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As educators across the country prepared to welcome students and adults back to school in Fall 2020, they faced the layered impact of school closures, the COVID-19 pandemic, and racial inequities exacerbated by the pandemic and amplified by the nationwide mobilization for racial justice. The return to school this year will be unlike any other in our history. This moment called on all members of our school communities to deepen our social and emotional competencies and create equitable learning environments where all students and adults process, heal, and thrive.

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Reunite, Renew, and Thrive: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Roadmap for Reopening School - CASEL

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As educators across the country prepared to welcome students and adults back to school in Fall 2020, they faced the layered impact of school closures, the COVID-19 pandemic, and racial inequities exacerbated by the pandemic and amplified by the nationwide mobilization for racial justice.

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According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, more than two-thirds of children will experience at least one traumatic event before the age 16. This statistic is startling. As educators, we need to be aware of the effects of trauma on the students who enter our schools. I have an 11-year-old daughter whom I adopted when she was five. Her background of abuse and trauma will always be a part of her, even though she now lives in a thriving and happy home. I am continually amazed at her resilience and ability to overcome the trauma of her early childhood. However, periodically she experiences an event that triggers her, putting her back into what I call her trauma brain. In this state, she becomes super clumsy, running into walls, or tripping over her own feet. Everything takes longer, from seemingly easy tasks like emptying the dishwasher to more cognitively demanding tasks like completing her homework. Her thinking becomes cloudy. She has a hard time trying to explain what she is feeling or keep track of what she is doing. These are all signs that she is living in her trauma brain. As a parent, supporting her social emotional health through trauma can be challenging and, at times, induces my own trauma state. We live with a heightened awareness of trauma in our home; however, the home is not the only places we see trauma.

Trauma is Everywhere.
As an educator, I have experienced the pleasure and the emotional demands of working with students in many different Title I schools. In one of my most challenging years, teaching fifth grade, I had a student who was suicidal, a student who was killed in a bus accident, a student whose father was dying of cancer, and a student who would run away and did so three times during the school year. I know that I am not alone in this teaching experience. We live and learn alongside our students and experience their trauma and the effects of trauma with them each day. For many of us, the love and compassion we have as educators and parents can be enough to put us into a trauma state as well. When living and working with children who are experiencing the effects of trauma, we need to pay attention to ourselves to manage any secondary trauma we might be experiencing.

Another reality we are experiencing is living during this global pandemic which means most of us are living in trauma. The factors influencing our trauma might be different: loss of a job, getting sick or knowing people who are sick or even who have passed away, rapidly transitioning to remote instruction or learning, being isolated from family and friends. The list can go on and on. During the beginning of the quarantine, I was definitely living in a trauma state. After two weeks of crying, needing a nap everyday, having difficulty focusing on my work, and being short tempered with my daughter, I realized I was exhibiting some of the same signs of being in my trauma brain that my daughter does when she is triggered.

Trauma Alters our Brains
Within all these examples of trauma, what is happening in the human brain? Trauma alters brain function. The amygdala is the part of the brain that controls the flight, fight and freeze responses which are heightened during trauma (McLaughlin, 2014). Our bodies are designed to use these functions to protect us from danger for short periods of time. When we are experiencing trauma, we stay in the flight, fight or freeze response for an extended period of time, creating shifts in how the brain operates. The amygdala is supported by the prefrontal cortex, which usually helps us understand when there is no longer a threat. During traumatic events, the prefrontal cortex is not able to recognize when the threat is no longer putting us in danger.

Trauma diminishes our capacity to learn. When the hippocampus, which controls learning and memory, becomes traumatized we see impacts in learning and memory. Trauma has been linked to the inability to remember about the surrounding environment suggesting that the hippocampus' development can be impeded during traumatic events (McLaughlin, 2014).

Supporting Trauma Impacted Learners
One thing I have learned as a parent and educator is that in order to support my daughter and students who are in trauma is that first you need to be aware that the student is in a trauma state. Be patient with yourself and with students. Trauma does not just go away. It is somewhat like the grieving process needing time and knowing that every individual works through it at different times. Take a step back, giving simple easy to follow directions. Where you might give students three things to do to get started on a project, your student who is in a trauma state will only be able to manage one step at a time. Coach your student on executive functioning skills by creating clear organizational structures and then supporting your students in how to use the organizational structures. Routines and rituals are important to maintain; however, we all know that there are times when a routine is interrupted. As much as possible, give your students a warning about the changes to come so that they are not taken by surprise. We want to avoid increasing the feeling of not being safe and the change in a routine will heighten the amygdala's fight, flight, or freeze reaction. Finally, create an environment where the students know they are safe. The relationship you build with students will be the factor that will help stabilize the amygdala while in the classroom.

I would like to end with a short word on you as the teacher working with students living through trauma. Second hand trauma is a real thing. Be sure you are attending to yourself and seeking out support to manage what you are feeling and experiencing. Take care of yourself! We can better care for others who are in trauma states when we are healthy.

Resources
McLaughlin, K. (2014). How can trauma affect the brain? Retrieve from https://tfcbt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Trauma-and-the-Brain-Handout-2014.pdf

Souers, K. (2016). Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom. Alexandria: ASCD.
Post author Katrina Litzau joined PEBC as a clinical instructor for the PEBC Teacher Residency in 2016. During her time with the residency, she has also served as a field coach. Prior to joining PEBC, Katrina served students and teachers in a variety of roles over the last 16 years in public education including elementary teacher, an instructional coach in both elementary and middle schools, clinical professor, and professional learning specialist.

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According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, more than two-thirds of children will experience at least one traumatic event before the age 16. This statistic is startling. As educators, we need to be aware of the effects of trauma on the students who enter our schools.

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Borrowed (temporarily and without permission) from Geoffrey Roberts.

Hi there! This page is provided as a free resource for anybody who might find it useful. I make exactly $0.00 off of it, though I do incur small hosting and domain renewal costs. If you feel so inclined to contribute to those costs, you can Venmo me by scanning the QR code below.

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Borrowed (temporarily and without permission) from Geoffrey Roberts. Hi there! This page is provided as a free resource for anybody who might find it useful. I make exactly $0.00 off of it, though I do incur small hosting and domain renewal costs.

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Virtual Mini Lesson Blog & Video

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"Hi Writers! I am so excited to get to write with you today. I wish I could see you in person, but I am so excited to get those words out of you." So begins lab host (and staff developer), Kirsten Meyers Blake's introduction to her fifth graders' writer's workshop for the day. Kirsten believes deeply in her students and their abilities as readers, writers, and THINKERS. She leverages her mini-lessons to foster community by creating a shared virtual space that allows students the freedom and opportunity to get smarter together.

For each day's online writing workshop, Kirsten's mini-lesson serves not only to set students up for the independent work time portion of their lesson, but also to help students feel connected during this time of remote learning. So, how does she blend cognitive and emotional engagement during her mini lesson?
1. Providing Clear Agreements for Digital Work Time
In her physical classroom, Kirsten uses anchor charts to remind students of expectations for independent learning and work time. In her remote classroom, she uses a piece of paper and sticky notes that illustrate the expectations for "digital work time." As she describes each of these agreements via video conference with students, she explains what successful adherence to them might look and sound like. This clarity supports students in building their own agency to create their own conditions for successful remote learning at home.

These agreement include:

Find a quiet space

Honor our time - be present for the lesson

Have materials out

Be ready to think

2. Using Personal Stories
After reviewing the agreements, Kirsten shares a story about her close friend in another city and uses this to explain what writers do when they are returning to their craft after time away. (Students are just returning after spring break.) Kirsten gives students the space to enter back into the remote learning environment and supports their success by reviewing the thinking strategy of schema. She says, "When writers have taken time away from writing, they have to pause.... We have to activate our schema and ask ourselves, 'What do I already know?'" Her idea of pause serves to not only reinforce to students that it's okay to take a risk, but that all learners use schema throughout their lives to connect, engage, and make meaning on a daily basis- just as Kirsten does when she reaches out to a friend she hasn't talked with in a long time.
3. Showing AND not just Telling
Kirsten states, "Here is our teaching point today," and then proceeds to SHOW students on a sticky note with the purpose of the mini-lesson written, "Before they write, writers activate their schema. They remember all they know about narrative writing." As she continues with the lesson, Kirsten sets her paper up while on the video, providing students a visual of the process she uses to capture her thinking. This matters as it puts an emphasis on the learning process and not the end goal or a right answer. This modelling supports equity and access for all her students, who may be at different places in their learning journey.

Kirsten also shares with students that their thinking and writing will look different, which supports them to take risks and, again, fosters a community of learners where all students know their role is to work together to get smarter. Kirsten skillfully uses students' schema to support them as they move into a new genre of writing, building their confidence and helping them to be independent learners in this time of distance learning. She pauses during the video and provides students with time and space to "catch their thinking." Kirsten names that she is moving through the writing process. All these instructional moves, in addition to the music Kirsten plays, parallel the experience that students would have in her classroom.
3. Buttoning up
As the mini-lesson comes to a close, Kirsten reinforces the teaching point by illustrating with personal examples and reminding students that being a flexible writer includes, "Asking ourselves, what do I already know?" She returns to the thinking strategy of schema as a reminder that this can support students' independence.

Finally, Kirsten closes the mini-lesson by summarizing her time on the video and reminding students of their independent work time task. "Today we activated our schema, and we remembered everything we knew about narrative writing. I'd like you to spend some time making your sketch note pretty. Take some time looking at it, making sure you haven't missed anything... I am going to share with you a folder (containing) some of our anchor charts." Finally, she signs off for the day, "I will see you tomorrow in Writer's Workshop," communicating to students that while she may be there physically, she is with them in their hearts and minds.

Kirsten's mini-lesson is just one example of how teachers all over the country are leveraging both the power of personal teaching videos and thinking strategies to set students up for success during remote learning. These types of videos can be used during synchronous or asynchronous learning as think time, modeling structures for holding thinking, and showing the "how" of the work of thinking. In these ways, carefully planned remote learning can serve to support the continued cognitive and emotional engagement of learners.

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Virtual Mini-Lessons Foster Community - PEBC

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"Hi Writers! I am so excited to get to write with you today. I wish I could see you in person, but I am so excited to get those words out of you." So begins lab host (and staff developer)...

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Clear explanation of the components of the workshop model.

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Planning for Remote Teaching

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We had two weeks from the time school closed to the re-opening fully online. Over those two weeks, several questions about learning and my students swam in my head: How will we all stay connected? How can I keep engagement going - socially, cognitively, and emotionally? What supports do students need to learn new apps; which apps best support interaction, collaboration and feedback? Should I keep doing the same units we had already begun? Should we read and write about our COVID-19 experiences and this new world? How will I run the workshop model? Each one of these questions tugged at me, shifting my instruction, assessments and, in some cases, content for online teaching.

Pondering these questions was one of the gifts of COVID-19. They provoked me to revisit my core beliefs - that learning is social, it should be rooted in relevant, authentic content, it is about critical thinking and community, it's centered on students doing the reading, writing, thinking and talking, and learning is in service of growing humans who are critical, savvy consumers and producers of story. I wondered, how might I keep these core beliefs alive, online in an engaging way? And, to be honest, it was a bit of a streetfight to get there through the changes, the fear, the unknown as we shifted to online learning. But mostly the fight was in letting go - letting go of my own expectations for what we achieved during in person learning; I found I had to cut back by 75% to be able to manage this massive instructional shift while implementing my beliefs. Once I accepted this new reality, I was better able to bring my core beliefs to life in a virtual world. As we get ready for Round Two of COVID teaching and learning in public schools, here is what I want to remember:

Learning is social; kids need work time together, and I can help scaffold those experiences in a way that engages kids socially, emotionally and cognitively. Prior to March 13, 2020 my students engaged in daily discourse about their learning. We had grown a culture of talking to learn as a community. So I was shocked that my students didn't want to talk about their thinking when we met in live virtual classes. Many wouldn't turn on their videos (and I didn't force this). We had had such a rich culture for discussion through Socratic seminars, table talks, shared reflections, and there was something about online live meetings that took this energy out of our classroom. After various trial and errors, I've learned a few things.

