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Heart of a Teacher: A Treasury of Inspiration

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Listen to my interview with Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis, authors of The HyperDoc Handbook ( transcript):

In many classrooms, a learning cycle looks something like this: First, we write plans for a series of lessons and a final assessment. We gather materials-handouts, websites, rubrics, video clips. Then we teach the lessons one at a time, to the whole class, at the same pace, distributing materials as needed. Finally, we end with a project, test, or other assessment.

It's a very teacher-directed model, which can limit learning in a number of ways:

Students don't feel much ownership for their own learning. Instead, they depend on the teacher to tell them when and how to learn the material.

Because so much of the teacher's time is spent in direct instruction, there's little opportunity to work one-on-one with students.

Because it's up to the teacher to adjust instruction for students with varied needs and levels of readiness, differentiation becomes one more thing to do.

ENTER THE HYPERDOC

A HyperDoc is a digital document-such as a Google Doc-where all components of a learning cycle have been pulled together into one central hub. Within a single document, students are provided with hyperlinks to all of the resources they need to complete that learning cycle. Here's an example.

In the above HyperDoc, all of the bolded words are linked to outside resources. The right-hand column is set aside for students to take notes and do other kinds of thinking and planning as they work through the lesson.

One of the earliest iterations of the this type of "hub" was the WebQuest, which guided students through a lesson using all online resources. Now that Google tools like Docs and Slides have become so prevalent, teachers are using these tools to create similar lessons, choosing and mixing resources that go well beyond simple web pages. Last year, we looked at something called a playlist, which teacher Tracy Enos used to organize her language arts lessons and differentiate instruction for her students.

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links; if you purchase from Amazon after going through these links, Cult of Pedagogy receives a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Meanwhile, teachers Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis were doing similar work in their own classrooms. They coined the term "HyperDoc" to describe their version of this, and in 2016, they published The HyperDoc Handbook to teach others their method for creating these lessons.

The book explains how HyperDocs work, why they have such an impact on instruction, and their model for how teachers can design HyperDocs for high-quality instruction. In the podcast episode above, I interviewed all three about their work. Here I will blend their expertise with some of my own thoughts about this exciting format.

BENEFITS OF HYPERDOCS

Fewer lectures. Teachers have been told for decades that we need to do less lecturing, to step away from being the sage on the stage and become more of a guide on the side. "I feel so bad for teachers when they hear that," Highfill says, "because they're like, 'Well, what am I supposed to do? I need to get information into their heads.'" A HyperDoc offers a solution by taking care of the direct instruction part of a lesson and offering a lot more as well.

More face-to-face interaction. A good HyperDoc runs itself, allowing students to work through it without needing you to guide them through each step. "Although it seems odd that you're putting a student in front of a device," Landis notes, "really what it's doing is freeing you up to move around and have increased face time with the students."

Flexibility. If one part of your lesson isn't working, you can just change it in the HyperDoc and the change takes effect immediately; no need to re-copy all your materials. Similarly, if each student gets their own copy of a HyperDoc, the elements can be changed on each to meet individual students' needs.

Multimodal opportunities. Because it is digital, a HyperDoc allows us to include all kinds of multimedia. "Living in this digital age, we're able to expose kids to different types of media that allows each child to access the learning or the content or the information in a way that's visually or auditorily appealing to them," Landis says. "I might be visual, and I might first study an image, then watch a video, and then I'm finally ready to tackle that article my teacher really wants me to read."

They don't know that maybe their text ... is at a different reading level," says Hilton. "Or they're able to use Privacy. If students' HyperDocs have been customized for them, no one else needs to know. "Read&Write for Google and just put headphones in, and that's just a little agreement between you and that student."

MODELS FOR BUILDING HYPERDOCS

Because HyperDocs are such adaptable tools, teachers structure them in many different ways, and you should experiment until you find a structure that works for you. Here are some options to consider:

Playlist: This model, explained in this article, follows a step-by-step sequence of activities that consist of learning activities as well as check-ins with the teacher and housekeeping tasks like setting up accounts on websites.

Self-Paced Learning: Explored in this post by math teacher Natalie McCutchen, this system lays out a path of lessons for a whole unit, along with links to review materials, pre-tests, and practice questions. Students decide how much practice they need and determine when to take the assessment for each learning goal. If they grasp the material quickly, they can test and move on.

5E Model: This first stage of this model is to Engage student interest. Next, students Explore the topic, Explain what they have learned, and Extend their learning by applying it in new situations. The last stage Evaluates student learning.

HyperDoc Model: The HyperDoc Handbook authors have developed a model that has some components of the 5Es above, but with some additions and adjustments. This template explains all 7 stages. One important component of this model is the first step, Explore. Highfill explains the value of this stage: "Kids are exploring and coming up with ideas and answers about a concept on their own, and it's engaging them from the beginning, instead of passively listening to a teacher explain something." During this time, while students explore, the teacher is actively gathering information: "I listen to my students," Highfill says, "I'm studying them and hearing to what level are they understanding a concept. I have the ability to pull a small group. I can work with my language learners during that time. The whole time I'm doing formative assessment in the classroom, which will then really be my basis for the next part of the lesson."

Agenda: This model, borrowed from the kind of planning done at a typical Montessori school, provides each student with a planner listing out their assignments for the week. Students decide how they want to use their class time each day, but are expected to complete all goals by the end of the week. Although these are traditionally done on paper, they could easily be converted to a HyperDoc format.

OTHER USES FOR HYPERDOCS

Building an extended lesson or unit is one of the most instructionally robust ways to use HyperDocs, but they can also be used for:

substitute teacher plans

video or podcast playlists

learning centers or stations

student-made HyperDocs

parent resources

departmental-, team-or grade-level HyperDocs to gather and share resources among teachers

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Start with a template.
Rather than build your first HyperDoc from scratch, you might find more success by starting with a pre-made template, like the ones available for free on HyperDocs.co. You could also start with a completely finished HyperDoc that someone else created for their own classroom and modify it for your own use.

Build in participation, collaboration, and multimedia.
One risk inherent in HyperDocs is that they could simply become online worksheets, replicating the kind of work students could just as easily do on paper. Take advantage of this medium by including ways for students to participate actively, collaborate with others, and learn from a variety of media: video, interactive posters like ThingLinks, podcasts, online flashcards, and so on.

Offer choice...
HyperDocs are designed to allow students to work at different speeds and navigate learning in a way that works best for them. So when you can, offer choices: Give students options for the kind and quantity of materials they need to learn the material, how they will practice and apply it, and how they will demonstrate their learning.

...but don't "kitchen sink" it.
If you stuff your HyperDoc with every possible resource on a topic ("everything but the kitchen sink"), you'll overwhelm students. Choose resources thoughtfully.

Give students HyperDocs training.
Even if your students have used HyperDocs in other classes, your design probably has its own unique qualities, so take the time to demonstrate how it should be used. And within the HyperDoc itself, provide clear directions for its use.

