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Whether you use Google Classroom, Apex, or any other domains, a solid class page is your first step! It is important to keep all information in one place for all students to access. I suggest creating a FAQs section to avoid answering the same question 30 different times. Your FAQs should include things like how to access assignments, how to upload documents, policies, and important dates.

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Many teachers are a few weeks into this remote learning and remote teaching experience. I asked my reading teacher friend, Julia, how she would describe her experience so far and she responded with a link to this video.

@makeshift.macaroni##ukulele ##uke ##originalsong ##teachersoftiktok ##tiktokteacher ##smallgestures♬ original sound - makeshift.macaroni

If you don't click through to watch the video, (I highly recommend it!) it is a teacher strumming her guitar in peace. Then she screams... a lot! You really have to watch to get the full comedic effect.

We asked our Facebook Group and other teachers their best practices for remote teaching, and we compiled and shared our favorites below. Here are some remote teaching tips for teachers.
Note: We understand that many teachers do not have the autonomy to do what they think is best for remote learning due to district or administration requirements. This list is intended to give you ideas from other teachers who are having success.
1. Create a FAQs Page on Your Class Website

This brilliant remote teaching tip was shared by Kelly. Are you getting tired of responding to the same questions about log in, passwords, and when assignments are posted or due? Only you know what logistical questions are taking away from your instructional or planning time. Create a FAQs page or slide that you can link or email when you are being asked the same question for the eighteenth time. Other ideas for your FAQs page include how to access assignments, office hour times, where to take notes, when grades are updated, late work policy etc.

2. Be Consistent

Many teachers commented that since students are receiving so many instructions from multiple teachers, it would be best for students and teachers to create standard procedures (perhaps even across schools or grade levels) by adapting consistency in the following ways:

Post assignments in the same place - Even if you are linking to Desmos or some other assignment, always post assignments to the same place - this could be a LMS or Google Classroom.

Post assignments at the same time each day - Since scheduling assignments is a feature most LMS have, it would be best to take advantage. Decide either that your assignments for the entire week will be posted every Monday at 8 am or that your assignments for the day will be posted everyday at 8 am. This helps students and parents plan for their week. One parent told me that her student's teacher post assignments on Sundays to help working parents plan for their week.

Keep a consistent due date - If you are grading assignments, choose a day of the week and time that everything is due.

One subject per day - My former school has dedicated one day of the week to each subject. Monday is reading. Tuesday is math. Wednesday is history. Thursday is science. Friday is for electives. Each teacher provides about 1-2 hours worth of either assignments, office hours, or live/recorded teaching for students.

3. Assign a Manageable Amount of Work

Many teachers shared that lowering your expectations for the amount of work students complete daily is acceptable and encouraged. As adults, my husband and I are getting much less done in our work day, and we have our own computers and rooms to work in with closed doors. Many of our students with working parents are now responsible for younger siblings or are sharing devices or coping with the drastic changes to their lives. And they are students! I would say about half of my students needed pretty heavy encouragement and reminders to stay on task and complete their work when I was standing next to them, so adjust your expectations if you haven't already to prevent frustration. Calling a student to kindly check in with them during this time would probably also encourage work completion.

4. Hold Office Hours

This remote teaching tip came up with teachers and parents I spoke electronically with. Even if just 1 or 2 students show up, that means your office hours were purposeful. Record or find a video lesson for students to watch on their own time with some questions ( Edpuzzle is perfect for this!) and then hold office hours (at the same time everyday) so students can ask questions and check their work. It's like a small group!

5. School Culture Still Matters

If you aren't drowning, and you want to engage your students outside of math content, then encourage students to participate in picture taking challenges. Maybe if they participate, they receive bonus points or get an assignment/homework pass. Ideas include: taking a picture of yourself doing the following activities:

What is working for you? What is not working? What are some remote teaching tips that you would add to this list? If you need any more help with remote learning, please check out our free resources here.

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Many teachers are a few weeks into this remote learning and remote teaching experience. I asked my reading teacher friend, Julia, how she would describe her experience so far and she responded with a link to this video.