Start class talking about something super personal to the group.
I used collaborative Pear Deck slide questions like "Place of dot anywhere on the map you would travel if you could right now." or "How are you feeling today?" I would play a quick Kahoot. This is not how I typically begin a class in person. But this instructional shift got kids warmed up a little bit, helped us to remember who we were. In essence, we had to get to know each other again, and play like we often do in the beginning of the year.

Invite small group discussion.
When we shifted to academic talk, a more effective practice was putting kids into small groups for discussion. We succeeded in two ways: first, I asked the learning specialist teacher teacher and speech therapist (who were already in this class) to each take a heterogeneous group of kids for a text based discussion. This allowed learners to be in a group of ten or fewer. Over the course of three weeks, these 6th graders talked more each week due to this routine and practice. In a different class of 7th graders, I offered a choice between small group discussion with the requirement being you had to talk during the virtual class, or students could give a presentation of their ideas through an infographic or newscast. After weeks of silence in virtual meetings, surprisingly, most students signed up for the small group discussion. While there were very long periods of wait time at the beginning of each discussion, once the talk got going, students talked to the end of the class. Even in adult meetings, I've noticed 1-2 minutes of silence in online discussion. We really have to wait for it, and encourage students that it is ok to share.

Provide preparation time before oral sharing.
I also figured out that students needed practice to form their words before talking about them online, as a scaffold for better online discussion. In the classroom, this is also true, but often, in the past, I set up talking first, then writing. However, online, kids did better talking when they wrote first. When I shared this with a colleague, she suggested that perhaps these early teens felt like talking in a virtual meeting was akin to presenting in a YouTube video or being on camera. Being online was more of a performance, with the whole class listening and watching you. Thus, rehearsal mattered and helped! This made sense to me. To give students this written practice, I used synchronous Pear Deck lessons or online discussion prompts first, then moved them to discussion in online meetings.

Use time wisely.
Another shift to support student interaction and connection, was flexing my workshop. During online teaching as a middle school teacher, I had two 30-minute time slots a week with each of my classes. At first I met two times a week, but this was overwhelming to kids. Plus, I knew that attending a live class for direct instruction was going to lose kids fast - I needed to make the live meeting be more than me talking "at" kids explaining the week's task. Thus I decided my direct instruction - my focus lesson - would be at the beginning of the week via a screencast or an asynchronous Pear Deck Lesson. And the second 30-minute meeting in the week would be a live class meeting with the focus on interaction, collaboration and discussion. In between these, I offered office hours for one-on-one conferences - students could come to my office hours by choice, and at times by invitation. It wasn't a daily workshop, but it was a workshop over the course of the week.

Invite meaningful work.
Finally the work I was asking kids to do still needed to matter. While I had several online plug and go programs at my fingertips, I just couldn't go there. I'd lose cognitive engagement. I was already so sad that we had lost time together as well as some meaningful performance tasks I had planned. I refused to lose meaningful work. But I also knew there were important realities before us to think about. The first two weeks of online learning, we paused our units and explored the impact of COVID on ourselves and our communities. We explored how various ways writers process the world around them though blogs, poetry, memes, and comics. We journaled. We selected, revised and published our best ones. Students and I were able to ground ourselves in our new realities, but also choose a genre that helped us express COVID experience. All the while, I introduced our new online systems and apps. After this onboarding period, we went back to our units that had been planned through backwards design. My sixth graders finished writing their own amazing hero's journey fiction stories. And my seventh graders finished researching and presenting their arguments about impacts of the digital revolution on our lives and whether or not we have a responsibility to do anything about these impacts.

As we move forward into Round Two, my school will most likely be offering blended learning and, at some point, full online learning. I plan to keep working to ensure that my beliefs and practices match, no matter the instructional space I hold, by having students write before talking, growing small group discussion structures and routines, and building ways to connect to each other. During wait time, I'll be encouraging, kind and patient. I'll ask colleagues to help with small breakout groups. I'll continue to design units that are meaningful and up to the task of growing students to be engaged, curious consumers and producers of story. I'll keep working little by little on producing focus lessons in video format and building structures for work time and debrief. I've got a lot to learn about blended learning and using these videos, but I think this will really allow for more one-on-one and small group work time, not to mention give students more autonomy and agency. And I'll start the school year knowing, after two months of crash and burn last year, that I can. I've got a vision now for how this might work - it is a vision for holding on to my beliefs, while I shift my instructional format.
Post author Jennifer Brauner has worked in public schools ranging from a paraprofessional in special education and math to teaching middle school social studies and English language arts. She has worked at a district level and as a consultant for PEBC and EL Education. Jenn brings forward these experiences as a classroom teacher once again, teaching 6th and 7th grade reading and Language Arts. She continues to learn and grow with PEBC as a classroom lab host. Inspired to try this approach in your classroom? Check out two examples of Jenn's recent lessons
7th grade lesson on Creating a specific and answerable research question. Students did this self-paced, asynchronous lesson on Monday or Tuesday. I gave them each individual feedback by Wed through comments on the Google Doc that gets generated after they complete the lesson. Then I used this lesson as a way to plan for the next steps for Thursday's live online class meeting.

6th grade lesson on small group discussion of Freak the Mighty. Students did this lesson synchronously during our 30 minute live online class. It shows how students warmed up with some non-academic activities, rehearsed in writing what they were going to talk about in small groups, and the ability to still have an exit ticket from kids even after they have moved into small groups.

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We had two weeks from the time school closed to the re-opening fully online. Over those two weeks, several questions about learning and my students swam in my head: How will we all stay connected? How can I keep engagement going - socially, cognitively, and emotionally?

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PEBC Staff Developer Laurie Wretling describes how teachers Shannon Arnold & Laurie Dalesio from Governor's Ranch Elementary in Jefferson County are employing math workshop in their distance learning.
"Lane's family has a lot of toilet paper!" My daughter laughed as she began her math Workshop for the day. Quickly she began walking around the house and counting our rolls of toilet paper so she could put our household number into the graph. She then proceeded to create a picture graph (by hand) that showed the toilet paper totals for herself and 5 classmates. She took a picture and uploaded it to Google classroom to show her teacher her work. Later on that day she received feedback from her teacher that stated "Fabulous idea making each tp roll = 2 on your pictograph ? I love that you are stretching you math thinking!" As I watched this process I was struck by how the structure her teachers had set up supported her to do heavy cognitive lifting needed to continue new learning. I pondered "What are the many ways in which teachers are using the tools within technology to support new and ongoing learning through math workshop?"

In Minds on Mathematics by Wendy Ward Hoffer, 2012, p.7-8, the author explains the purpose of each part of a math workshop.

In a minds-on math workshop, a mini-lesson is devoted to apprenticing students in the kinds of thinking required to complete a task, rather than offering a procedure to follow. During work time, students may identify a range of strategies that could bring them to accurate solutions. Then, during the reflection, students are asked to consider the ideas and solutions of peers and reflect on their own evolving understanding.

So what might this look like? Taking a cue from Jefferson County teachers Laurie Dalesio and Shannon Arnold, I noticed they did the following in each of their math workshops:
Opening:
Each day Laurie Dalesio and Shannon Arnold begin with a question that invites students into the learning environment and supports them to transition from what's happening in their home to the virtual learning environment of school. Tips for your opening:

Ask a question that is accessible to all students and honors what is happening in their home learning environment but focuses the positive in order to set the tone for a productive online learning experience.

For younger learners this might be something like: What is your favorite spring time flower? For older learners ________________

Learning Targets:
Begin with clear learning outcomes for students and name what success will look and sound like.Laurie and Shannon made the learning outcomes for student visible in their google docs. Some tips for maximizing learning targets to support students with remote learning:

Communicate these to students using appealing visuals like bright colors and symbols.

Consider including a behavior learning target that focuses students using strategies, developing stamina, and/or advocate for themselves as they develop independent learning skills.

Tasks in the Work Time:
The goal in a workshop model lesson whether in-person or through remote learning is for students to carry the cognitive load. In order for this to occur the tasks must be designed to go beyond memorizing, regurgitating or just following procedures. Tasks must require students to generate, apply, and refine new concepts and skills. Laurie and Shannon created a mix of tasks that included a range of cognitive demand allowing for students to build their math confidence and independence as learners. Here are a few tips for setting up tasks for remote learning with the above mentioned goals in mind:

Develop a series of tasks that include both online and paper and pencil interactions.

Tasks might include a mix of practice with familiar content/review in addition to a few problems with new material. Anything that is new material should have a mini-lesson or video that explains the new ideas.

Use contexts that are relatable for students. Task #3 below shows a student creating a picture graph based on household number of toilet paper rolls compiled from fellow classmates.

Laurie and Shannon typically create three sets of tasks that include the following:

T ask #1: Fluency practice using online tools such as Think Central, Zorbits Math, Dreamworks, Khan academy etc. Laurie and Shannon use Think Central for fluency practice.

Task #2: Review of previously taught material (see clock example right). Laurie and Shannon asked students to practice with Clock Review and in their task included instructions for using technology. This is important

as many students are learning how to navigate the keyboard and technology tools as they go.

Task #3: New content where students hold their thinking in their math notebooks or on a piece of paper then use their computer to take a picture and insert the work. The example below shows a student creating a picture graph based on household number of toilet paper rolls compiled from fellow classmates.

By dividing the tasks into "chunks", students have multiple opportunities for practice and they can self-pace which supports the behavior learning target "I can be a leader of my own learning to think like a mathematician and complete my tasks independently" that Laurie and Shannon identified at the very beginning of the math workshop.
Mini-Lessons:
In planning for learning whether in person or remote, the mini-lesson comes after the learning targets and work time [tasks] are determined. In their planning Laurie and Shannon ask themselves "What will our students need to hear/see from us as the experts in order to get started on the tasks?" They use a mix of resources from the web and often create their own videos as well. Many students greatly enjoy and find a sense of comfort in having their teacher deliver to the mini lesson. The purpose of recording a mini-lesson is that students will be able to go back and reference the mini-lesson when they get stuck. This helps parents and caregivers too. In Laurie and Shannon's math workshop they choose a lesson from YouTube on how to read picture graphs to get students ready for the cognitive demand of Task #3 with the toilet paper rolls.

Here are a few tips for your mini lesson;

Some tips for creating and implementing mini-lessons for remote learning:

Watch and analyze prerecorded resources from the web. Ask yourself the following questions:

Does this video hit on the main idea my students will need to be successful on the task during the Work Time or does it include additional, unnecessary points of instruction?

Is the recording clear?

Does the recording show and not just tell students the kinds of thinking they will need to use to complete the task?

Record a video of yourself modeling how to complete the task(s) during the Work Time.

Consider using a think-aloud, showing how you determining importance in text, and/or demonstrating a new skill.

Before you record, make sure to think it out and have all your materials on hand and adjust the camera to ensure a clear picture for the viewer.

Sharing:
Here are some tips for promoting sharing

and student collaboration:In this challenging time, students need the opportunity to continue to learn with ad from fellow students. Laurie and Shannon included a space in their google doc for students to insert a photo of their toilet paper graphs. Students were able to see how their graphs were similar/different and then use Google hangout to share what they noticed and wondered about each other's graphs (and more importantly the amount of toilet paper in each of their households!)

Use online applications such as flip grid, padlet, google jam board, See Saw, etc for students to post work.

Provide a specific prompt for students to do when looking or listening to other students' work. This will keep them focused.

Provide an example or model of what you would want students to say, do or notice about the work.

Ensure there is a clearly marked space for the work to be shared.

Reflection:
Just as in the opening, provide a space where students can reflect on the learning. Use open ended questions that will provide formative assessment information to plan for future lessons. These can be captured in a google form, padlet or built with the google doc lesson in google classroom. Reflection questions might include:

What was something you did well today?

What was a challenge?

What is something new you learned today?