So if you create a HyperDoc," says Hilton, "in the header or footer, say Collaborate with other teachers.
You do not need to do this alone! Thousands of teachers are sharing and collaborating on the HyperDocs.co site and using the #hyperdocs hashtag on Twitter. And be sure to give credit to the person who created the original: " Created by, and maybe link to your Twitter handle or your email, for yourself, and then if you make a copy of someone's, we encourage you to give that person credit by saying Inspired by or Remixed HyperDoc originally created by, just because we want an inclusive, appreciative sharing community."

Don't feel like you have to create a HyperDoc for every lesson.
"That's not something that any teacher should feel pressured to do," says Landis, "and it's not really realistic. We don't want teachers doing any one thing all the time, because then it becomes redundant for our kids."

HyperDocs Resources: How to Learn More

Book: The HyperDocs Handbook

Website: HyperDocs.co: The online hub for Landis, Hilton, and Highfill's work on HyperDocs. It contains helpful blog posts and the Teachers Give Teachers system where participants share their own HyperDocs with one another. To browse and borrow other teachers' HyperDocs, all you need to do is register.
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How HyperDocs Can Transform Your Teaching

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HyperDocs make room for more interactive, personalized, and student-directed learning. Let's look at how they work.

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student schedule - daily (templates)

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Wow.

If you’re anything like me, you’re experiencing a lot of different emotions right now. But chances are we are all marveling at how different the world looks than it did a few weeks, days, even hours ago. Big events canceled. Travel bans. School closures. Toilet paper becoming the nation’s hottest commodity.

This post is not about health measures or containment or COVID-19 symptoms. It’s not about curriculum or technology recommendations or teaching remotely. I’m not going to talk about flattening the curve or social distancing or exponential growth. There are 900 million other articles, posts, and podcasts for that.

This is about taking care of yourself and your mental health during COVID.

I love teachers, and even in the best of times I’m concerned about our self-care. But now, at a time when we’re all taking on the stress, anxiety, and fears of how a global pandemic will affect our children, it’s more critical than ever to remember that we cannot effectively take care of other people if we are not taking care of ourselves.

1. Be kind to yourself.

We are all learners here. This situation is new for all of us, and that means new emotions, new reactions we didn’t know we’re capable of, new fears, new bodily functions (hello, stress burps, I guess you’re a thing now). Would you be hard on the young people in your classroom learning new, tough information? Of course not. So don’t put any more pressure on yourself to learn this new way of living than necessary.

Also, I’m going to say something that could be controversial here: I don’t think those of us teaching remotely should exhaust ourselves trying to drum up ways to make learning exactly the same or better as it was in our classrooms before we left. Will we have to do things differently? Yes. Could this be an awesome opportunity for all of us to learn platforms and tools? Yes. But are our students already dealing with more stress than we could imagine? ALSO YES. They are a a generation who is aware of EVERYTHING because of the Internet and social media. But their frontal lobes are still developing, leaving them with tons of information but perhaps not a lot of emotional capacity to handle or process this in a healthy way. In short: don’t put more pressure on yourself than necessary to put on a dog-and-pony show during tough times. Simple is OK.

2. Keep your hands busy.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received when I was super anxious a few years ago was to keep my hands busy. There’s science behind it, I promise. And, when I’m doing something tactile, it’s hard for me to think too hard about anything, really. And not in the way that I zone out when I’m scrolling Instagram like a zombie, but more of a mellowing out that happens when I truly plug into creativity. My top recommendations:

Puzzles! Y’all. I’m obsessed. My favorite brands are Galison and Mudpuppy. (Yes, I have puzzle brands.)

Embroidery. Look up this old-made-new trend on Pinterest. So many fun ideas!

Calligraphy

Other recommendations: making bread or something else hand-intensive, drawing a mandala, painting or making a collage, playing an instrument (what a great time to learn on YouTube!)

3. Move your body.

Don’t worry about strenuous exercise right now if that’s not your jam. But I think it’s good for all of us to make moving a regular habit (especially if we are teaching remotely and not up out of our seat all the time like a regular school day). Go for a walk if you can. Take a fitness class on YouTube (Yoga with Adriene is a personal fave). Have an impromptu dance party to your favorite song. Ultimately just get the blood flowing and the endorphins pumping.

4. Calm your mind.

This looks different for all of us, but it’s super important to give your mind a break from the barrage of information out there. I don’t know if there has been a better time to download the Calm app (it’s free for teachers!) With guided meditations, nature playlists, relaxing songs, and bedtime stories, you’ll wish you’d have done it a long time ago. But whatever you do, try not to simply distract yourself, but truly disconnect and let your mind “be” for a while. It’s working overtime these days.

5. Laugh.

A global pandemic is obviously very serious. But so is your mental health during COVID. As anyone who has ever cared for a family member with Alzheimer’s will tell you, sometimes you have to laugh in the midst of a terrible thing. Gloria Gaynor washing her hands to “I Will Survive.” Relatable tweets like this one:

me and my coworkers logging into all of our meetings remotely for the next couple of weeks pic.twitter.com/fpOYiHJLcl

— isha (@ikasliwal) March 9, 2020

But if you’re overwhelmed with COVID-19 information—even humor—this is my official plug for the TV show King of the Hill on Hulu. I did not think I would find this show funny, and I have laughed myself to tears. You’re welcome in advance.

6. Stay connected in the right ways.

Use the technology we do have—FaceTime, WhatsApp, Skype—to check in with people remotely. Kelly Wickham Hurst, an educator I follow on Twitter (@mochamomma) had a great suggestion of using each other’s names as often as possible when in social isolation. Check in on your neighbors, the elderly people you know (especially those living alone), and others in vulnerable populations. And if social media is overwhelming you, by all means, disconnect for a while. You will know when you’re overwhelmed. You’ll be at the grocery store and see a long line of people waiting to grind coffee, and you’ll turn to your fiancé with wild eyes and say, “I can’t do this!” Or at least that’s what I did.

How are you taking care of your mental health during COVID closures? Come and share in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, why online learning doesn’t need to be perfect right now.

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Teachers, How Can We Care for Our Mental Health Right Now?

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We’re living through history, and the emotions are intense.

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"A choice board is a graphic organizer that allows students to choose how they will learn a concept. The choice board below has nine squares. (There is no minimum or maximum, however nine seems to be a good number.) Inside each square is an activity. Students can choose one or several activities to complete. Choice boards can be organized so students need to finish one square before moving to the next, they can be random, or can be organized in a specific way. The level of difficulty of the activities can vary or stay consistent."

Tic-Tac-Toe Boards and Menus are two different types of choice boards.

"A menu offers students a way to make decisions about what they will do in order to meet class requirements. A menu could be for a single lesson, a week-long lesson, or even a month-long period of study. Once the teacher has decided on what the essential understandings and/or skills are, she/he can begin to create a menu."