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Providing your students with clear expectations from the beginning will prevent a lot of confusion for all parties involved. It is important to give students a clear syllabus, due dates, schedule, and directions. It is best to be straightforward and direct with students.

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Patience in fact is a virtue, and although it may seem to be the most obvious tip, I believe it is the most important. Sure, you will get frustrated, as will your students. However, a calm and patient outlook will make things easier. Your students will perform better when they know you are able to keep your composure and roll with the punches.

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We don't want to swamp our students, or ourselves, with too much work. Keep in mind that they have other classes as well as many other responsibilities outside of their schoolwork. Lowering your expectations for the amount of work students can complete daily will help keep them focused and motivated.

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Yes, it is difficult to hold virtual classes. Most teachers don't have blackboards in their homes. However, having face to face instruction or pre-recorded video lessons will help students feel connected to you, and in turn likely be more motivated. Many students treasure the bonds they have with their teachers, so seeing you (even if it's through a screen) will mean more to them than you realize.

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Along with variety, it is important to make lessons engaging. There are many apps and websites you can use to assign lessons that include polls, activities, and even games. These interactive lessons will help make learning fun and enjoyable!

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Distance learning started as an emergency in the spring, but teachers are finding ways to make it better, even for students working on smartphones.

As the new school year looms in the U.S., many teachers are unsure of the exact amount of time they will need to dedicate to remote teaching. With departments of education and districts looking to maintain both teacher and student attendance while minimizing the risk of coronavirus outbreaks in their schools, we know that remote learning isn't going away at this time.

Through staggered calendars and schedules, many schools hope to keep their students and staff safe by reducing class sizes in efforts to maintain social distancing for the time being. Although research on staggered scheduling shows that the practice can have positive effects on academic results, educators will need to continue making pedagogical shifts and pivots to adjust to yet another new instructional day in their efforts to engage all learners.

Whether students are in classrooms or are working fully at home, teachers will want to maintain personal contact with them, especially their most disadvantaged students. Frequent check-ins-in person, over phone or email, or through the class LMS-will help teachers better understand students' needs, providing them the insight needed to design more equitable lessons that address both academic and social and emotional learning for disadvantaged students, and all of their students.

In the months since the pandemic caused an emergency rush to distance learning, many teachers have made significant strides in improving the remote teaching skills they need to reach all learners. The new school year can allow us to improve our online lesson delivery still further by balancing the effective use of edtech with good teaching practice. Here are two relatively simple strategies to make online instruction better.

Make Lessons Interactive and Accessible 24/7

When teaching students face-to-face, my strategy for engagement is to use systematic and reflective strategies in tandem with interactive activities. This consistent practice helps build a collaborative culture, establish and maintain norms, and develop an inquiry mindset in students. Teachers will need to recreate this online to make their remote lessons engaging.

Nearpod can help, through a student engagement platform designed to make lessons interactive and accessible with or without a facilitator. This feature aids learning remotely because it allows students multiple chances for capturing the content and improving both their skills and transfer. Teachers can launch their lessons in a student-paced mode and can monitor the completion of the work.

Nearpod also allows teachers to add interactive activities to lessons, which enables student participation in both real-time and self-paced lessons in fun ways. This feature is multifaceted and has several interactive options, including adding polls, fill-in-the-blank activities, matching pairs, short quizzes, and open-ended questions, and having students draw a picture to show their learning. Each of these activities can be designed to fit the context of all age groups and generates data back to educators about how well the content is being learned.

It's also worth mentioning that students can easily access Nearpod on their parents' or guardians' smartphones, ﻿making the learning more accessible to students who do not have Wi-Fi access or a computer at home.

Foster Student Collaboration Via Virtual Breakout Rooms

Having students work together in pairs during activities or in teams to complete a task or product is critical learning work in lessons that teachers do not have to eliminate when teaching remotely. Incorporating collaborative activities during virtual class meetups enhances instruction the same way it does when teaching in person. For this purpose, I like to use the Zoom platform to place my learners in breakout rooms at various points of my lesson. I use either strategically or randomly chosen groupings depending on my purpose. For example, when students need to partner for project work, I group them purposefully. For activities like turn and talk or learning circles, they can be randomly assigned a partner or partners.