What questions do you still have?

Assessment:
Regardless of the platform you use for online/remote learning, students will need feedback. Feedback can come in the form of comments, graded assignments, and conversation through google hangouts, chats, and discussion posts like on Canvas. Using these responses teachers can plan for upcoming differentiated learning by requesting a group of students to join a google meet at a time to do a re-teach, pairing two students to teach each other new ideas. These are just a few.

There are many ways that online learning can be utilized successfully to continue Workshop model where students are apprentices' practicing their craft of being and doing mathematics through skillful, intentional guidance.

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PEBC Staff Developer Laurie Wretling describes how teachers Shannon Arnold & Laurie Dalesio from Governor's Ranch Elementary in Jefferson County are employing math workshop in their distance learning. "Lane's family has a lot of toilet paper!" My daughter laughed as she began her math Workshop for the day.

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Phenomenal Teaching, Wendy Ward Hoffer

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Writing Workshop That Can Thrive in a Pandemic

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How to Make Your Writing Workshop Thrive - Whether In Person, Online, or a Blend of Both by Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell.

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In the fall of 2018 our school made a big shift. After twelve months of planning we launched a new daily schedule based on brain science and designed to encourage deeper learning and student wellbeing.

Three months ago, COVID-19 closed our school, along with nearly every other school in the country, and we realized we'd have to start over. Once again, we turned to research.

As we chronicled in an earlier EdSurge article, we had tried to change our school schedule once before without success. The difference two years ago was that we trained 100 percent of the teachers from PreK to grade 12 at St. Andrew's Episcopal in Maryland, where we both work, in the science of teaching and learning-which helped our staff realize the schedule we were using did not align well with the most promising research on how students learn best.

In our old schedule, classes weren't long enough for deep learning, our students were cognitively overloaded and nightly homework for every class raised anxiety and put pressure on sleep. Opportunities for things like quality feedback, deep learning and metacognition were limited, as was time outside of class for working independently and meeting with teachers.

Our revised schedule delayed the start time (to let students get more sleep), lengthened classes to 65 minutes, decreased homework and fixed many other problems. So when COVID-19 struck, we decided to keep the schedule we had in place, as though this were an extended snow day. Classes met at the same times for the same 65 minutes, but online.

We quickly learned how unsustainable this was.

How did we know? As a research-informed school, we surveyed all our constituencies-teachers, students, parents and caregivers-and a certain alignment emerged. At least 87 percent of each group believed that class was too long and too challenging for attention.

To create a new plan, we balanced what we know about developmentally appropriate amounts of screen time with research on the importance of teacher directed instruction (particularly one paper with a title that should be on everyone's mind as they plan distance learning: "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work").

Basically, we believed an effective distance learning plan needs high quality direct instruction from teachers who are able to guide learning and keep students on task, along with time away from the screen for students to practice, create, read and explore-"homework" reimagined. This blended approach was the basis of the schedule in the Distance Learning Plan we developed.

But how did we use the time? We know that one thing will never change. The brain, whether learning on campus, fully online or in a blended environment, is the organ of learning. So the same research from the field of Mind, Brain and Education that we used in 2018 to create our new at-school schedule became the starting point for designing what distance learning should look like as well. Because we understand the underlying principles that help students learn, we were able to reimagine school online, rather than just trying to recreate the same bricks and mortar experience. What must online school include? And how do we do it?

Sample of a revised schedule from St. Andrew's.

We concentrated on creating an even better balance between the academic growth, social and emotional development and overall well-being of our students. We sought to reduce screen time by shortening class periods and elevating offline independent work, which we supported through targeted faculty professional development to help staff understand that research on homework is unequivocal; the quality of assignments has a much greater impact than the quantity of minutes spent.

These changes allowed us to start later, at 9:00 a.m., and end class time earlier, boosting well-being and engagement. It also allowed students more time for non-screen-time work, as well as to pursue non-school passions and find some balance in their lives.

Importantly, we built in 15-minute breaks between classes and a larger slice of time to meet with advisors and teachers during Office Hours. Lunch was lengthened so students could eat with siblings, parents or guardians-or online with classmates for elementary students, which proved extremely popular.

We also knew that the anxiety and weirdness of our current times had created an increased executive functioning struggle. So we made classes start on the hour, with the same basic routine each day. And each week is exactly the same-we have that mythical unicorn schedule, the 5 day rotating block.

We realized we could teach less content as well as give less homework by focusing on essential questions and core competencies. We asked ourselves the question, "What do I want my students to still know, value and be able to do in two years time?" Less important things can go.

Feedback both from and to students was critical. We knew that gaining insights into what students did and did not currently know would be harder, so we included more low- or no-stakes formative assessments, and used them to guide the teaching we did and the assignments we set. We knew that the feedback we gave students would be more crucial than ever, so we made sure we designed lessons and assignments that gave students smaller, more regular doses of very targeted feedback.

We elevated project-based learning that didn't revolve around screens. But we also made sure we took a research-informed approach to project-based learning. Teachers used direct instruction to impart core knowledge, and gave students formative assessments to make sure they understood the material. Projects were then used as a means of getting students to transfer these skills to a new context. The timing was perfect for this-late in the year, a lot of background knowledge had already been put in place. It is much more impactful to craft projects that force students to transfer knowledge to new contexts than use projects to learn new concepts.

We taught our content better by making informed choices of when and where to use edtech tools. Before choosing any tools, we decided on our learning objects and matched them to science of learning objectives. Afterward, we launched elementary and secondary school versions of a " Science of Learning Field Guide " that helps teachers find the right tool for where their students are in the learning process.

Online learning has reminded us of something Dr. David Daniel, one of the founders of the field of Mind, Brain and Education, once said about students: "They have to want to learn." It is why we are closely looking at the research of Chris Hulleman and others at the University of Virginia's Motivate Lab, and research of purpose and relevance from the Mindset Scholars Network.

Online learning has also reminded us that cognition and emotion are highly intertwined, both in the brain and in each child's everyday lived experience. We continue to look at the work of Mary Helen Immordino Yang at the Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning & Education (CANDLE) and Pam Cantor and the TurnAround for Children team for guidance.

Our schedule is still a work in progress. But we will leave you with an insight from one of our students, who said that "distance learning has all of the elements of school, but none of the fun stuff," which raises two points. First, how does the next iteration of our schedule bring back the fun and elevate social connection should we remain at a distance of more than six feet apart? And second, how do we include the end-user experts in the plans we make? We may not yet know what the fall will bring, but there is expertise-from research, teacher experience and student's insights-that can guide us.

Agility and flexibility isn't something that just happens. But by helping teachers and leaders understand the fundamental principles of how students learn best, we can design for it no matter what the future brings.
Glenn Whitman (@gwhitmancttl) is director of The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) at St. Andrew's in Potomac, Md. Ian Kelleher (@ijkelleher) teaches science and is the Dreyfuss Chair for Research at CTTL.

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How Brain Research Helped Retool Our School Schedule for Remote Learning - EdSurge News

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In the fall of 2018 our school made a big shift. After twelve months of planning we launched a new daily schedule based on brain science and designed to encourage deeper learning and student wellbeing. Three months ago, COVID-19 closed our school, along with nearly every other school in the country, and we realized we'd have to start over.

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We had two weeks from the time school closed to the re-opening fully online. Over those two weeks, several questions about learning and my students swam in my head: How will we all stay connected? How can I keep engagement going - socially, cognitively, and emotionally? What supports do students need to learn new apps; which apps best support interaction, collaboration and feedback? Should I keep doing the same units we had already begun? Should we read and write about our COVID-19 experiences and this new world? How will I run the workshop model? Each one of these questions tugged at me, shifting my instruction, assessments and, in some cases, content for online teaching.

Pondering these questions was one of the gifts of COVID-19. They provoked me to revisit my core beliefs - that learning is social, it should be rooted in relevant, authentic content, it is about critical thinking and community, it's centered on students doing the reading, writing, thinking and talking, and learning is in service of growing humans who are critical, savvy consumers and producers of story. I wondered, how might I keep these core beliefs alive, online in an engaging way? And, to be honest, it was a bit of a streetfight to get there through the changes, the fear, the unknown as we shifted to online learning. But mostly the fight was in letting go - letting go of my own expectations for what we achieved during in person learning; I found I had to cut back by 75% to be able to manage this massive instructional shift while implementing my beliefs. Once I accepted this new reality, I was better able to bring my core beliefs to life in a virtual world. As we get ready for Round Two of COVID teaching and learning in public schools, here is what I want to remember:

Learning is social; kids need work time together, and I can help scaffold those experiences in a way that engages kids socially, emotionally and cognitively. Prior to March 13, 2020 my students engaged in daily discourse about their learning. We had grown a culture of talking to learn as a community. So I was shocked that my students didn't want to talk about their thinking when we met in live virtual classes. Many wouldn't turn on their videos (and I didn't force this). We had had such a rich culture for discussion through Socratic seminars, table talks, shared reflections, and there was something about online live meetings that took this energy out of our classroom. After various trial and errors, I've learned a few things.

Start class talking about something super personal to the group.
I used collaborative Pear Deck slide questions like "Place of dot anywhere on the map you would travel if you could right now." or "How are you feeling today?" I would play a quick Kahoot. This is not how I typically begin a class in person. But this instructional shift got kids warmed up a little bit, helped us to remember who we were. In essence, we had to get to know each other again, and play like we often do in the beginning of the year.

Invite small group discussion.
When we shifted to academic talk, a more effective practice was putting kids into small groups for discussion. We succeeded in two ways: first, I asked the learning specialist teacher teacher and speech therapist (who were already in this class) to each take a heterogeneous group of kids for a text based discussion. This allowed learners to be in a group of ten or fewer. Over the course of three weeks, these 6th graders talked more each week due to this routine and practice. In a different class of 7th graders, I offered a choice between small group discussion with the requirement being you had to talk during the virtual class, or students could give a presentation of their ideas through an infographic or newscast. After weeks of silence in virtual meetings, surprisingly, most students signed up for the small group discussion. While there were very long periods of wait time at the beginning of each discussion, once the talk got going, students talked to the end of the class. Even in adult meetings, I've noticed 1-2 minutes of silence in online discussion. We really have to wait for it, and encourage students that it is ok to share.

Provide preparation time before oral sharing.
I also figured out that students needed practice to form their words before talking about them online, as a scaffold for better online discussion. In the classroom, this is also true, but often, in the past, I set up talking first, then writing. However, online, kids did better talking when they wrote first. When I shared this with a colleague, she suggested that perhaps these early teens felt like talking in a virtual meeting was akin to presenting in a YouTube video or being on camera. Being online was more of a performance, with the whole class listening and watching you. Thus, rehearsal mattered and helped! This made sense to me. To give students this written practice, I used synchronous Pear Deck lessons or online discussion prompts first, then moved them to discussion in online meetings.

Use time wisely.
Another shift to support student interaction and connection, was flexing my workshop. During online teaching as a middle school teacher, I had two 30-minute time slots a week with each of my classes. At first I met two times a week, but this was overwhelming to kids. Plus, I knew that attending a live class for direct instruction was going to lose kids fast - I needed to make the live meeting be more than me talking "at" kids explaining the week's task. Thus I decided my direct instruction - my focus lesson - would be at the beginning of the week via a screencast or an asynchronous Pear Deck Lesson. And the second 30-minute meeting in the week would be a live class meeting with the focus on interaction, collaboration and discussion. In between these, I offered office hours for one-on-one conferences - students could come to my office hours by choice, and at times by invitation. It wasn't a daily workshop, but it was a workshop over the course of the week.