"Tic-Tac-Toe choice boards give students the opportunity to participate in multiple tasks that allow them to practice skills they've learned in class or to demonstrate and extend their understanding of concepts. From the board, students either choose or are assigned three adjacent or diagonal tasks to complete.

Choice boards address student readiness, interest, or learning preferences. They are easily adapted to a subject area."

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Choice Boards, Menus, & Tic-Tac-Toe by Sarah Dillard

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In many places, students returning to school buildings will be required to wear masks. These strategies can help elementary students adjust.

Bill Graham / The Meridian Star via Associated Press

Our brains do not like surprises-they love to make predictions by finding patterns that are familiar, and they learn from associations, connections, and patterned experiences. But as schools begin to resume in late summer, there will be many unfamiliar experiences: new routines, schedules, and guidelines. Especially for young students, it's going to be challenging at best to adjust to wearing masks for extended periods.

States, districts, and schools that are returning to in-class teaching will have a variety of regulations and protocols, and we need to think collectively about how we can help young students follow those protocols. Parents can help by getting their kids used to wearing masks for increasing intervals even before school begins, and I have some suggestions for how we might introduce masks to students while creating safe and predictable environments to allay the expected fear and anxiety these changes could create.

It will be particularly important for educators to share their own feelings and sensations when wearing the masks in the first few weeks of school. When we share our vulnerabilities, worries, and questions, we can sit beside our students in creating a safe, open space for them to express their concerns and worries.

Connections and trust will need to be our priorities at the onset. What props, hats or other pieces of clothing, fictional characters, or objects could you share to introduce yourself and create positive associations and connections right away? How could you reveal your passions, interests, and personal stories while wearing your mask during that first day or week of school? I've shared the strategies below with teachers all summer. They have started implementing these with pre-K students, who report loving the activities and feeling a sense of calm.

In my work as a professor of education, I'm fortunate to be able to spend two mornings a week in K-12 classrooms. When I meet my new fourth-grade students in a few weeks while I'm wearing my mask, I will bring a plastic brain, a pair of flip-flops, and a picture of my family's rescue dog, Nellie. The students will learn a little about me through these objects as I in turn, will invite them each day for the first few weeks to share their passions and interests through objects or images.

Strategies for Starting the Year in Masks

1. A calming bag: Tangible items such as Band-Aids, mints, a personal note or encouraging sticker, extra pencils, etc. can often feel comforting when someone notices our fears or worries. Rather than share these items, at the moment it might be best if teachers create a bag for each student-if a grant or other funding is available-or send home a list of items so that parents and guardians can create the bags. Students keep them at school and use when needed. What would you put in a calming bag?

2. New routines: Teachers should be purposeful about creating classroom routines to ease any embarrassment, discomfort, worry, or anxiety students may have about wearing masks. Many of our students will not walk in already accustomed to wearing masks, so routines and predictable structures can help them feel calm and ready to learn. Routines can include things like drawing or journaling thoughts.

3. Connections with parents: A letter to parents outlining class procedures and routines will ease their anxiety and that of their kids. Teachers can also use this letter to invite parents to share the celebrations and challenges their children have experienced over the past several months.

Here are a few questions to consider asking parents:

What are the two or three best ways I can create a positive experience for your child this year?

Please share your favorite memories of your child. What makes him or her smile and laugh?

What do you need from me that would be helpful for your family?

What are ways I could help your child adjust to the mask this year?

Are there any changes at home that would be helpful for me to know? (You can frame this as a yes/no question, and give parents the option to explain if they wish.)

How can we work together this year? Is there anything you would like to teach or share with our class this year?

4. Face masks and superhero powers: This is a new focused attention practice designed around masks. Ask students what superhero they are, and ask them all to create a power pose. As they hold this pose, have them breathe in three deep breaths, hold for a couple of seconds, and then breathe out a superpower they wish to send to themselves, someone they care about, or the world.

5. Morning meeting questions: These are some questions teachers can use in the first week or two as students get used to their masks and each other.

How does a mask protect us?

Do you know of any superheroes that wear masks?

Maybe we could all decorate our own paper masks? What colors, shapes, and designs do you want on your mask?

6. Theme weeks: The first weeks of school are going to feel rough for many educators and students. Sometimes redirecting our attention away from our masks can more easily occur if we focus on something else. One way to do that is to designate theme weeks with a variety of associations and connections. Ideas include things like Favorite Color Week, Animal Week, Favorite Tradition Week, Artist Week, Music Week, and My Buddy Week. You can also ask students for suggestions so that they feel empowered by the themes. Teachers and students together can also come up with activities for the themes.

7. Emotion reading practice: We are capable of reading facial expressions from the eyes up. Teachers can spend a few minutes a day practicing this. Have a student wearing a mask think of a feeling and try to express that with their face, and ask the class to guess the emotion or feeling. Another option is to put little masks on the emojis on feeling charts. Students can work to become experts at reading facial expressions of people wearing masks, which could be a fun ritual that reduces anxiety and fear.

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In many places, students returning to school buildings will be required to wear masks. These strategies can help elementary students adjust. Bill Graham / The Meridian Star via Associated Press Our brains do not like surprises-they love to make predictions by finding patterns that are familiar, and they learn from associations, connections, and patterned experiences.

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Teachers love their students deeply and want nothing more than for them to have a positive experience regardless of circumstance. So when thousands of teachers heard that they had a mere 24 hours to move instruction online, they naturally started working harder to figure out logistics. But many of us are perfectionists, and this is one case where we shouldn't be. As the country scrambles around for toilet paper, chicken breasts, and hand sanitizer, this is one area we should let go of a bit and perhaps strive for imperfect online learning. Why?

1. One day, or week, isn't enough time to plan an online course

So don't try to. Teachers who virtually teach as a career spend months planning, examining resources, and recording videos. This is not the same thing, nor should it be, as we have very little time to prepare and we will be planning and teaching almost simultaneously as we all figure out what it will look like. Many districts are limiting online learning to review and extension work, rather than demanding new content be taught as thoroughly and efficiently as it is in a classroom. Don't feel the need to overachieve beyond that requirement, as you, your family, and your students have other concerns to attend to.

2. Acknowledge the limitations of learning from home

Before you plan a 50-minute lecture on science theory, consider what it will be like for students to receive and learn in their environments at home. If a student has WIFI and if it's fast enough, they may listen. If their parents aren't panicking in the background about where to get food and childcare, they may listen. If they aren't watching their three younger siblings, they may listen. If their parents are around and forcing them to do school work, they may listen. If they, or a family member, aren't sick themselves, they may listen. If their anxiety is not through the roof, they may listen. This is a lot of if's. Don't make that 50-minute video if you don't have to. Remember ... imperfect online learning.

3. Consider assigning the simplest task: reading

When, in the history of being a student, have your kids had unlimited time to read? Consider minimizing your worksheets, packets, videos, and online lectures, and replace whatever you can with reading. Let them read for fun, for once, without the looming tests and curriculum schedule. Give them fascinating articles to read and host an online discussion board or chat time. Students without WIFI can still access books.