Again, students who lack Wi-Fi access and/or a computer can join live lessons via smartphones and still participate in all of the activities along with their peers.

Collaborative activities that can be conducted via breakout rooms include storytelling, turn and talk, learning stations or centers, workshops, jigsaws, think pair share, and feedback protocols like critical friends and gallery walk.

Mastering working in groups virtually will take some practice before most students become pros, but relatively quickly the experience will keep them engaged in enhancing their communication and problem-solving skills. Teachers in kindergarten to second grade will need to encourage parents and guardians to log in to assist learners with navigating the tech. Older kids can learn to schedule their own teamwork time once they are comfortable using the Zoom app independent of their teachers.

For schools that don't use Zoom, other platforms with the breakout feature include GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, and RingCentral.

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2 Simple Ways to Improve Online Instruction

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Distance learning started as an emergency in the spring, but teachers are finding ways to make it better, even for students working on smartphones. As the new school year looms in the U.S., many teachers are unsure of the exact amount of time they will need to dedicate to remote teaching.

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It's no secret that students get bored and lose interest in lessons and assignments. This is why educators must switch up the types of assignments. If one day you assigned worksheets, the next day you can assign a project or a reading assignment. Students will not want to do the same thing every day, which is why assigning a variety of lessons will keep them engaged.

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Encourage students to remain stress free

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Encourage students to remain stress free

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Students who are stressed out and frustrated over their school work will not be able to work to the best of their ability. It is important for teachers and parents to encourage them to maintain activities that will keep them cool, calm, and collected. Encourage your students to go play outside, to visit their friends or family (at a 6 foot distance!), or even take a nap. Stress can take a toll on our bodies and our brains, so it is important to inspire students to de-stress.

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As the pandemic grinds on and protests against police brutality and systemic racism continue, young people are coping with high levels of stress and uncertainty, writes Dr. Pamela Cantor in " The Stress of This Moment Might Be Hurting Kids' Development" for Education Next. With the likelihood that remote learning will continue in some form this fall, many children will once more be separated from the support systems that help balance their lives by keeping them connected to routines-and to the people outside their immediate families who care about them. It's a difficult set of circumstances that Cantor, founder and senior science advisor of Turnaround for Children, calls "the Covid-19 paradox."

"In order to be safe and keep others safe from the virus, we must be physically distant. But that means disrupting the communities and relationships in our lives-classrooms, teachers, teams, coaches, churches, friends, extended families-that are the very connections we need to feel safe, to cope with stress, and to surmount this crisis," writes Cantor. "On top of this, there is a crisis of trust, particularly for young people of color, because of what they are witnessing: Officers who should protect them, but don't, won't, or can't."

When people experience stress, the hormone cortisol is released in the body, producing the fight, flight, or freeze impulse. Some stress may be useful in preparing kids for challenging tasks like tests and performances. "This is the limbic system in the brain at work-attention, concentration, focus, memory, preparation," writes Cantor. But persistently high levels of stress can become toxic, affecting attention and memory. The hormone oxytocin, however, can help protect children from these harmful effects. "Relationships that are strong and positive cause oxytocin's release, which helps produce feelings of trust, love, attachment, and safety," Cantor writes. "This not only helps children manage stress, but also offsets the damaging effects of cortisol and produces resilience to future stress."

As students head back to school this fall with the possibility of hybrid learning models and rolling school closures, educators and parents will play an important role in helping to "inoculate us against the intolerable stress of the scary, uncertain world we now live in," she writes. Cantor suggests adults focus on a new take on the "Three Rs": relationships, routines, and resilience.

Relationships: When students are learning from home, teachers can maintain relationships by connecting through virtual advisory groups and individual online meetings. Cantor recommends a strategy called two-by-ten: A teacher makes a specific goal of talking one-on-one with a struggling student for two minutes for a 10-day stretch. These quick, focused interactions can build relationships and provide emotional boosts that may produce oxytocin.