Invite meaningful work.
Finally the work I was asking kids to do still needed to matter. While I had several online plug and go programs at my fingertips, I just couldn't go there. I'd lose cognitive engagement. I was already so sad that we had lost time together as well as some meaningful performance tasks I had planned. I refused to lose meaningful work. But I also knew there were important realities before us to think about. The first two weeks of online learning, we paused our units and explored the impact of COVID on ourselves and our communities. We explored how various ways writers process the world around them though blogs, poetry, memes, and comics. We journaled. We selected, revised and published our best ones. Students and I were able to ground ourselves in our new realities, but also choose a genre that helped us express COVID experience. All the while, I introduced our new online systems and apps. After this onboarding period, we went back to our units that had been planned through backwards design. My sixth graders finished writing their own amazing hero's journey fiction stories. And my seventh graders finished researching and presenting their arguments about impacts of the digital revolution on our lives and whether or not we have a responsibility to do anything about these impacts.

As we move forward into Round Two, my school will most likely be offering blended learning and, at some point, full online learning. I plan to keep working to ensure that my beliefs and practices match, no matter the instructional space I hold, by having students write before talking, growing small group discussion structures and routines, and building ways to connect to each other. During wait time, I'll be encouraging, kind and patient. I'll ask colleagues to help with small breakout groups. I'll continue to design units that are meaningful and up to the task of growing students to be engaged, curious consumers and producers of story. I'll keep working little by little on producing focus lessons in video format and building structures for work time and debrief. I've got a lot to learn about blended learning and using these videos, but I think this will really allow for more one-on-one and small group work time, not to mention give students more autonomy and agency. And I'll start the school year knowing, after two months of crash and burn last year, that I can. I've got a vision now for how this might work - it is a vision for holding on to my beliefs, while I shift my instructional format.
Post author Jennifer Brauner has worked in public schools ranging from a paraprofessional in special education and math to teaching middle school social studies and English language arts. She has worked at a district level and as a consultant for PEBC and EL Education. Jenn brings forward these experiences as a classroom teacher once again, teaching 6th and 7th grade reading and Language Arts. She continues to learn and grow with PEBC as a classroom lab host. Inspired to try this approach in your classroom? Check out two examples of Jenn's recent lessons
7th grade lesson on Creating a specific and answerable research question. Students did this self-paced, asynchronous lesson on Monday or Tuesday. I gave them each individual feedback by Wed through comments on the Google Doc that gets generated after they complete the lesson. Then I used this lesson as a way to plan for the next steps for Thursday's live online class meeting.

6th grade lesson on small group discussion of Freak the Mighty. Students did this lesson synchronously during our 30 minute live online class. It shows how students warmed up with some non-academic activities, rehearsed in writing what they were going to talk about in small groups, and the ability to still have an exit ticket from kids even after they have moved into small groups.

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We had two weeks from the time school closed to the re-opening fully online. Over those two weeks, several questions about learning and my students swam in my head: How will we all stay connected? How can I keep engagement going - socially, cognitively, and emotionally?

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Podcast with Transcript

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How do we translate familiar routines to a classroom environment that for many of us is still uncertain.

Today on the podcast we're joined by Berit Gordon, author of The Joyful Teacher: Strategies for Becoming the Teacher Every Student Deserves. In her book, Berit lays out goals and corresponding strategies for building an efficient and joyful learning environment.

Today, Jaclyn and Berit discuss routines and rituals, one of the goals from The Joyful Teacher.
Below is a transcript of this episode.
Jaclyn: Welcome, Berit. Thank you for joining us today.

Berit: Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to get the chance to talk to you.

Jaclyn: So, your recent book, The Joyful Teacher, came out in May. Honestly, right, in the middle of the time we all needed to make space for finding joy. Can you tell us how the book came to be? What kinds of thinking and experiences led you to getting this on paper?

Berit: I absolutely love teaching, but I will say, teaching is also really hard. It's all I've done for almost 25 years, either as a teacher or working with teachers. One thing that seems consistent throughout is just that teaching is really challenging. People put in so much hard work. And I think it's like... I mean, maybe there's a listener out there and they need to email me and let me know if this is the unicorn among the listeners is like, if you drive home at the end of your teaching day and you pat yourself on the back and you say, yeah. I really just knocked it out of the park today. I killed it in there. I did such a great job. And what I find is that teachers work so hard and yet so seldomly feel that sense of, I really got this. I really know what I'm doing and I feel good. And I am good at this complicated task of reaching all these students.

And so, my book really is wanting to make teaching feel easier for people, wanting to up that joy and lessen the struggle. Because it is such an essential job. And it's really the book, I think, I wish I had had throughout my teaching career. It's the book I wish I had had both as a new teacher and as a more experienced teacher. I know, as a new teacher, I just felt like I was getting pummeled by waves. Right? Like a wave would come and I would like just barely catch my breath and then boom, another wave would come. So, a wave like even just setting up my classroom, which is why a strategy is in that for the book.

But I would set up my classroom. I remember spending days, and days, and days prepping my room before students ever came in. I made it beautiful. I hadn't even had a paycheck yet. I went to Ikea and bought bean bags and cute pillows for reading a nook. And I bought a labeler. And I labeled everything. And I created these gorgeous bulletin boards with beautiful, inspiring quotes. And I think by day four, the stuffing had been ripped out of the bean bags. The label had all been torn off. No one had read or been inspired by any of those calligraphy quotes I had spent hours on. And that was just like that wave hitting me.

And then, as those waves hit, where we're working so hard but we're not sure what to do, I think a lot of us go out and try to figure out the answer, which is what I did. I poured through all my books from graduate school. I asked everyone I knew. I went an spied on the rock star teacher down the hall, Danielle. I was like, well, how did she set up her room? Right? I was just so desperate for an answer. It wasn't that I was scared of hard work. I just didn't know where to put that hard work.

And, before I could even catch my breath from that way, then there's like the other wave of lesson planning, which is why I have strategies in the book for that. Because I would spend every night planning for the very next day in front of me. I would spend hours and happily would have poured money into teachers, pay teachers units, if I thought it was actually going to help me survive my fifth period class the next day. And what would happen is I would plan all these lessons for hours and then, halfway through the lesson, I could just see students like almost changing the channel on me. They're like, yep. That's kind of boring. I'm checking out. And I'd say, all right. Let's do a word search. And that is something that I swore I would never do as a teacher. But I was, again, just so sort of desperate for answers.

And then, I would have a wave of getting pummeled by grading. I was spending all my weekend grading and pouring over, agonizing over the comments of just the right mix of praise and constructive criticism. And I made sure I didn't have a red pen. It was always a purple pen. And I would hand back all this work. And then, I would find the student work on the floor, in the trash. I would get the next round of student work and they would be doing all the same mistakes. So, I knew what I was doing wasn't working. And it felt almost like a hazing. Right? Like my first few years of teaching, it was sort of like duck your head and run and just get through to the other side.

And my wish is that it weren't quite so brutal. I mean, I worked with a new teacher in New York City, fourth grade teacher, and I talked to her one day. And she said, as I was crossing the street, this cab like got really close to me in the intersection. And she thought, well, if he just bumped me hard enough, this is going to sound so horrible, like bumped me hard enough that it wasn't really hurt, but I just had to have a cast on my leg, I wouldn't have to show up to work today. Because she was so overwhelmed with how to get through this, this really hard part of teaching.

My husband is a second career teacher and went into teaching with phenomenal training, and all of these great books, and colleagues, and resources. And I think he lost 20 pounds in the first three months of teaching because he was so stressed and overwhelmed. And so, partly the book is written for those new teachers. Because I don't want it to be that they join that I believe it's 40% of all teachers leave teaching within the first five years because they go in wanting to do well and then, yet feeling like it's just impossibly hard.

And then, I would say that I also wrote it for the more experienced teacher and even myself as a more experienced teacher because what happened after I got through that sort of like wave after wave, was that, okay, maybe the waves get more spaced out. They're a little gentler. But, once I was through that sort of panic phase of getting through teaching and I didn't need a nap and a Snickers bar every day at three before I started my seven hours of planning and grading, was that I then noticed other gaps in my teaching. I noticed, oh, Katie Chan hasn't said a word in class in three months. And she has some of the smartest things to say. Or I'm using my smart board basically like a glorified overhead. Or I have all these texts and resources by dead white men. And the students I'm teaching are Latinx, and Asian, and queer, and disabled. And I don't have any text and resources that speak to or reflect who they are.

So, I have strategies for those issues too, because I think no matter where you're at in your teaching, you always want to get better. You always want to do better. But it's hard to know where to go. And I do, again, just want to lessen that feeling of struggle and to help teachers feel like I've got this. I can do this.

Jaclyn: Yeah. Thank you. So, it sounds like... I keep thinking about the waves pummeling me and remembering so many things. You mentioned something earlier. You said, when you have those good days and you pat yourself on the back, we need to have more of those. And I used to call those the I taught days. I would lean into my neighbor teacher and say, I taught today. Just the days that you really felt like things made it. But you're right. We need to have more of those.

So, it sounds like, if teaching is so chaotic, then maybe the great way to get to the point where we can pick goals for ourselves is to find something organized. So, tell us how the book is organized, because it sounds like you organized it to sort of address that, to be the calm in the storm, so to speak.

Berit: Yes. Wonderfully put. I did create this book, which is really a warehouse of teaching strategies. It's not a book... while I would love teachers to read it front to back, it's not a book that needs to be read cover to cover. It's really designed so teachers can pick and choose the strategies that work for them. And all of the strategies are essentially a compilation of best hits of all the strategies that I've used in my classroom, that I've told countless teachers about. And they tell me, Berit, that worked. That really worked. I had that issue and I tried that thing. And now, I see it's working. So, I give teachers access to that kind of whole album. If you want the whole album, there's always a reference to a wonderful book, or website, or resource where you can go find out more about, say, how to make group work tick.

But the book is really, again, that sort of very practical how to strategies and just a page or two of very concrete, step-by-step go try this. See if that helps you get to your goal. And, as you said, it is really designed by teaching goals. So, there are ten chapters. And every chapter is a different teaching goal. And the chapters are designed or arranged rather in a progression of goals. So, it's not the one teaching goal is more important or more sophisticated than the other. It's more that it's a progression that you're getting the foundation in place so you're setting yourself up for success.

So, for instance, I might really want to work on getting, well, this happened in my classroom, I was told it was a school initiative. You have to have everybody in groups and you have to have everybody really productive and collaborating. And so, I tried that, but it never really took off because I think what I hadn't addressed first, and that's why it's an earlier chapter, is how to first really establish relationships in my classroom, both between me and students and relationships among students, so that they trusted one another, they felt safe in my classroom, and that they could take risks in a small group together. So, that's what I mean in terms of a progression of teaching goals. But it's all designed so teachers can go in and choose the goal that's right for them. Because we know, in a classroom, it's never one size fits all. Right? There's never one thing that unilaterally all of our students need and benefit from at the same time.

And I think, while I understand my schools will have school wide initiatives, it's very rare that that initiative is just what every teacher needs and will benefit from focusing on. So, I know, when I really needed to work on relationship building, my school's initiative was higher order thinking skills. And it just didn't speak to me. It wasn't what I was really hungry for.

And so, the book is designed so that teachers can look at each of the goals, they can do a quick self assessment checklist and see, is this the goal that's right for me? Do I need to work on a feedback? Or should I go back a couple chapters and think about how to first set up students for more independent work? And then, they can figure out the goal that works for them, choose from a whole host of strategies to help them meet that goal. And then, yes, ideally get to that I taught today. Like pat yourself on the back like I did it. But one goal at a time. Because I know teachers are so ambitious and expect so much of themselves. We're really tough on ourselves, I think, in ways that we wouldn't be to students, but we are to ourselves. We expect ourselves to get good at everything all at once, but that's almost setting ourselves up for frustration. So, the idea is, choose one goal at a time, work on that, see progress, pat yourself on the back, do it again, and build that foundation one goal at a time.

Jaclyn: It sounds as though you get your own sort of personal coach, your own teaching coach with the book, because you can kind of open it and, through the self assessment and the way it's organized, just sort of work through finding what you want to focus on, just like if you were sitting and having a conversation with a coach.