4. Ease up on rules

Limit tests that may time out with slow WIFI, extremely strict deadlines that may not make room for technology problems, and similar rules. Instead, encourage communication with you, and in some cases other classmates. This isn't the time to be more by-the-book or to increase emphasis on grades. In a popular article circulating amongst teachers in the past week, Dr. Rebecca Barrett-Fox suggests everything be open book, open note, and re-doable for a bit. Teachers accounting for the challenge of adjusting to a potential pandemic shows compassion

5. It's time for the mini-lesson to shine (again)

If you are still required to teach new content, communicate new concepts in small sections, videos, posts, or increments to allow students to learn in short spurts of time. That way, they can do ten minutes of work before helping their little sister. A five-minute video seems much more approachable than one that would have replaced a full class period. Also, consider allowing students to make their own videos and to post them, allowing for 30 mini lessons to be posted at once. This obviously would vary based on age and accessibility to technology.

6. Keep communication brief and clear

In speaking with your students' families, be clear about your available times and office hours, as you too will be dealing with all of the stressors of Coronavirus, including teaching from home without childcare. Parents shouldn't be expecting a permanently on-call teacher, so make sure they know when you are available and how to reach you. Reclarify the 24 hours response time you've always maintained on responding to parent emails (or whatever your boundary is).
Need help with online resources? We've built a list with over 70 options here. Feeling overwhelmed? Share your thoughts on imperfect online learning. Join fellow educators in the WeAreTeachers Chat group on Facebook to get support from others just like you.

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Teachers, The Next Weeks of Online Learning Don't Have to Be Perfect

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Teachers love their students deeply and want nothing more than for them to have a positive experience regardless of circumstance. So when thousands of teachers heard that they had a mere 24 hours to move instruction online, they naturally started working harder to figure out logistics.

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Big List of Companies offering free subscriptions/resources

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updated regularly

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read aloud options, etc.

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Virtual Learning for Friday, March 20th 🌎

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Authors, illustrators, scientists, and others are stepping in as students around the world face school closures. Each day, I'm sharing a newsletter with a list of live-streams for students, as well as other resources. Please feel free to share this list with other educators and families.

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I've often thought that all of us parents are home-schoolers-at least after 3:00 p.m. and on the weekends. But with the coronavirus shuttering schools in many parts of the country-including where I live with my family in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.-it's become a no-joke full-time gig.

Let's be clear: It's highly unlikely that our children will learn as much at home as they would have at school. That's OK; especially if schools are only closed for a few weeks, kids will have plenty of opportunities to make up for lost time. (If they close for the rest of the school year, that's a different story.) And fighting the pandemic and "flattening the curve" is a MUCH bigger priority right now. As esteemed educator Michael Goldstein wrote on our blog a few days ago, his (totally appropriate) goals for "Daddy School" include:

1. Something reasonably easy for me, and sort of fun....

2. Kids remember it fondly five years from now....

3. Kids learn a little....

And of course, many schools will be trying to keep their students making progress via assignments offered online or with printed packets sent home.

Let's assume, though, that most children will spend a fair amount of time on screens, given that we parents will be trying to work and will only have so much internal fortitude to fend off the endless requests for time on devices. So here are some suggestions for making at least some of that time educational. (This is geared toward parents with elementary school-age children; for younger kids you can't go wrong with PBS Kids or lots of read-alouds.)

The best educational YouTube channels

The best educational videos on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.

The best podcasts for kids

The best free online instructional materials

The best educational YouTube channels
It's true: not everything on YouTube geared toward kids is a mindless time-suck! Here are five great channels that are engaging and educational.

1. Liberty's Kids. One of my biggest beefs with elementary schools today is that they tend to teach so little history-especially of the patriotic variety. So here's a great opportunity for your kids to experience a "history surge" and get a huge, entertaining, and compelling dose of American history during our own historic period. Liberty's Kids first aired on PBS decades ago, and is a fantastic narrative account of the American Revolution, spread over 40 episodes, 23 minutes each. So "assign" four episodes a day and you'll kill an hour and a half for two full school weeks, and your kids will know way more about our founding than they do right now.

2. This former NASA engineer is a rock star YouTuber, with over 10 million subscribers. It's not hard to see why: he comes up with super fun and engaging ways to explore science concepts and engineering challenges-like showing kids how carnival games rip you off, or testing if sharks can taste a drop of blood. A good place to start is his "learn some science" playlist, currently at 26 videos, 10 to 15 minutes each.

3. Extra Credits Extra History. Extra Credits started as a channel for gamers, especially those interested in historical war games, but its creators also now make videos about history itself. They are up to over two hundred at last count, each last ten or fifteen minutes, and ranging all across the world and various epochs. Many are focused on military history (understandable given the channel's genesis), with occasional diversions. Their vast offerings allow them to deeply explore topics. They dedicate four episodes, for a total of more than forty minutes, to the Punic Wars, for example. Compelling narration and cute animations combine for addictive viewing for budding history buffs.

4. Bill Nye the Science Guy. Why not go old school? This iconic show aired for five seasons in the mid-1990s, so if you think Friends and Seinfeld still feel fresh, why not give this a shot too? Here's a playlist with 48 full-length, 23-minute videos, covering virtually every major topic in the science curriculum.

5. Crash Course. This is the granddaddy of educational YouTube, created by Hank and John Green, aka the Vlogbrothers , the latter of whom is already familiar to young readers as the New York Times best-selling author of The Fault in Our Stars. They have built a huge library of videos across most major disciplines, including playlists of forty-eight videos on U.S. history, seventy-two on world history, and fifty on U.S. government and politics. Each episode is generally ten to fifteen minutes long and features John Green talking about the subject, mixed in with some humor and animations. It's geared toward high-schoolers but works for precocious younger kids too.

The best educational TV shows and movies on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.
Back when we first got our Netflix account-five years or so ago-it became immediately clear that it was a goldmine for educational movies and TV shows. Here at the Fordham Institute we decided to launch something we called "Netflix Academy"-that is, until we got a very polite "cease and desist" letter from the company. (I'm not being sarcastic-they were very nice about it!) So we renamed it Education On- Demand, and sorted the best stuff we could find by subject and topic. Here are a few of my favorites-plus some great additions that are now available on Disney-Plus's National Geographic stream.

1. The Magic School Bus (Netflix). Sure, scientific knowledge is constantly evolving, but Mrs. Frizzle never gets old. Like Bill Nye the Science Guy, this is another mid-1990s children's show about science; that must have been some sort of Golden Age. And it brought real star power, as the title character was played by Lily Tomlin. I can't vouch for the recent Netflix reboot, The Magic School Bus Rides Again, but the original is a fantastic introduction to key scientific concepts for the early-elementary school set.

