who could have imagined a year ago that educators would be called upon to rapidly pivot from schooling as we have known it to remote learning? In a matter of days, districts around California were figuring out how to get devices, food, and materials into the hands
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Simultaneous Learning: The Hybrid Model
NOTE: This blog was originally published on Corwin Connect on September 21st, 2020.
Early in the pandemic, distance learning was just that: instruction from a distance designed for remote delivery. We all brushed up on our understanding of synchronous and asynchronous learning. As teachers innovated, we learned about what works best in asynchronous situations,
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Am I the Only One Having a Hard Time Teaching Remotely?
By now, we all should have made the shift from crisis teaching to intentional distance learning or a well-defined hybrid approach. Am I the only one still figuring it all out?
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Top 10 New Teacher Tips
Note: This blog originally ran on January 22, 2015
To say that the first year of teaching is challenging would be an understatement. There are so many moving parts to manage and so many new things to learn that it's sometimes difficult to know where to start. Keep it simple and start with
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3 Social Emotional Learning Check-Ins
As we move through back-to-school mode, it’s mission critical that we remember to check in with our student and with ourselves. Here are three ways we can have meaningful Social Emotional Learning (SEL) check-ins during class time and beyond, without losing sight of our academic goals.
Step Into A New Worldview
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Rethinking Teaching During Distance Learning
While the pandemic has drastically changed our social lives, it also greatly shifted the way our students experience education. To the surprise of many, students across the nation ceased traditional classroom education in place of what most school districts refer to as ‘distance learning.’ While many parents are unhappy about
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Teaching Students With Disabilities Remotely
Unfortunately, the sudden nationwide transition to online learning last spring yielded less than promising results. Studies show that these newly remote learners had trouble engaging and keeping up with their courses, resulting in rampant absenteeism and what researchers from the Brookings Institute have dubbed the “COVID slide.”
If the impromptu transition to online
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PBL During Virtual Learning
In previous posts I have made a case for why we need PBL now more than ever. And by PBL I don’t mean it in the traditional sense, rather I am referring to a modified version of PBL called PBL-lite, which is more realistic in our current virtual learning contexts. In order to uphold
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Teaching Resources and Tools for Online Curriculums
Whether you’re a seasoned online teacher or a newbie to the virtual world, with all the new research around distance learning, we can adopt some practices to help set us up for success this year.
As you prepare for the unprecedented 2020-21 school year, you need the right resources and tools for distance
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Back to School: Social Emotional Learning
Let’s face it: this is not going to be a typical Back to School season. With the tumultuous events of COVID-19, economic issues, and antiracism efforts nationwide, students are coming back to us with questions and concerns that are weighing heavily on their minds and hearts. They’re also facing the
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Welcoming New Teachers to Your School
With the beginning of the year approaching, many new teachers will find themselves in what can be an absolutely terrifying situation, not only learning to feel comfortable standing in front of students for the first time, but learning to navigate relationships with other teachers as well. New teachers will be faced with
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Encouraging Civic Participation
A recent study involving rural farmers and urban activists in North Dakota asked each group to “select three terms that describe what ‘social justice’ means to you,” and then “select three terms describing what ‘autonomy’ means to you". The results, represented in word clouds, point to our own political divide and the challenges
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10 Summer Crafts for Teachers
If you’re a teacher, your summer break might look substantially different than it has in years past. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, many families will look to you for advice on activities to keep their kids engaged this summer. You may also need to modify classroom crafts into
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5 Ways to Make Your Classroom LGBTQ+ Friendly
This article was originally published on October 19, 2016. It has been updated with new links.
While there is currently more LGBTQ representation in media, politics, and entertainment than ever before, school can still be a challenging place for LGBTQ kids and kids who are questioning and discovering who they are. Here
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Explaining Privilege With Sports
Since the death of George Floyed, Ahmaud Arber, and Breonna Taylor, amongst others from the Black community, our social and news feeds have been filled with a racial reckoning and resurfacing of the powerful phrase “white privilege”.
In a recent newsletter to my CraftED Community I wrote:
I have concluded we all need
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Becoming a Social Justice Educator
"You have to remember that as an educator, you have the responsibility to build a community of scholars who will fight for what is right. You must distribute knowledge that permeates advocacy within your classroom. There's so much more to teaching than education; it is a fight for equitableness."
- Leslie
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Resources for Social Justice
Enough is enough.
We must take daily action to undo racism and eradicate it from the fiber of our society. We've collected and curated a list of readings, resources, and tools here:
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Overall Wellbeing and Academics
The overall wellbeing of a child can make or break their academic success. While there are many factors that can sway a child’s performance in the classroom, numerous studies emphasize the significant connection between health and academic performance.
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Closing Student Learning Gaps in Summer
While every day may feel like Groundhog Day in home quarantine, as the weather heats up we are reminded that summer is just around the corner. And while it is impossible to predict what life will be like in the fall, we do know that "The Covid Slide” is a real concern
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Tips for Remote Learners
Remote learning seems to be a popular topic these days. With half of the world being on lockdown, online education is the only way students can keep track of their studies.
Even if it means a major disruption of the educational process, online learning helps make the most of the time
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3 Ways to Connect Remotely
With schools and businesses closed all around the world, many of us are learning to cope with the challenges of being socially isolated at home. At the same time, parents and educators are trying to figure out what they can feasibly teach at home with limited resources and sometimes limited
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Distance Learning Feedback Loops
During these times of distance learning, teaching is hard; and closing the feedback loop is especially difficult right now. Every teacher knows the power of an “over the shoulder glance” when it comes to checking for understanding. But how do we do this in a virtual classroom? We can’t simply depend on
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Celebrating Earth Day in Every Subject
On April 22nd, the world will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The theme for Earth Day 2020 is climate action in recognition of the enormous challenge, but also the vast opportunity, that climate change presents for our generation and future generations.
A 2019 NPR/Ipsos poll showed that while 84% of parents think climate
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How to Remotely Support Equity for English Learners
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all facing challenges in our personal and professional lives, the likes of which have never been seen. For our English learners, the fastest growing subgroup of students in the US, we are seeing the special challenges these students and their families