Berit: Yes. Because I find more and more, it's so rare... I mean, I get to work with the most phenomenal people. Teachers are my favorite people. I get to work with them, but I might be in their school at most one day a month. And then, maybe, if they're lucky, they have a coach that they see additionally one day a month. And the rest of the time teaching is oddly this very lonely endeavor. Yes, you're in a room with tons of people, but they're not your instructional colleagues. They are students who are waiting for you to lead the way. So, I agree. I hope for teachers that they get phenomenal PD, and have time to read professional books, and they get coaching. But I think, as we're seeing often less and less time for that and budgets for that, and no matter what, teachers need ways to supplement, like you said. I would love that, for this book to be a bit of a personal coach that teachers can dip into as needed, and pick and choose what they need.

Jaclyn: Yeah. And what good timing for that. I think teachers, right now, they need a resource that's going to help them focus in on how to sustain in this profession and also deal with change. Which actually brings me to the next thing that I wanted to talk about today was, thinking about how all of education had to revamp our thinking, and our approach, our pedagogy, our skillset over night, just this past spring, can you share a bit about what that learning process was like for you as you merged your expertise with remote learning strategies?

Berit: Yes. And I think, again, when I say teaching is hard, that was something we were all reminded of. I think everyone I knew was on the cusp of burnout this last spring, as we were trying to shift so quickly and deal with often our own children that we were homeschooling at the same time, or just worry about what was happening. And I work with very few teachers who in the spring weren't facing burnout.

And so, I think of the teacher I know who spent all day up in her second floor creating these amazing Zoom lessons and trying to confer with students. And then, she didn't notice the time. And she came down at four o'clock and her own two children hadn't had lunch. It was four o'clock and she hadn't seen them all day. And that whole time management was hard. And I think, again, it comes back to, we didn't necessarily have the strategies and the tools to know where to put our energy and how to have that hard work pay off. So, we were flying a bit blindly.

And then, we all had a learning curve. I know I had a huge learning curve. Little things like, I know now how to put the camera so it's not looking up my nose or giving me a double chin. Right? I know how to do breakout rooms in Zoom. One of my strategies in the book is about concise instruction, but I had to reconfigure that to learn how to do really concise instruction in a Zoom lesson. And so, I could devote more time to, say, social and emotional learning and feedback. But those were big learning curves. And I think we're better prepared now for the fall because we're not doing that fly by the seat of our pants.

But the truth is, we do still need strategies. We need those tried and true moves so we feel good and we are good at online instruction. And that we're sort of, again, taking it one goal at a time. And I know, for many of us, my own learning curve too, also the pandemic has coincided with the Black Lives Matter movement. And I've had a huge heightened awareness and commitment to making sure that, whether it's online or in person instruction, that students of color feel safe and welcomed and that their voices are valued and heard. And I've been gaining a lot of strategies and tools for that, but also realizing there's still a long ways to go.

So, I think, while this has pushed us a lot to grow in really important ways, it's also, again, it's like that lull between the waves, realizing the gaps in our instruction and how desperate so many of us feel to have really practical tools that we can try. So, that's why I've been designing online corollaries to all the strategies in the book, which actually are somewhat small shifts, as I've been working through them. It's still the foundation and the progression of teaching goals remains the same. And many strategies stay the same. But there are ways that we can do things such as how to create routine beginnings that are going to look a little different when it's a Zoom class than it is when they walk into the physical door of their classroom.

Jaclyn: I'm thinking about routines, and rituals, and how different that must be online, or not must be, how different it is. And, thinking about that, this is goal three. And you said something earlier that made me think of finding your priorities. And, when I was teaching, my first few years of teaching, someone asked me, what do you think the most important thing to tell a new teacher would be? And I said, it's learning how to prioritize. That was the first thing, for sure, prioritizing for yourself and for students. And when, I look at goal three, routines and rituals, that is by far, for me, like the high priority in an in person classroom, but certainly online as well.

And so, we need to maintain these because it creates clarity and sometimes comfort for everyone. And it's a good place to start. So, if people are out there feeling overwhelmed, thinking, where do I start for planning for fall, now that we have a moment to catch our breath, can you talk a little bit about how you see routines and rituals playing out online, but especially why you lean away from the word management?

Berit: I love that you picked up on that. That, even though I have, it's the only teaching goal that I actually have two chapters devoted to, which is management. Because, as you speak of as well, we know that, unless our classrooms are predictable, safe, that students know what to do, and where to go, and how to function in a respectful environment, almost nothing else can fall into place. It is the foundational goal. And so, I have those two chapters, but as you said, management is the first word, but the subtitle to chapter three is routines and rituals. And the subtitle to chapter four is relationship building. Because, actually, what we want to avoid is management.

My thinking has changed a lot because I was not necessarily taught. I was taught in a more traditional way. I began my teaching career with a more top down, compliance kind of management system. Right? So, this is... I remember the first time I taught middle school. The students came in, and they were in their first day outfits, and they had their new backpacks, and haircuts, and they were just full of energy, and happiness, and excitement. And then, they went to seven different teachers' classrooms and they got seven different policies of rules and consequences. And I watched them as they left the building and it was like their dog died. I mean, they were just deflated.

So, that's just even personally I know that I no longer ever want to start with a list of rules and punishments. But it's also because I've done so much reading about how that punitive model really mimics our prison system. And suspension rates in this country are far disproportionate toward black, male, disabled students more than any other. And I don't want to replicate that in my classroom. And I don't want other teachers to have to either.

And so, when I read books like Monique Morris's Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls, or I read books by Zaretta Hammond about culturally responsive teaching, I read books about restorative practices, more and more I'm thinking about how we can get to management, which is again, a really well-functioning community of learners and a classroom where we can put our energy into teaching and students can put their energy into learning, how we can get to that management, but again, through routines and rituals, not necessarily here's my behavior chart and here are my rules. I mean, I say all of this and I will tell you right now, like my seven year old, I just bribed him with extra Minecraft time if he's quiet while we record this podcast. I'm not above it. It's not like I don't regress into rewards, of course. But what I aim to do and what the strategies in the book can really help us be mindful of is how to create those routines so that we don't spend all our energy threatening and getting through compliance.

And I will say, it's one of the most consistent threads in the strongest classrooms I get to be in is that they don't skimp on these routines and rituals at the beginning of the year. And I think the more that we can plan for this for the fall for whether it's hybrid, or virtual, or in person, that we devote, especially since kids haven't been with us in person for months, that we really don't skimp on this. And I mean this for K-1 teachers as much as 10th and 11th grade teachers.

Because I know, when I taught high school, in the fall, we spent a lot of time on things like name games, and relationship building, and making sure people knew the names of everyone in the class, and that they knew how to come into the room looking ready to learn. And I remember worrying because the class across the hall, they were already halfway through Romeo and Juliet. It's like, oh no. We're so behind. We're so behind. We're still practicing what it looks like to turn in your homework and how to turn and talk. But the truth is, not that it's a race, but the truth is, by December we were far ahead because then we didn't have to devote all that time to me repeating instructions or redirecting students because we had that in place.

So, yeah. None of the strategies are really that rewards kind of management system. It's a different set of strategies, but they really work. And I've seen classrooms benefit immensely from getting those routines in place.

Jaclyn: And I love that, thinking about the fall, we can pick a goal to focus on. And now, we have the spring to reflect on, knowing what went well and what didn't go well. And everyone has had those conversations for sure. And so, I'm trying to think about starting the year in any of those formats, in in-person, hybrid, or online. And I'm wondering if you could talk about one of the strategies from goal three in your book and just kind of tell us what that might look like in any of those formats?

Berit: So... oh, there's so many. But I think, for instance, one of the strategies that I think is really key, whether it's hybrid, in person. Or online is that we spend time teaching really basic routines and that we don't make any assumptions about what we think students should already know how to do. Because I think sometimes we think, well, kids are coming into me at whatever age it is. Like, okay. They're nine. Like I shouldn't have to teach them how to get in a line. Or they are 15. I shouldn't have to teach them how to mute their microphone.

But the fact is that a lot of them either really need that explicit instruction or they need reminders of that instruction. And the more that we can front load, and get ahead of it, and really teach those even what we think are basic routines, the more we're setting students up for success. And we also don't shame them. Right? The last thing we want is for a student to be embarrassed because they replied all when they should have just replied to the one sender of the email. Like let's teach them how to do that.

So, I think some of the routines that I, for instance, would really explicitly plan to be teaching would be things like how to mute the microphone, how to upload a file, how to click a hyperlink, how to invite someone else to talk in the breakout room, even how to create a Bitmoji.

This is a really big one because I work with a teacher whose students essentially opted out of class, one of those students who fell off the grid in online learning. Couldn't track them down. And she found out months later that he stopped attending class because they all needed to have their camera on. Well, his only workspace in his crowded apartment was the top bunk. And his grandparents slept on the bunk below him. There is no way he was going to attend class with his camera on. But, if we had taught a basic routine at the very beginning of class that everyone needs to create a virtual background. I'm going to model it for you. I'm going to have a little video here that explains how to do it that you can pause and watch again as many times as you want. We're all going to create one right now together. That's going to pay off so that we don't have to sort of play catch up later on.

So, I really encourage teachers to think through all the potential routines that they're going to want students to be able to do seamlessly, almost without thinking. But to first really make sure that we walk students through that move. We break it down into really simple steps and we practice it with them, and that we really don't make any assumptions, especially for older students, that they know how to do these things virtually.

Jaclyn: I think that's really important, not making assumptions. Because it goes with online etiquette as much as it does with skills. Thinking, oh, well they're in seventh grade. Why aren't they putting punctuation in their sentences. Or they're in second grade, of course they know how to choose a book, that kind of thing. We can't make any assumptions, no matter what the environment.

Well, thank you so much, Berit. I'm really looking forward to thinking about this book more, thinking about hybrid formats and schools in the fall, just to kind of see what this looks like. So, I'm really glad that you were able to come talk with us today about routines and rituals and about how the book is organized, so that some teachers can get their hands on it and really start to feel like they can find some strategies to have a successful fall.

Berit: Thank you so much too. It's a pleasure. And I also thank any teacher who took the time to listen. And I hope you find lots of ways to up the joy and lessen the struggle, as we launch into what is certainly going to be a challenging fall for everyone.
...Learn more about The Joyful Teacheron Heinemann.com
Berit Gordonbrings many years of teaching experience in New York City high schools as well as in the Dominican Republic to her literacy coaching work. She is a graduate and former instructor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Berit is the author of No More Fake Reading, which offers solutions for boosting stamina, joy, and skills among adolescent readers. Whether running workshops, leading literacy coaching sessions, or working in classrooms, Gordon strives to help students fall in love with reading and writing, and to lay the groundwork so they are experts at both for life. She lives with her family in Maplewood, New Jersey.

You can connect with her on her website at BeritGordon.comor on Twitter at@BeritGordon

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On the Podcast: Classroom Routines During Uncertain Times with Berit Gordon

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How do we translate familiar routines to a classroom environment that for many of us is still uncertain. Today on the podcast we're joined by Berit Gordon, author of The Joyful Teacher: Strategies for Becoming the Teacher Every Student Deserves. In her book, Berit lays out goals and corresponding strategies for building an efficient and joyful learning environment.

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Creating a Virtual Community

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As we move from our classrooms into remote learning options for the next month, I am left with feelings of anxiety. What is this going to look like? What about our students who don't have access to food, let alone technology at home? We do not have all the answers, and yet we must find ways to ensure the integrity of our classrooms remain intact in a virtual world.

For me, the first step in moving forward is thinking about what I need to maintain the community I have worked tirelessly to build since the beginning of this school year. What do I want to be sure does not disappear as we embrace the unknown?

Classroom Routines

Meaningful Relationships

Reader Identity

Responsibility and ownership for Learning

While this is not an exhaustive list, they were the first things that came to mind when I thought about important aspects of my classroom community I was unwilling to let fade. After identifying these components, I thought about how I might use technology to support these aspects of my new virtual learning community.

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Sustaining Classroom Community amidst Uncertainty - PEBC

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As we move from our classrooms into remote learning options for the next month, I am left with feelings of anxiety. What is this going to look like? What about our students who don't have access to food, let alone technology at home?