2. Walking with Dinosaurs (YouTube TV). My family loved, loved, LOVED this BBC TV series. It's amazing that it hails from the late 1990s, given how good the CGI is. It looks and feels just like any other great nature documentary from the BBC-complete with the Kenneth Branagh narration-but, let me remind you, DINOSAURS ARE EXTINCT. Check out the companion Walking with Beasts, Walking with Cavemen, and Walking with Monsters too.

3. National Geographic Ancient Civilizations (Amazon Prime). I would wager that your kids know next to nothing about the ancient world, unless they attend a Core Knowledge school. But this series will get them up to speed, covering ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Americas, among others.

4. Jane (Netflix, Hulu, Disney-Plus). A wonderful documentary about the life of Jane Goodall, the pioneering women whose decades-long study of chimpanzees gave us critical information about our cousins, and ourselves. Some themes might go over the heads of younger viewers (i.e., her reflections on gender bias) but everyone will enjoy the images of the baby chimps and their parents.

5. Our Planet (Netflix). I would recommend some of the classic BBC nature documentaries-like Blue Planet, Our Planet, and Frozen Planet-but as far as I can tell, you have to pay for them, even if you've got subscriptions to all of the streaming sites. So go for this Netflix series instead. With eight episodes, at fifty minutes each, you'll cover all the basic ecosystems on earth. Biology? Check!

The best podcasts for kids
The explosion in podcasting is such a great development-it's screen time without the screens! And given that we're all going to be doing way more dishes and cleaning than usual-given that we'll be cooking at home three meals a day, and cooped up 24/7-these are great shows to listen to together while doing chores. (Check out Common Sense Media for lots more suggestions.)

1. History Chicks. This is my family's favorite. Each of their 150 hour-long episodes tells the story of a famous woman from history-and some women who aren't famous but should be. It's hosted and produced by Beckett Graham and Susan Vollenweider, two Midwestern moms who adore history and don't think it should be "dusty"-and love to talk and talk and talk. (Another great option in this genre, geared directly at kids, is Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.)

2. Wow in the World. This show from NPR, hosted by Mindy Thomas and Guy Raz, explores fun and fascinating topics in the world of science and technology. There are dozens of episodes at about a half an hour each.

3. Tumble. Another award-winning science podcast, co-hosted by a journalist and a teacher, with a big focus on interviewing scientists themselves.

4. Freakonomics. Steven Dubner, the co-author of the Freakonomics books, examines the "hidden side of everything," from science to sports to politics and more. It's a show for adults but totally appropriate (and captivating) for older kids too.

The best free online instructional materials
Kudos to the educational publishers who answered the call to make their materials available for free during this Covid-19 crisis. To be sure, getting your kids to use these resources is going to be harder than turning on a movie, TV show, or podcast. But especially if the school closures drag on, activities like these are going to be essential to keep students learning.

1. Zearn. This highly-regarded math site builds off of the Common Core-aligned Eureka Math program to make online math lessons compelling and effective. They've put together a great set of resources for the coronavirus crisis, including webinars for parents to help them (and their kids) get started.

2. Amplify. This ed tech company is working at making its online instructional materials available for free for parents. Check back soon for more information.

3. GreatMinds. The publisher of Eureka Math, Wit and Wisdom, and PhD Science, will roll out a wide range of free instructional materials, including videos of teacher-led lessons and virtual access to resources such as the Library of Congress and the National Gallery of Art, for students nationwide starting Wednesday, March 18.

Other great materials are available from Core Knowledge, EL Education, Khan Academy, and ST Math. Check out an even longer list, from the NewSchools Venture Fund, here.

***

Stay safe. Have fun. Learn a little. And good luck!
Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. As an education policy wonk and a parent of school-aged kids, he's long been obsessed with the notion that screen time can be educationally nutritious. Finding good stuff on streaming sites, TV, YouTube, etc. has become a minor hobby of his. If you have additional suggestions for educational resources please send them to us at educationgadfly [at] fordhaminstitute [dot] org.

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Resources for learning from home during COVID-19 school closures

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I've often thought that all of us parents are home-schoolers-at least after 3:00 p.m. and on the weekends. But with the coronavirus shuttering schools in many parts of the country-including where I live with my family in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.-it's become a no-joke full-time gig.

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A Care Package for Teachers Moving Online

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A Care Package for Teachers Moving Online

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Info and links for Choice Boards

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(6) A Care Package for Teachers Moving to Online Teaching | LinkedIn.pdf

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identifies which one is best for which grades

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Terrific Websites for Science | Common Sense Education

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Terrific Websites for Science is a Top Picks list of 46 apps and websites curated by Common Sense Education edtech editors.

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identifies which one is best for which grades

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Lesson-Planning Apps and Websites | Common Sense Education

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Paperless, painless planning for teachers. Explore this Lesson-Planning Apps and Websites Top Picks list of 30 tools curated by Common Sense Education editors to find relevant and engaging edtech solutions for your classroom.

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identifies which one is best for which grades

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Great Social Studies Apps and Websites | Common Sense Education

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Great Social Studies Apps and Websites is a list of 42 apps, games, and websites curated by Common Sense Education editors.

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This story is part of a group of stories called

Finding the best ways to do good.

If you're feeling extra anxiety these days due to the Covid-19 coronavirus, you're not alone. This pandemic has us all facing more stress and uncertainty than usual. It also has many of us asking: How do we keep from spiraling into full-blown panic?

As we try to navigate our anxiety about the coronavirus, there's one quote I've been trying to keep at the forefront of my mind. It's by the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh: "When the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked all would be lost. But if even one person on the boat remained calm and centered, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive."

Tara Brach, an American psychologist and a widely respected teacher of Buddhist meditation, sent out this quote in a recent email newsletter. It prompted me to call her up and ask for some guidance about using meditation to navigate this pandemic.

The first thing to know is that the word "meditation" actually refers to many different practices. In the West, the most well-known set of practices is "mindfulness meditation." That means paying attention, purposefully and non-judgmentally, to your experience in the present moment. It can involve a formal practice - like when you sit down, close your eyes, and focus on feeling your breath go in and out. But you can also practice mindfulness while you read the news, say, or shop for groceries.

I talked to Brach about how we can use mindfulness and other meditative techniques to find balance during the coronavirus crisis, and about why this is not a selfish escape from reality: Many neuroscience studies have shown that meditating can help us regulate our own emotions so we can better pay attention to other people and act more altruistically. A transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.

Sigal Samuel

I'm guessing that you, like the rest of us, have been feeling stressed about coronavirus. What have you personally been doing to stay calm and centered?

Tara Brach

Yes, like everyone else, I feel the hugeness of this and I feel fear for my dear ones and for the most vulnerable people in our world. What I've been doing is a mix: walking in nature and taking in beauty; talking to people and feeling our shared vulnerability and connectedness; and doing a lot of meditating. It gives me a pathway back to steadiness that's just immeasurably helpful.

Sigal Samuel

For people who don't have experience meditating but who are looking for a way to avoid sinking into the panic vortex, can you suggest one or two simple meditation practices that would be useful for our current situation?