To reinforce connections with families, teachers can check in with them regularly via video chat. If needed, a set of predetermined questions can help educators gain insight into how students and families are coping with issues like homework, organization, and keeping up with the daily routine of online classes.

Another way to encourage caregivers and kids to stay connected at home-Cantor calls them "oxytocin boosters"-is by suggesting they pursue activities together, like cooking a family dinner as a unit or calling a grandparent. One New York teacher even organized "Tasty Tuesdays" during which her 2nd grade students share breakfast via Zoom.

Routines: Our brains, writes Cantor, are "prediction machines that like order, and when our environments are orderly, the brain is calmer." To establish predictable routines at home, families can create weekly schedules that include time alloted for academics, unstructured time for playing or working on projects, and even regular family meetings. Schools can support families by encouraging routines like healthy family meals, daily exercise, and mindfulness practices such as deep breathing and journaling.

During distance learning, teachers can create fun activities that address both emotional and academic needs and map to the students' schedules. For example, a second-grade teacher "dresses up in superhero costumes to read students bedtime stories that include vocabulary and comprehension lessons," Cantor writes.

Once schools reopen, "the primary focus should be physical, emotional, and identity safety"-the necessary precursors to academic work-writes Cantor. Teachers can continue to establish routines in the classroom with lists and sticky notes.

Resilience: Built over time, the skill of resilience "begins with learning how to regulate emotions and behaviors from role models through a process called co-regulation," Cantor says. During remote learning, teachers can foster resilience by reminding students that we all "need to manage ourselves and our fears every single day," and families can help by encouraging teamwork and creative problem-solving, celebrating successes, and modeling healthy strategies for managing anxiety and stress. Guiding kids so they develop the ability to recognize their emotions and strengthen their resilience during distance learning will help prepare them for the return to physical school in the new year.

When kids do return to the classroom, educators should strive to create a "safe, supportive environment; strong, developmental relationships; and integrated and rigorous academic, skill, and mindset development," Cantor concludes. When these elements are prioritized, they provide an "ecological vaccine, rich in protective factors that ignite the developing brain, promote wellness, and protect children from the damaging effects of stress."

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3 Ways to Reduce Stress and Build Connections During Distance Learning

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As the pandemic grinds on and protests against police brutality and systemic racism continue, young people are coping with high levels of stress and uncertainty, writes Dr. Pamela Cantor in " The Stress of This Moment Might Be Hurting Kids' Development" for Education Next.

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Though it is important to assign due dates to keep students responsible, there are ways to be flexible with your students. Consider having your assignments be accessible to students 24/7. Many students may have younger siblings they need to care for during the day while mom is at work, so allowing students access to their assignments at all hours of the day will likely be greatly appreciated.

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Planning and grading is going to take more time for teachers to complete, so assigning students work they can continue for a few days. This will give you some time to get things done while they are still completing work. Essays and projects are great examples of longer assignments.

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An educator with experience in distance learning shares what he's learned: During the pandemic, keep it simple, and build in as much contact as possible.

The coronavirus has caused widespread school closures for an unknown duration. Teachers are scrambling to find ways to support students from afar through distance and online learning. If you're feeling overwhelmed by this daunting task, you're certainly not alone.

I've also struggled to reach students outside of class. For several years, I taught in communities where students struggled to attend school consistently. To help absent students access my courses, I developed a blended, self-paced, mastery-based instructional model that empowered all my students to learn, whether they were in my room or not. Today, I run The Modern Classrooms Project, where I help other teachers do the same.

Through teaching students and training educators, I've learned a lot about how to effectively create and implement digital instruction and self-paced learning. I'll share a few tips below, and if you're looking for further support on developing effective distance learning beyond what I discuss in this piece, explore the resources on our website or start our free online course, Building Modern Classrooms.

Here are some pointers that can help you create a sustainable and engaging distance learning experience for your students.