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Welcome to the Companion Website

"We are in a place in history where we desperately need answers to questions that will determine the future of our nation's most precious possession - our children. The Distance Learning Playbook is an incredible resource with a wealth of practical support for teachers and administrators, and it will fill a huge information gap that many schools are experiencing in educating students in a virtual setting. Very practical, easy-to-use samples about how to start and end a class, the social-emotional support needed, and setting up norms to develop a safe culture for students to learn at high levels. This is a must-have for educators at all levels - district leaders, principals, coaches and teachers in the 21st century and beyond. This resource is ideal for schools that are looking for answers to a whole-child approach to virtual education."

Dr. Charles Newman, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services, Perris Union High School District, Perris, CA

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The Distance Learning Playbook, Grades K-12

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Welcome to the Companion Website"We are in a place in history where we desperately need answers to questions that will determine the future of our nation's most precious possession - our children.

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The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically upended traditional schooling and made remote learning the "new normal." Teachers are scrambling to offer some form of continuing education using virtual technologies, with the recognition that traditional approaches to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and grading must be altered. While it might be more expedient to present online lessons, electronic worksheets, and resource packets, we propose that the learn-at-home circumstance offers an opportunity to present students with more engaging and meaningful learning experiences. More specifically, we recommend providing students with assignments and tasks that challenge them to find information from various sources, critically appraise what they find, and use what they learn to address interesting issues and genuine problems.

The national scouting organizations offer a useful model for this vision of home learning. For example, the Boy Scouts offer 137 Boy Scout Merit Badge options and 58 of these are eligible for home completion. All the scouting merit badges are based on the challenges we experience in the world around us. They specify the criteria that must be met to earn a badge, yet they allow the scouts options and choices as they work on fulfilling the task requirements. Moreover, they are able to work toward the badge until they are ready to submit their evidence of completion, as opposed to being constrained by an arbitrary time frame.

In this blog, we offer seven strategies for planning and conducting remote learning. These strategies apply to all learning environments, but they are especially relevant in the context of remote learning. They support meaningful engagement, are flexible and responsive to different learners' needs, and promote the development of students' agency. While the description of each strategy is brief, we provide weblinks to additional information and related resources.

1. Focus tasks on worthy goals and meaningful learning.

There is certainly value for students working at home to practice their basic skills - especially younger learners. However, in general, we recommend that remote learning be framed around rich, engaging tasks that target more robust learning goals. We encourage teachers to plan learning experiences that focus on applying "anchor standards" of E/LA, the Practices in Mathematics and Science, Historical Thinking Skills in Social Studies, and the creative processes in the arts. We also endorse the use of assignments and tasks that concurrently engage the application of "21st Century Skills" including critical thinking, creativity, research, and communication using various media.

Associated assignments and tasks would, therefore, be performance-based, and set in realistic contexts as much as possible. Such performance tasks involve students in "doing" subjects and performing with their knowledge, rather than learning factual knowledge only. These tasks are open-ended, challenging and require "higher-order" thinking, not rote learning. Since they reflect authentic situations, they address purposes that students can relate to and that they recognize as important and useful in their present lives or in the future. Such tasks often include opportunities for students to generate and explore their own questions, make connections across disciplines, and consider the needs and characteristics of the audience for whom they are doing the work. Tasks that involve research, problem-solving, and decision-making can also promote habits of mind like open-mindedness, skepticism, and flexible thinking. When students are engaged in work that is meaningful and authentic, they are unlikely to ask: "Why are we doing this?" or "Who would ever use this?" as they might when only learning de-contextualized facts and skills.

While we recognize that not all tasks can be authentic, we have seen that many assignments/tasks can be rendered more meaningful and authentic when they include a realistic goal, a tangible product or performance, created for a target audience, within genuine constraints (e.g., schedule and/or budget). There are many resources of well-developed performance tasks that teachers can access to be able to act on this recommendation.

2. Specify the task directions and success criteria.

When presenting open-ended tasks, students need clear directions for the work they are being asked to do. This is particularly important for remote learning since teachers are less able to monitor students' non-verbal and verbal interactions and anticipate the kinds of questions students may have about an assignment. Consider questions like these when developing directions for assignments and tasks: What exactly do you want students to do? What is the purpose and audience for their work? What products and/or performances should they create? What should the work include? What elements are required? ... optional? How will their work be judged? What qualities are expected? How good is "good" enough?

In addition to clear directions, teachers should provide students with the success criteria in the form of checklists, rating sheets, and/or rubrics that describe expectations in a way that all students, regardless of their background or language level, can clearly understand.

Here is an example of a short performance task for secondary students with clear directions and associated success criteria:

Issue: Should drones be regulated?

Task: After researching possible commercial uses of drones and examining various opinions on the issue, develop your own position and develop a written product (policy brief, editorial or blog post) that argues for your position to an identified policy group (e.g., city council). Support your position with evidence from your research and your reasoning. Be sure to acknowledge and rebut opposing views.

Success Criteria: Your argument should

cite sound and relevant research

present accurate and sufficient evidence to support your position

contain logical reasoning

effectively identify and counter objections to your position

address your target audience

The written product should be mechanically correct.

Note: Whenever possible, we recommend including "anchors" - tangible examples of work to illustrate the various performance levels on a scale to help students better understand the desired qualities.

3. Provide differentiated support and encourage students' "choice and voice."

Students vary greatly when it comes to their background knowledge, prior experiences, interests, and preferences for learning. Accordingly, they will need different degrees, and types, of support as they work on authentic tasks. Knowing the needs of their students, teachers can offer targeted mini-lessons and coaching sessions as needed. They can also provide appropriate "scaffolds" to support individuals and groups; e.g., step-by-step directions, graphic organizers, outlines, simplified texts, models, and on-line tutorials.

In addition to such differentiated instruction and supports, we strongly encourage allowing students alternatives for the work they will pursue. Indeed, there are a variety of ways of allowing "voice and choice" for learners as part of open-ended performance tasks, including the topic of their work, the ways they approach a task, the means of gathering information, and options for the products or performances they will produce.

We have found that giving learners appropriate choices increases their personal motivation. It also helps create their sense of agency and cultivate the skills and habits of self-directed learning.

4. Provide feedback along the way.

Providing feedback to learners as they work has been conclusively shown to be one of the most effective of all educational practices. To have the optimal effect, feedback must be on-going, timely, specific, and descriptive, focused on the most salient attributes of the work, and understandable by the learner. Teachers can provide such feedback while students are working using questions, comments or suggestions that assist learners in refining their thinking and performance. In remote learning situations, parents, siblings and other students can also provide feedback by reviewing working drafts of products and performances. However, for such remote reviews to be successful, teachers need to model giving and receiving feedback, since students and parents may have never experienced this structured process. Of course, parents and siblings need to be reminded that their role is to provide feedback that will help the learner improve their work, not to do the work for them.

A checklist that can help teachers craft helpful feedback to students and a rubric that can help students provide feedback to each other:

5. Encourage students' self-assessment, reflection, and goal setting.

John Dewey noted that "We don't learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on our experience." Students' work on meaningful and engaging tasks offers a natural opportunity for them to self-assess their performance, reflect on their learning and set future learning goals. McTighe and Wiggins (2004) offer the following set of prompts that can be used to stimulate students' self-assessments, reflections and goal setting:

What do you really understand about?

What questions/uncertainties do you still have about?

What was most effective in?

What would you do differently next time?

What are your strengths?

How does what you've learned connect to other learnings?

How has what you've learned changed your thinking?

How does what you've learned relate to the present and future?

By regularly posing such questions and expecting learners to respond, teachers can cultivate lifelong skills and the productive habits of self-directed learners.

6. Resist traditional grading.

Home learning offers the opportunity to take a break from the traditional A-F grading scale. When students are engaged in authentic assignments and performance tasks, try shifting to an alternative scale; e.g., CD = completed with distinction; C = completed; NC = not yet completed. More generally, we recommend the use of "grading" that emphasizes the degree of completion of, and progress toward, goals/standards based on quality criteria. When teachers are freed from applying norm-referenced criteria and instead use statements that reference students' progress or development like "not yet"; "met desired criteria"; "can teach others, or have met the criteria with distinction", they communicate that learning is an ongoing process and that it takes time and sometimes multiple tries for work to meet quality standards.
7. Request an "honor code" pledge from students and parents.
The lines between learning at home and learning in school have disappeared, and parents are now charged with monitoring as well as supporting their children's learning. Having an honor code reinforces the importance of trust and upholds the belief that students are responsible for their own learning and for the attitudes and dispositions with which they approach their schoolwork. Asking parents to take an honor code pledge reinforces the expectation that parents should be supportive of their children's learning, but that completed work should reflect the students' own thinking and performance.

While the shift to remote learning was unexpected and has required significant adaptations from parents, teachers, and students, it has also opened the door to revisiting what is most important for learners. When teachers give students meaningful and engaging tasks, students learn more and value that learning. Plus, they will be developing valuable life skills and productive habits of mind that will serve them well in school and in life.

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Seven Strategies for Supporting Student Learning in a Remote Environment - ASCD

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By Jay McTighe and Giselle O. Martin-Kniep The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically upended traditional schooling and made remote learning the "new normal." Teachers are scrambling to offer some form of continuing education using virtual technologies, with the recognition that traditional approaches t

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Instructions

Overview

Social-emotional learning (SEL) has tremendous potential to create the conditions for youth agency and civic engagement and, ultimately, social change. We owe our students an education relevant to their lives and that explicitly addresses the sociopolitical context. This will not only prepare our students to engage civically and peacefully across difference, but also to become the changemakers and leaders we need.

Below are some ways to cultivate students' SEL skills while developing their sense of agency for social change:

Self-Awareness

Aristotle said, "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." Self-awareness-the ability to recognize one's emotions, thoughts, and values-is a crucial skill for understanding others and the world.

Teach a unit on the relationship between identity and equity, including activities that push students to reflect on how their identity hinders or enhances their life opportunities.

Have students interrogate their power and privilege, as well as racism, homophobia, sexism, and other forms of violence, to consider what changes they can make within themselves and their world to achieve more equity.

You might try the New York Times' collection of videos, "25 Mini-Films for Exploring Race, Bias, and Identity with Students."

Self-Management

A key component of self-management is regulating one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations.
Ask students to investigate the relationship between emotion regulation and race, gender, or other aspect of a person's identity to explore the different expectations for marginalized groups' self-management.
For example, police-related killings of people from marginalized backgrounds as well as the spate of "concerned citizen" calls on black people napping, celebrating in the park, or entering their own homes make clear that certain groups of people are expected to regulate their behavior and emotions more strictly in public.

Have students study how implicit bias influences teachers' behavioral and academic expectations for students as it relates to the school-to-prison pipeline.

At the end of a unit such as the ones suggested above, have students write an opinion piece, produce a YouTube minidocumentary, or present their learning to the school board.

Social Awareness

Social awareness involves appreciating diversity, building empathy, and respecting others.
Have students study a current event or social issue that is important to them.
For example, restroom accessibility: Have students research recent court cases, read and discuss narratives from transgender and gender -expansive students, and interview classmates.

A social awareness culminating project could include a campaign or a letter to a government official to advocate for a cause or a creative writing piece from the perspective of a marginalized group.

Relationship Skills

Relationship skills include making and maintaining rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups and being able to communicate, cooperate, and negotiate conflict constructively.
Have students debate an issue in their school or community that matters to them as a way to develop their abilities to build relationships with diverse team members, resolve disagreements, and work collaboratively to debate in effective ways.

Responsible Decision-Making

Responsible decision-making means constructive choices about how we behave and interact based on safety, social norms, and ethical standards.

Ask students to identify a community problem they want to solve and then, in groups, decide how best to solve it, keeping in mind safety, resources, social norms, and ethics.

Have students start a community garden or organize a farmer's market to address access to fresh food in food deserts, protest a community-identified injustice, or partner with an organization to provide a service lacking in the community.