Tara Brach

Sure. The first step when we get really gripped in fear is to calm our sympathetic nervous system. A simple way to do this is with long, deep breaths. Take at least three full breaths, counting to five with the inhale, and counting to five with the exhale. And with the exhale, intentionally release tension. That begins to calm down the nervous system.

Our breath is often the most helpful home base for coming out of our circling worry thoughts and back into our senses. But we can also come back to the sounds we're hearing in the moment, or the sensation of our hands or feet tingling, or the sight of a tree or table. Coming back to the senses in our body helps us come back to the present moment.[SS: You can listen to a five-minute guided mindfulness meditation here.]

Sigal Samuel

In your new book Radical Compassion, you also offer a short meditation practice called RAIN, which I've found helpful. Can you spell out what the acronym means?

Tara Brach

Yes, I use the acronym because It's an easy-to-remember handle if you're getting caught in fear. It stands for recognize, allow, investigate, nurture. [SS: You can listen to a guided RAIN meditation here.]

First, just recognize, "Okay, I'm feeling fear." Mentally whisper it, and that helps right away.

Then allow it. Just let it be there, don't try to run away or fix it or control it or judge it.

Then investigate it. Begin to come into the body and just feel where the fear is in the body. Find out how it feels and breathe with it, with a gentle quality of attention.

And then nurture. You might just put your hand on your heart and offer a kind or soothing message to yourself. You can say to the fear, "Thank you for trying to protect me; it's okay." I sometimes will say to myself, "It's okay, sweetheart."

Sigal Samuel

I'm curious about the "recognize" part, this idea that when you can name a fear, it loses some of its power over you. What is it about that mental notation that changes the activity in the brain?

Tara Brach

When we're in fight-flight-freeze mode, our limbic system has basically hijacked us, and we lose contact with our prefrontal cortex, the most recently evolved part of our brain, which has to do with executive functioning and making good decisions. When we name what's going on, we start to activate the prefrontal cortex. Mindfulness reconnects us with that.

"The single most important thing that can happen right now in this pandemic is that we feel our collectivity - that we're here to help each other move through this"

Sigal Samuel

Outside of a formal meditation practice, how can we use mindfulness in our daily activities while we're navigating this pandemic? For example, should we be mindful of our news intake - how, and how often, we're taking in updates about the virus?

Tara Brach

I think it's good for all of us to take in the amount of news we need to take in to be informed, but also to know how to turn away from our screens. Listening to beautiful music or going outside for a walk will really nourish us. What the news will do is keep on agitating us. For some people what really works is [to limit news intake to] one time a day, and that can really make a difference.

Sigal Samuel

What about practicing gratitude? I've generally found that my brain can't be anxious when it's busy being grateful.

Tara Brach

Yes. Human beings have a negativity bias. We get very fixated on threats and often overlook goodness and beauty. So it needs to be an intentional practice to celebrate goodness. By that I mean that we actually pause and savor seeing the gleam in our child's eye or watching the new blossoms come out.

Many people get gratitude buddies and, at the end of the day, they'll send a note to their buddy naming three things they're grateful for. That can really lift people up and change the mood.

Sigal Samuel

I think some people in the West see practicing meditation as this very individualistic or even selfish thing, because it's often presented to us as divorced from a broader ethical framework. But in Eastern traditions, meditation has always been part of this broader framework of moral responsibility toward the other. So what would it look like to make sure we don't divorce it from that in the context of coronavirus?

Tara Brach

In China, the word for mindfulness is "present heart." If we keep emphasizing the heart side of things, if we keep offering care to ourselves and others, that's going to make us much more tender and we'll live naturally from a more ethical place. The true impact of meditation is that it actually dissolves our excessive sense of self. It frees up our sense of connection with each other.

But if we think mindfulness is just something I do so that I can feel better in the midst of fear, then it's going to have a much more self-centered feel.

So I think emphasizing the heart practices is critical. One of the heart practices is called lovingkindness. That's where we take time to appreciate the goodness in other people. We might remind ourselves of the health workers on the front lines who are risking their lives to help people who are suffering. Or we might think of someone we know and remind ourselves of their humor, their intelligence, their care. And then we offer them our best wishes.

Sigal Samuel

Someone reading this might think, "Oh, so you're just mentally sending someone a wish like 'May you be free from suffering' - that's not actually doing anything to help them." But I'm guessing the next step is that you also want to convey that to them out loud, right?

Tara Brach

Absolutely. When I wrote Radical Compassion, what I meant by those words is a mature compassion that has three elements to it. First, you're feeling the caring viscerally in your body. It's embodied, it's not just an abstract idea. Second, the care is active and engaged - it actually leads to reaching out. The third part is that it's all-inclusive: I'm not just caring about my sister but also about everybody in every country.

It might be that in the meditation we're simply offering someone a prayer, but after that we're much more inclined to reach out and make that phone call or go get someone groceries or medicine.

The single most important thing that can happen right now in this pandemic is that we feel our collectivity - that we're really here to help each other move through this. And the truth is each one of us can help. We have a real gift to offer each other just by who we are and how we come forward. If we can find an inner refuge of calm, our calm is contagious.

Sigal Samuel

A lot of us are experiencing fear around our mortality right now, and in the West, that's something we don't talk about much. Do you think we should respond to the pandemic by leaning into that - uncovering the fear and bringing it up from the subliminal to the conscious level? Or is that a terrible idea?

Tara Brach

I think it's not going to be a choice to bring it up. We will all be faced with the fear of mortality and the grief of loss. We can't use our normal mechanisms to avoid it anymore.

When things fall apart, it's a really horrible time in the sense that there's so much suffering, but it's also an opportunity for us to wake up our hearts in an unprecedented way. The ultimate gift of meditation is that it helps us come home to a space of presence that is large enough for whatever we encounter. And it's from that space that we can actually live from who we most want to be.

So really the question is, how will you be with the fear and the grief? What is being called forth in you in these times? Who do you want to be? And what kind of world do you want?
Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter Future Perfect is funded in part by individual contributions, grants, and sponsorships. Learn more . and we'll send you a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling the world's biggest challenges - and how to get better at doing good.

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"Our calm is contagious": How to use mindfulness in a pandemic

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Finding the best ways to do good. If you're feeling extra anxiety these days due to the Covid-19 coronavirus, you're not alone. This pandemic has us all facing more stress and uncertainty than usual. It also has many of us asking: How do we keep from spiraling into full-blown panic?

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The thought ended almost before it started: "This is so overwhelming." It was all one teacher managed to type before she stopped short, vexed into silence, perhaps, by the sheer size of the problem. In the pregnant pause that followed, undoubtedly, every teacher tracking the unspooling thread-about the dizzying, rapidly escalating viral crisis that was closing schools across the country-recognized the chasm they were all facing as well, and took a deep breath.