1. Simplicity Is Key

Every teacher knows what it's like to explain new instructions to their students. It usually starts with a whole group walk-through, followed by an endless stream of questions from students to clarify next steps. While this process can be frustrating at times, students can always rely on each other and the teacher in the room when they're stuck.

One of the challenges of distance learning is that you and your students are no longer in the same room to collectively tackle misconceptions. Instead, the large bulk of learning time is inevitably going to be driven by tasks that require a high level of self-direction.

As a result, simplicity is key. It is critical to design distance learning experiences that have very clear instructions and utilize only one or two resources. It's also best, when possible, to provide resources like readings as PDFs that students can always access.

Keep in mind that simple structures can still require rigorous work: Tasks with few instructions often lead to the greatest amount of higher-order thinking, as students figure out what to do within defined parameters. Distance learning should push educators to think about how they can be leaner and more concise with their delivery of new information.

2. Establish a Digital Home Base

In the spirit of simplicity, it's vital to have a digital home base for your students. This can be a district-provided learning management system like Canvas or Google Classrooms, or it can be a self-created class website. I recommend Google Sites as a simple, easy-to-set-up platform.

You need a single digital platform that your students can always visit for the most recent and up-to-date information. It can be tempting to jump around between all the cool edtech applications out there-especially as so many of them are offering free services right now-but simplicity and familiarity are invaluable. Students need to feel comfortable going to the same place to access the same tools. The farther away you are from your students, the more important it is to cultivate stability and practice norms.

Additionally, if attendance was a challenge before, distance learning is going to magnify it. So students need a place to go when they fall out of the loop. Filling in gaps is only going to get harder when the teacher cannot quickly engage in individual or small group instruction. Your students are going to need to take control of their own learning. Your goal is to create a clear framework that allows them to do that. You might want to check out a unit I created on probability and statistics to see how I provided instructions and set up checkpoints for my students.

3. Prioritize Longer, Student-Driven Assignments

Efficiency is key when designing distance learning experiences. Planning is going to take more time and require a high level of attention to detail. You will not be able to correct mistakes on the fly or suddenly pivot when kids are disengaged.

To effectively manage your time and sanity, you will want to prioritize longer, student-driven assignments and tasks that buy you time to keep planning future units-and that get your students off the computer. Focus on building toward long-term projects where students have autonomy and a clear set of checkpoints and deadlines that need to be met. When possible, create opportunities for students to discuss what they're learning with their families and include an element of student choice to really build engagement.

Check out a project set up by Modern Classrooms' co-founder, Robert Barnett, that integrates choice and family engagement: Demographer Challenge.

4. Individual Touchpoints Are Game-Changers

What your students will miss the most is the human connection that is cultivated in your classroom. The little interactions you have with them in the hallways, before and after class or during breaks in lessons, are irreplaceable. While it can be tempting to focus on content in your distance learning assignments and instructional videos, what matters more is creating structures for personalized touchpoints with your students.

You can create these touchpoints through any medium you like: emails, video messages, phone calls, messages through your learning management system, comments on shared documents, etc. Create a structure and stick to it. Your students will see your investment and know that you care about them.

It's important to bear in mind that cultivating an engaging distance learning experience is hard. It takes time and an incredible amount of patience. If you are new to the experience, you're probably going to feel like a first-year teacher again. That's OK! Tackle the challenges step by step, keep your students updated on your progress, and stay positive. You can do this!

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4 Tips for Teachers Shifting to Teaching Online

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An educator with experience in distance learning shares what he's learned: Keep it simple, and build in as much contact as possible.

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It's no secrets that all parties involved have some concerns about successful distance learning. Here are some I've experienced or heard:
1. How are the students expected to understand what their teachers are asking of them?
2. How are the students supposed to stay focused on a computer screen all day?
3. How will the students stay motivated to work with no one watching them?
4. Are the students going to get bored doing the same thing every day?
5. How will teachers manage all of these extra expectations?

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Hopefully, my 10 tips for distance teaching answer your questions and ease your concerns!