Closure

Have students reflect verbally or through writing on their experience weaving together SEL and social justice:

What did you learn about yourself through this experience? Have you changed in any way? If so, how? [Self-awareness]

What did you do if and when uncomfortable emotions or thoughts arose during this experience? What might you do next time? [Self-management]

What did you learn about others through this experience? [Social Awareness]

How did you address conflict when it came up? Would you do anything differently next time to handle disagreements? [Relationship Skills]

How effective were your choices? Would you make the same ones, or would you have done something differently? [Responsible Decision-Making]

Finally, ask students to make an action plan for the future:
How will they continue to practice their SEL and social justice in their lives so that the work transcends the classroom?

Source

Adapted from Dena Simmons' ASCD article entitled " Why We Can't Afford White-Washed Social-Emotional Learning, " with permission from the author.

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Strategies for Teaching Fearless SEL for Societal Change | Greater Good In Education

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Overview Social-emotional learning (SEL) has tremendous potential to create the conditions for youth agency and civic engagement and, ultimately, social change. We owe our students an education relevant to their lives and that explicitly addresses the sociopolitical context. This will not only prepare our students to engage civically and peacefully across difference, but also to become the changemakers and leaders we need.

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A conversation about coronavirus is happening among young people right now, and the focus isn't solely on health. When reports of this novel virus-first detected in China in December of 2019-started spreading to other countries, racialized fear began to manifest in public discourse.

Since the virus began to spread, people who identify as Asian American or Pacific Islander (AAPI) have been subjected to racist comments and jokes online or in person, and to isolating behavior from those who are afraid of catching the virus.

Times like these remind us that we must continuously disrupt and address issues of hate and bias, which often find their way into schools.

It's important to get ahead of harmful discourse because we know students are watching or listening to this rhetoric online and on social media. Many children spend hours a day on devices, so information-and misinformation-is likely in the hands of most of your students.

What Our Students Are Hearing

So we can assume our students are seeing posts like this one from a college student who considered dropping a class because "only Asians" were in the classrooms, stating, "I hope I don't catch coronavirus."

They may also observe the racist tropes that falsely point to Chinese people's eating habits as the cause of the spread of the virus.

And these messages don't come only from misinformed youth or social media trolls. For example, the University of California at Berkley apologized after an official Instagram account shared a post that was supposed to inform students about the virus. Instead, it listed xenophobia when "interacting with someone who might be from Asia" among "common" or "normal" reactions to anxiety around the illness.

Anti-Chinese sentiment and any racist or xenophobic rhetoric about the AAPI community is not new. Associating this marginalized group of people with disease is also not new.

Educators need to understand the historical context as they prepare to address this narrative in the classroom or other school spaces.

The Historical Context

Members of the AAPI community are targets right now because public health events have always been racialized. Pandemics that originate in areas populated by mostly people of color get more scrutiny, such as SARS in China or Ebola in West Africa. However, when pandemics occur in the United States and other western countries, such as the novel H1N1, citizens in those countries were not viewed as innately diseased. Many people die yearly from the flu, but Westerners aren't seen as suspicious.

Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States related to disease goes back to when Chinese people began immigrating here. In efforts to bar Chinese workers from entering the country in the late 1800s, white labor unions argued that Chinese people carried diseases that were more virulent than those found in white people.

In the same way junk science was used to justify enslaving Africans, junk science about people from Asia was used to justify laws leading to exclusion and exploitation of Asian immigrants. It solidified fear and phobia against Chinese people. The " yellow peril " narrative was born. It's a racist term that plays on the idea that Asian people would disrupt or harm Westerners' way of life.

These racist tropes are directly tied to the oppression of Asians and Asian Americans in the United States. They were used to justify the Page Act of 1875, which restricted East Asian women from immigrating to the U.S. And they served, in part, as justification for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned most Chinese people from immigrating to the U.S.

Coupled with racist tropes about health and culture, these laws led to racist violence against Asian Americans. The remnants of that legacy remain in public discourse today.

Interrupting Racism

Educators have a responsibility to interrupt any anti-AAPI and xenophobic narratives. Since students may be exposed to racist posts on social media or racist comments about the coronavirus, you might hear some of this discourse in your classroom or throughout the school building. It is imperative that you interrupt it every time it occurs.

Right now, it's important to have a heightened sense of what your students are saying in spaces inside and outside of the classroom. Respond immediately to any news of a student repeating racist or xenophobic language. It's also vital to attend to any students or colleagues who have been harmed by anti-AAPI speech or rhetoric.

Our Responding to Hate and Bias at School guide can help you address issues at any phase of a hate or bias incident.

Educating Students

Because you won't always catch xenophobic or racist comments as they occur, it's important to equip students with the historical context and relevant skills to discern when something is biased and how they can respond.

Our Speak Up at School guide provides resources to help both educators and students tackle discussions about bias and stereotypes. helps guide educators in facilitating critical conversations.

Even if no incident has occurred yet in your school or classroom, you must still be proactive. Create a welcoming and hate-free environment by ensuring that students can identify hate and bias and then encouraging them to disrupt it. Teachers can use our lessons about upstanders, which show students how to respond to hate speech.

This is also an important time to emphasize the necessity of digital literacy, as students may become aware of hateful or biased speech online. Students must learn how to glean credible news sources and spot biased reporting. Spend time going through the pitfalls of the internet and help sharpen their digital literacy skills with lessons and activities.

Even if your students do not represent the identities likely to be harmed by racist comments around the coronavirus, or you believe they're not spreading misinformation and repeating racist tropes, exploring anti-AAPI rhetoric around the virus is still worthy of critical conversations in the classroom.

The truth is all students are affected by hate and bias. It's up to educators to protect those who are targeted by it and give students and other adults the tools to stop perpetrating harm in the future.

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Speaking Up Against Racism Around the Coronavirus

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A conversation about coronavirus is happening among young people right now, and the focus isn't solely on health. When reports of this novel virus-first detected in China in December of 2019-started spreading to other countries, racialized fear began to manifest in public discourse.

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our expanding library of project ideas that are standards-aligned, and cover a range of grade levels and subject areas.

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Writing Workshop That Can Thrive in a Pandemic

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How to Make Your Writing Workshop Thrive - Whether In Person, Online, or a Blend of Both by Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell.

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For back to school this Fall, the type of instruction offered will vary by school, district, or state. Some schools will return to 100 percent in-person classrooms, others to 100 percent remote teaching, and still others to some hybrid of the two. Reentry will be hard enough, but how can teachers of middle school and high school English nurture a love of reading, encourage independent reading habits, and build a community of readers under these conditions?

Penny Kittle's Book Love was written well before our current health crisis, but its ideas remain applicable in and adaptable to today's conditions. In fact, adaptation of one of Penny's most powerful suggestions can help knit together a community of remote, independent readers just as it does in regular classroom situations.

An adaptation of one of Penny's most powerful suggestions can help knit together a community of remote, independent readers just as it does in regular classroom situations.

In Chapter Eight of Book Love, Penny describes "big idea books":

I buy cheap notebooks at an office supply store and label them with common themes in literature, one per notebook: guilt; hope; fate; cruelty; isolation; justice; gender; freedom; coming of age; ambition; alienation; abandonment; conflict; suffering; yin & yang; the bonds of family; sacrifice; friendship; man struggling against nature/man/societal pressure to understand God; overcoming adversity; life lessons; empathy; change; courage; acceptance; love; death and dying; decisions; discipline; oppression; forgiveness; and belief. I paste the following explanation on the inside cover of each notebook:

These notebooks are for us to share. I write in them; you write in them. A big idea book is a multiyear conversation, because I use them year after year. You're talking across time to students who are stumbling along through elementary or middle school right now but will one day sit where you are.

The meat of a big idea book is your thinking. I want you digging for what is beneath the story you're reading. You chose this book (this theme) for a reason. You can see how it connects to what is happening or what is explored in the book you're reading. You might connect the ideas or situations in the book to something in yourself or another book you've read. You might take the ideas in the book and go farther with them . . . thinking as you write.

You are doing a mini-book talk for someone who comes upon your words later. Try not to give away anything important that readers would rather discover on their own: you know how you hate that. You can skim a big idea book and find a dozen book talks from students like you. Add the titles to your to-read-next list, and you'll have a range of possibilities when you've finished one book and can't decide what to read next.

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If this seems somehow familiar, it's because we adults do this same thing all the time in places like Goodreads, discussion forums about our favorite books or authors, and sometimes even in Amazon book reviews. So although there's nothing more powerful than seeing another's thinking in their own handwriting, big idea books can be easily adapted as online discussion threads in web-based collaboration tools; classroom collaboration tools such as Edmodo; by using the private, invitation-only features on blogging platforms such as Wordpress, or via whatever similar resource your school or district makes available.

So although there's nothing more powerful than seeing another's thinking in their own handwriting, big idea books can be easily adapted as online discussion threads in web-based collaboration tools.

Rather than buying a notebook, set up a thread with a headnote to students like the one Penny places in her physical notebooks. Then ask students provide entries in the comments. You, too, should put your thoughts into these discussion threads, to model your thinking and your love of reading.

Taking Penny's big idea books online helps you encourage students to read, think, and write independently whether they are in the classroom itself, sometimes in it, or learning remotely. Everyone can participate and see one another's thinking, which connects them intimately to one another as a community of readers and adolescents.

Parts of this blog are adapted from Book Love by Penny Kittle.
Learn more at Heienemann.com.

Penny Kittle teaches freshman composition at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. She was a teacher and literacy coach in public schools for 34 years, 21 of those spent at Kennett High School in North Conway. She is the co-author of 180 Days with Kelly Gallagher, and is the author of Book Love, and Write Beside Them, which won the James Britton award. She also co-authored two books with her mentor, Don Graves, and co-edited (with Tom Newkirk) a collection of Graves' work, Children Want to Write. She is the president of the Book Love Foundation and was given the Exemplary Leader Award from NCTE's Conference on English Leadership. In the summer Penny teaches graduate students at the University of New Hampshire Literacy Institutes. Throughout the year, she travels across the U.S. and Canada (and once in awhile quite a bit farther) speaking to teachers about empowering students through independence in literacy. She believes in curiosity, engagement, and deep thinking in schools for both students and their teachers. Penny stands on the shoulders of her mentors, the Dons (Murray & Graves), and the Toms (Newkirk & Romano), in her belief that intentional teaching in a reading and writing workshop brings the greatest student investment and learning in a classroom.

Learn more about Penny Kittle on her websites, pennykittle.net and booklovefoundation.org, or follow her on twitter at @pennykittle.

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Nurturing Book Love in Uncertain Teaching Times

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For back to school this Fall, the type of instruction offered will vary by school, district, or state. Some schools will return to 100 percent in-person classrooms, others to 100 percent remote teaching, and still others to some hybrid of the two.

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5 Guided Meditation Scripts for Teachers

Much of our modern day education focuses on conventional conversations and modes of delivery. While much of what is taught it of great value, there appears to be an unfilled need for mindfulness and meditation teachings. As educators, this is an area we can explore in many ways, such as with the support of guided meditation scripts for teachers.

In this comprehensive guide to using guided meditation scripts for teachers, we will explore:

​The Benefits of Meditation for Kids and Teenagers

Mindfulness and meditation are often thought of as adult practices. Why is this? Well, one of the major reasons why this is the case is that many of us in the Western world did not learn these practices as children. Meditation is something that many of us fell into as adults with adult-size struggles. As such, it isn't always easy for us to consider how these practices are just as relevant to children.

However, granting kids, teens, and students of all ages the chance to explore these practices is a true gift. By adjusting practices to suit a particular group's level of maturity and cognitive abilities, mindfulness exercises and meditation offer incredible benefits.

Some specific findings on the benefits of meditation for kids and teenagers include:

Now, as this guide is for teachers, it is important to point out that the group being taught may indeed be a group of adults. Many (if not all) of the same benefits can be observed through adult meditation practice. The main difference is in the application of the ensuing results. For adults, the implications of mindfulness and meditation practice often touch on more mature matters.