In the next few hours, over 500 teachers joined two Facebook conversations about teaching during the coronavirus pandemic, spilling out their concerns and anxieties: What will we do if the schools close for months? How can I shift to online learning if we're closing tomorrow, or even in a few hours? How will special education students be cared for, and IEPs administered? What about children who have no internet access, or who will be required, as Keith Schoch thoughtfully noted, to "become de facto babysitters" for their brothers and sisters. "There is no digital divide, but there is a digital abyss, and America's rural poor are living at the bottom of it," said Anne Larsen, with devastating concision. What if, in the end, the school systems decide that online learning is working just fine, and never reopen?

The panic was all perfectly understandable.

But there were plenty of teachers in the mix who had weeks of crisis experience under their belts by that time-several in Hong Kong and Italy and the state of Washington, for example-and others who had long careers in online and distance learning. In the end, too, there were many fantastic, highly creative teachers providing strategies as fast as the obstacles appeared.

At the highest level, a shift in mindset would be required-even the most optimistic educators conceded the point. There are plenty of strategies and tactics we're covering at Edutopia-and we'll continue to-but here are the crucial emotional and psychological scaffolds that our audience agreed would be needed to teach in this new paradigm.

Expect Trial... and Plenty of Error

Start by being reasonable with yourself. It is, in fact, impossible to shift to distance learning overnight without lots of trial and error. Expect it, plan for it, and do your best to make peace with it.

"I can tell you, now that we're in week 7 of online learning, that much of what you will do will be trial and error," wrote Stacy Rausch Keevan, who was teaching in Hong Kong. "Don't stress about that-it won't do you any good. For my middle school English and humanities classes, I'm offering the same lessons I would normally do live, but in smaller doses."

Acknowledge the Extraordinary

Reset your baseline. We're all operating in the shadow of a global pandemic, and it is disorienting and limiting. Business as usual is unrealistic.

The real "points to consider" are not "the strict adherence to 'regular' conditions and norms," wrote Amy Rheault-Heafield in a reply to a question about how to structure distance learning like more typical learning experiences, "but how to provide a rich experience to all learners who are now without 'traditional' teachers standing beside them in classes."

So while you should try to provide "meaningful activities," cautioned elementary teacher John Thomas, "we should remember that on short notice-and because many of us have limited PD utilizing these tools-we can't tackle everything immediately. In other words, we should give ourselves the time and the permission to figure this out."

Reduce the Workload (for Yourself and Your Students)

If your district allows it, you should plan to do less. Students won't be able to work as productively, anyway-so if you can't scale back you'll be sending them work they cannot do-and your own life and family need added care.

"Feedback from students and families over the last 10 days in Italy is 'less is more,'" commented Jo Gillespie. "Consider that parents are trying to work from home, and siblings are vying for computer and Wi-Fi time. Try Google quizzes using Forms, a reading log, some short live sessions with teachers and classmates, maybe vocabulary extension, maths and geometry problems (but not too many). And that's probably enough."

And Keevan, the teacher in Hong Kong with weeks of experience, confirmed that time and distance play funny games during a crisis: "What would normally take you one class period to teach in the classroom will probably take you twice as long."

No Person Is an Island

Humans are social animals. Working from home, or worse, from quarantine, is isolating and often depressing for both teachers and students.

Make a concerted effort to speak to other colleagues and trusted professionals to provide emotional and psychological context to your work. Teaching at this moment is extraordinarily hard, and you'll need the virtual company of people who are experiencing what you are.

And don't forget to "reach out to students as often as you can," said Keevan, who still teaches classes live despite a (slightly inconvenient!) 13-hour time difference. Or you can facilitate peer-to-peer communication. John Thomas assigns pen pals in his first- and second-grade classes, so that kids with no internet can feel like they belong.

Everyone Thinks They Can't-Before They Can

Some degree of pessimism and self-doubt comes with the territory. Teachers in the Facebook thread advised more perspective-taking and being more patient with yourself: You know how to teach, and you will figure this out in time.

"We are in week 7 and I have three children of my own at home," wrote Salecia Host, a teacher in Tianjin, China, reflecting on the arc of her emotional response to the crisis. "Just take it day by day. It gets less overwhelming and more routine."

Try to remain calm-though you'll have a few moments where that goes out the window-and keep plugging away: "Being open-minded and flexible is key," said Kaz Wilson, who also works in China. "Everyone thinks you can't until you pause, talk it out with folks who are doing it, and know that you'll get through it."

Mind the Gap

Your work will be hard, but there are students facing more severe challenges. Students with no internet or no computer will need support, as will those with learning differences or other circumstances that make distance learning especially difficult. Supporting these students was on almost everyone's mind-it came up dozens of times in the Facebook thread.

"I'm in Italy. Our schools closed a few weeks ago without any previous warning. We shifted to online immediately. It is hard and exhausting," admitted Eleonora Borromeo, before providing a ray of hope. "Equity is an issue. Assessment is an issue. But the students are doing their best and giving us the strength to go on."

Solutions from our audience of teachers focused on the old analog approaches: paper-and-pencil tasks, workbooks and activity packets that can be mailed home, and updating parents and students via phone calls daily.

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Teaching Through a Pandemic: A Mindset for This Moment

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The thought ended almost before it started: "This is so overwhelming." It was all one teacher managed to type before she stopped short, vexed into silence, perhaps, by the sheer size of the problem.

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Opinion

5 essential tips to structure your day in this unstructured time

Yes, it is possible to experience burnout while teaching online.

With the current surge in schools turning to the web to keep instruction going while physical buildings are closed, many teachers are being thrust into teaching 100 percent online for the first time. For some, especially those on the outside looking in, this may seem like a dream. But this shift may take teachers who are already quite exhausted to full-fledged burnout.

In 2011, I made a bold move and began working completely online. My family and friends thought I had miraculously scored a piece of heaven when they saw me working in my pajamas, but what they didn't know was that the reason I had on those pajamas was because I had been up for over 24 hours straight trying to meet a deadline that had crept up on me-and I was severely burned out.

I know what you're thinking: Why did you wait until the last minute to get all your work done? Why hadn't you organized your time better?

It started innocently enough. I would wake up early to usher the kids off to school, then as soon as I returned and logged into the computer, I found myself answering one email after the next, clicking one link after another, browsing one website for information after another. Then, somehow I'd end up scrolling social media in the name of "researching to find valuable resources."

Days would roll by this way. Just because I was working from home didn't mean I was getting more rest. Then add a few all-nighters or near all-nighters, and you have a volatile mix of burnout juice.

So what can you glean from my experience?

You have to treat working from home the same way you would in your classroom-pajamas or not. Even though I was working from my dining room table and not my desk in a classroom, I learned that structure and time management are two of the most essential skills for efficiently teaching online.

I learned some important strategies along the way.

1. Conduct essential self-care activities first, preferably right after you wake. Yes, you should still get up and brush teeth, comb hair, shave, and/or even put on makeup (where applicable) if you know at some point you'll need to be seen-even if only by video. (Importantly, during this time of uncertainty, you do not want to find yourself in an emergency situation in which you have to leave your home quickly. If you're already dressed, you'll be able to do this at a moment's notice.)