​What Types of Teachers Use Guided Meditation Scripts?

So, from youth groups to adult settings, scripts for mindfulness meditation can be used by teachers of all types. Depending on the experience level, maturity, and cognitive abilities of the group in question, the ideal script will differ from one to the next.

It is also important to note that the definition of 'teacher' can vary. Most commonly, we consider a teacher to be someone who works in a school setting; however, educators conduct their work in various ways.

For example, some of the common types of educators that may use guided meditation scripts include:

Guided meditation scripts for kids can be used by teachers to enhance the wellbeing of those in a class or school. They might be used in extracurricular groups, in a physical education class, or in any other course where the topic of mindfulness can be interwoven.

Those who work in community centers may also benefit from the use of meditation scripts. In workshops or gatherings for community members, meditation can be explored at a level that suits the needs of the group.

Furthermore, those who work in the wellness sector may also consider the use of meditation scripts in educating those they work with. Mindfulness can easily be woven into many modalities and can be offered as regular classes, workshops, seminars, or one-on-one sessions.

Lastly, an obvious category of people to whom meditation scripts would apply is that of meditation teachers. If you are leading a group through a new practice, a script can be a useful support to keep you on the right track. Especially for teachers just starting out, scripts can be a welcomed resource.

Using guided meditation scripts for teachers is just one point of consideration to make when guiding a group. A variety of other factors contribute to a smooth and safe flow of a guided practice. From lighting to language to music, these are a few questions you might ask yourself when planning a guided session:

First, it is important to consider the language you will use and the topics you will cover. For young children, simple breathing techniques or gentle visualizations are a great place to start. For older groups, you might consider exploring more mature themes, like relationships, self-esteem, and stress. In any case, be mindful of what you can comfortably dive into with the group at hand.

Creating a safe and comfortable space to meditate in is reassuring to those you will be guiding. Consider the use of candles, music, and compassionate communication to build this. When it comes to compassionate communication, you might consider including a question and answer period. Making yourself available to address the questions and concerns of those you are working with is often greatly beneficial.

The age and experience level of your students will help you to determine the appropriate length of your meditation. For young children, begin with just a few minutes of meditation or consider incorporating more engaging mindfulness exercises for kids. For teenage or adult groups, the ideal length of meditation will vary greatly. For example, your session might be 5 minutes long or it might be 40. Use your intuition to guide you and keep your eye out for cues from the group.

A final consideration to make is the chance that strong emotions will come to the surface. The potential is always there, but it is worth considering what the likelihood of this is and how you will manage a challenge should it arise. In some cases and settings, you might like to have support in teaching. In other cases, you will trust your own heart and instinct to effectively navigate whatever might come up.

​5 Guided Meditation Scripts for Teachers

These guided meditation scripts are just a handful of the resources available for you to consider. When choosing a meditation script, keep your group in mind to determine what is the best fit. Start small, especially with children, and use your gut to guide you.

Regardless of who you are teaching, guided meditation scripts are an excellent resource to have at hand while facilitating. They are a source of inspiration and can offer a clear framework for the session. If you have some experience guiding meditation sessions already, you might modify or adjust some of these scripts to suit your needs and goals.

A humbling Galileo quote reads:

"You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it within himself."

So, as educators of any sort, we can use these scripts and other resources available to help inspire our students to discover what already lives within them. This is where the potential for incredible transformation takes place - in each of our wondrous beings and theirs.

Teach mindfulness.
Make a difference.

Become a certified mindfulness meditation teacher and make a meaningful difference in people's lives.

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Guided Meditation Scripts for Teachers | Mindfulness Exercises

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5 Guided Meditation Scripts for Teachers Much of our modern day education focuses on conventional conversations and modes of delivery. While much of what is taught it of great value, there appears to be an unfilled need for mindfulness and meditation teachings.

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A brief mindfulness meditation practice to relax your body and focus your mind.

Time required: 20-45 minutes, three to six days per week for four weeks. Research suggests that people who practice the body scan for longer reap more benefits from this practice.

How to Practice Body Scan Meditation

The body scan can be performed while lying down, sitting, or in other postures. The steps below are a guided meditation designed to be done while sitting. You can listen to audio of this three-minute guided meditation, produced by UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), in the player; if it doesn't play, you can find it here or download it from MARC's website.*
Especially for those new to the body scan, we recommend performing this practice with the audio. However, you can also use the script below for guidance for yourself or for leading this practice for others.
Begin by bringing your attention into your body.

You can close your eyes if that's comfortable for you.

You can notice your body seated wherever you're seated, feeling the weight of your body on the chair, on the floor.

Take a few deep breaths.

And as you take a deep breath, bring in more oxygen enlivening the body. And as you exhale, have a sense of relaxing more deeply.

You can notice your feet on the floor, notice the sensations of your feet touching the floor. The weight and pressure, vibration, heat.

You can notice your legs against the chair, pressure, pulsing, heaviness, lightness.

Notice your back against the chair.

Bring your attention into your stomach area. If your stomach is tense or tight, let it soften. Take a breath.

Notice your hands. Are your hands tense or tight. See if you can allow them to soften.

Notice your arms. Feel any sensation in your arms. Let your shoulders be soft.

Notice your neck and throat. Let them be soft. Relax.

Soften your jaw. Let your face and facial muscles be soft.

Then notice your whole body present. Take one more breath.

Be aware of your whole body as best you can. Take a breath. And then when you're ready, you can open your eyes.
* You can also listen to a 45-minute version of the Body Scan that the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness uses in its trainings in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. This article was adapted from Greater Good In Action, a site launched by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, in collaboration with HopeLab. Synthesizing hundreds of scientific studies, Greater Good in Action collects the best research-based methods for a happier, more meaningful life-and puts them at your fingertips in a format that's easy to navigate and digest. The meditation is narrated by Diana Winston, Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA Semel Institute's Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC).

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A 3-Minute Body Scan Meditation to Cultivate Mindfulness - Mindful

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A brief mindfulness meditation practice to relax your body and focus your mind. Time required: 20-45 minutes, three to six days per week for four weeks. Research suggests that people who practice the body scan for longer reap more benefits from this practice. The body scan can be performed while lying down, sitting, or in other postures.

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By Liz Prather

Here we are.

In the county where I teach, more COVID cases showed up in July than from March through June combined. On Friday, our superintendent and board voted 5-0 to start the year virtually, rolling out a plan that includes giving every student in every school a Chromebook and internet access.

Last week, I completed training in Canvas, the learning management system our high schools will be using this year. As I practiced uploading Screencasts, creating Flipgrids, embedding YouTube and Padlet links, I realized that so much of what drives my in-person classroom is the in-person part.

This pandemic has forced me to pin my process to the wall and examine it. I've had to conceive of and write down plans not dependent on a blaze of inspiration or the cult of my personality or the energy of the room. Chiseling down what I do--one part gut to two parts hope--on a Google hyperdoc has required me to seriously look at the value of what and how I teach. So much has been disrupted already by the social and cultural force of COVID, why not dismantle everything at this point?

For the instinctual teacher - and most of us are- teaching is improv, reading the room, changing courses, calibrating for clarity and the phase of the moon. It's art and craft, mystery and logic.

I'm not a Luddite or opposed to technology. I was among the first teachers in my building to become Google certified, and I've used Google classroom for my classes since 2014. But I feel technology is just an accessory, not the main engine of my classroom.

My classroom lives in the back-and-forth of discussion and storytelling, the loose and ranging conversations and debates and questions. Of course, you can tell a story on Flipgrid. Of course, you can discuss on Zoom. But it's the flow that's missing. The rush of a room full of kids, buzzing. Even silence in a room like that has energy.

What I do in my classroom has no real substitute in the virtual world any more than a bitmoji substitutes for the real me. For the instinctual teacher - and most of us are- teaching is improv, reading the room, changing courses, calibrating for clarity and the phase of the moon. It's art and craft, mystery and logic. Like the musician who riffs and jams, an instinctual teacher needs her hands on the instrument of her classroom. And virtual teaching feels like playing guitar in boxing gloves.

But here we are.

I've discovered a few things I'll share with you.

Community is still key:
However I design the learning, creating community will be the first, last, and daily goal of my virtual classroom. Community is built and maintained by students sharing their lives and caring for one another. If the world is a roiling mess, let your classroom stabilize the upheaval for a moment and offer some safety and grace. You can do that by inviting all four-levels of classroom connection: whole group, small group, teacher-to-student, and student-student. Tell stories, share jokes, talk honestly. Meet in a video platform once a week as a whole group and once a week in small groups. Create pen-pals, study buddies, writing partners. Send video feedback to students and Sunday night emails to all parents. Telepath this: We are physically separate, but we are all in this together.

Innovate with texts:
Use the disruption to finally break from the desiccated old classroom sets growing brittle in the workroom. Why not teach with all fresh texts this year? Approach the text as a reader, not as a teacher. Exchange the well-worn short stories and poems of the textbook for contemporary online texts written by living writers, both inside and outside your community. Find new voices that address gender, race, and class. Read fewer texts, but read them deeply. Maybe I'll swim into texts I've never read myself, that I have no worksheets for, letting the insights and observations of the community guide the discussion.

I'm drilling down on the essentials, whittling my standards down to three: does this invite students to think critically? Does this invite students to practice reading and comprehending? Does this invite students to communicate their ideas in writing? That's it: thinking, reading, writing.

Less is more:
Just because my new LMS has a gazillion bells and whistles doesn't mean I should use them all. I'm drilling down on the essentials, whittling my standards down to three: does this invite students to think critically? Does this invite students to practice reading and comprehending? Does this invite students to communicate their ideas in writing? That's it: thinking, reading, writing. One good lesson will hit all three; a series of good lessons will provide practice at this essential triad. Fewer skills, more practice.

Clarity is critical:
Students and their parents will be using whatever I upload to Canvas as a road map to learn something valuable. These maps need to be simple and clear, devoid of the kind of edu-speak that so often passes for rigor in lesson planning. Deliver a complex idea (like assessing rhetorical situations) in one simple way, then deliver it again and again in other, multiple simple ways. Hand your lesson plan off to someone who is not a teacher and ask: can you understand what I'm asking you to do? Lessons should be easy enough that students (and parents) can immediately grasp the shape and expectations of the lesson, even as the objectives of the lesson challenge and stretch them intellectually.

I once heard a principal describe a colleague as someone who taught her first year 27 times. If he meant applying the freshness and ambition of a first-year teacher to every year, this statement might be complimentary, but he was referring to the stagnancy, lack of examination that comes from teaching without reflection the same, exact way every year.

Just as this pandemic finally galvanized our district to address the instructional equity of technology for every student, it has forced me to examine my practice. I've had to rethink how to frame learning so that it's logical and engaging to students without me being there to drop in with an illustration and jazz hands to clarify and compel. Whenever and however I return to the classroom, I will be a better teacher because of, not despite, this moment.

* * *

To learn more about Liz Prather and her book Story Matters: Teaching Teens to Use the Tools of Narrative to Argue and Inform visit Heinemann.com. Click the button below to download a chapter.

Are you a fan of podcasts? List to our conversation with Liz Prather about narrative writing and how narrative plays a bigger role in our story telling than we realize.

Liz Prather is a writing teacher at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, a magnet arts program at Lafayette High School in Lexington, Kentucky. A classroom teacher with 21years of experience teaching writing at both the secondary and post-secondary level, Liz is also a professional freelance writer and holds a MFA from the University of Texas-Austin.

Liz is the author of Project-Based Writing: Teaching Writers to Manage Time and Clarify Purpose, and Story Matters: Teaching Teens to Use the Tools of Narrative to Argue and Inform.

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From Instinctual to Intentional: My Transition to Online Learning

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By Liz Prather Here we are. In the county where I teach, more COVID cases showed up in July than from March through June combined. On Friday, our superintendent and board voted 5-0 to start the year virtually, rolling out a plan that includes giving every student in every school a Chromebook and internet access.