You will be tempted to just roll out of bed and tiptoe downstairs for some coffee. Then while you're conducting your morning browse of your notifications, news, and a myriad of other things we check on our phones when we have a quiet moment, you'll be tempted to respond to emails. That morphs into trying to problem-solve, and then you've somehow shifted into completing work activities.

2. Plan your week, and schedule the tasks you need to get done. That means you need to set specific times for specific tasks to maintain structure for your day. While a to-do list is a useful visual tool, if your tasks are not set for specific times and lengths of time, you will ultimately find yourself struggling to get things done.

Schedule the most important, must-get-done today, essential activities first. Checking and responding to emails can seem essential, but it can become a rabbit-trail activity that leads to more rabbit-trail activities that could likely end in hours passing of unproductivity.

Remember to schedule your household chores to determine which chores will get done and when.

3. Set some alarms on your phone to enforce structure. There will be no bells ringing to remind you that valuable time is passing. The key to making this work, is setting realistic time limits on your work. We often underestimate how long a task will take.

4. Meal prep the night before or first thing in the morning, especially if you have children at home. And then be diligent about scheduling those meal and break times logically throughout your day.

Working from home can easily become a marathon of sitting in a chair and snacking while typing away at the computer until your body suffers. Just mindlessly snacking while you work can easily usher in an unhealthy eating habit. You can ward off burnout by carving out adequate time to take a break, actually enjoy what you're eating, and rest your brain.

5. Get out, and get some fresh air as much as possible. Seriously, take advantage of the flexibility that comes with working from home. You could even choose to set up your workstation on your patio or in your yard, if your internet range will allow it. If you have the capability to go to a park or another place you enjoy, do that, too.

Even though structure and time management are important, this is an unusual time in history, so allow yourself some flexibility. Every day won't go exactly according to plan, and that's okay. The point is to keep yourself healthy.

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I've Been Teaching Online for Years. Here's How to Prevent Burnout During a School Closure

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Opinion Yes, it is possible to experience burnout while teaching online. With the current surge in schools turning to the web to keep instruction going while physical buildings are closed, many teachers are being thrust into teaching 100 percent online for the first time.

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all grades - various subjects

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Hand-picked tools for every scenario, all well-suited for use during the coronavirus pandemic.

It's tough in a typical school year to serve each student's unique learning needs, but the coronavirus pandemic has transformed the meaning of meeting all students "where they are." For many, this means converting some or all elements of your teaching and curriculum to distance learning.

We've heard from educators how overwhelming it can be to wade through the dozens of emails and articles with hundreds of "great apps for distance learning" from people and companies that possibly have their interests -- and not yours -- in mind. That's why we've curated this short list of free, quality classroom resources for each grade band and subject area. Each tool has scored well on our research-based ratings rubric. More importantly, each tool is something we think would work well given the unique circumstances of the pandemic. Of course, you'll also want to dig in to their privacy and safety practices, so make sure to check out the privacy evaluations on the review pages (when available).

Elementary school math and science

Elementary school ELA and social studies

Free, expansive digital library unlocks treasure trove of books
Price: Free for teachers
Platforms: iOS, Android, Chrome

K-2 literacy program offers comprehensive, adaptive activities
Price: Free and paid versions
Platforms: Web

Elementary school arts and creativity

Middle school math and science

Middle school ELA and social studies

Middle school arts and creativity

High school math and science

High school ELA and social studies

High school arts and creativity

Check out our Common Sense Selections for Learning to find best-in-class media resources and tools that facilitate great learning experiences for students and educators.

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Distance Learning Short List: Best Free Resources by Grade and Subject | Common Sense Education

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It's tough in a typical school year to serve each student's unique learning needs, but the coronavirus pandemic has transformed the meaning of meeting all students "where they are." For many, this means converting some or all elements of your teaching and curriculum to distance learning.

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Sample

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Modified Daily Planning Worksheet - Sown To Grow

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Copie de Distance Learning Weekly Schedule Proposal for Students

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an example of weekly plans from a K teacher

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March 23/24, 2020

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Gr. 1-5 Structuring Online Learning March 2020

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great alternatives

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G Suite

It's easy to feel anxious, overwhelmed and frustrated if you're asked to create elearning activities and teach remotely because of a school closure.

You might be asking ...

What are my students going to do?

How can they continue learning at a high level?

Can I maintain that teacher/student connection through elearning?

How can I keep up with the demands of elearning?

Some ideas and examples to follow can help. Having some plug-and-play activities to assign students can help, too -- even if you need to adjust them to fit your students' needs.

We've got you covered.

In this post, you'll find 100 elearning activities, templates and tutorials. They'll help you create elearning activities that lend themselves to powerful learning when students are away from school.

Some ideas to keep in mind as you roll out your eLearning activities:

Keep communication with students and parents at the forefront. Be ready for questions. Make your communication more thorough than you anticipate.

Simplicity is key. Activities that are too complicated can be hard to follow through without the proper support.

Make space for students' emotional needs, too. Their routine is disrupted. They don't get to see their teacher or their fellow students. Help them to make those connections while they're away.

Don't be too hard on yourself. If you've never taught with eLearning activities, it'll be a learning process. Do your best. Learn and improve.

Lean on others for support. Use social media and colleagues in your school/district to brainstorm ideas.

Here are over 100 remote learning activities, templates and tutorials you can use tomorrow:

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100 remote learning activities, templates and tutorials

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Remote learning activities can be fun AND promote quality learning. Here are lots of examples and templates to use!It's easy to feel anxious, overwhelmed

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recording of a call with NEASC and GOA about online learning

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Fostering a Strong Community in a Virtual Classroom

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The shift to working online requires teachers to think a little differently about how to build the culture they want with their students.

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Rethinking Family Engagement During School Closures

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Taking time to check assumptions about family engagement can make a huge difference in the lives of your students and their caregivers.

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How to Support Learning at Home in Elementary Grades

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How to Support Learning at Home in Elementary Grades

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edutopia

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Like me, you're probably now being inundated with emails, links to resources, and social media shares offering free access to educational programming for home learning. You're also juggling directives and restrictions from your district, administration, and technology department. Your students' families are scrambling to figure out working from home, child care, and what supplies they may need while awaiting information from you and the school about home learning. And you've got your own life and family to take care of.

Know that nearly every educator is in the same boat. As a result, the educational community is focusing-a huge professional learning community-on the goal of providing our students with activities they can do to continue to love learning and not lose that spark we've worked so hard to nurture throughout the school year.

In the current push for online learning, it's important to remember that some households don't have internet, and some don't have laptops, tablets, or smartphones. If they do, device management may be a huge challenge for families-the adults may need to use the only device they have to do work from home.

I followed up with a short video directed at my students to reassure them there will be some familiar and fun activities coming their way-I have found that watching a video of their teacher can help ease students' fears. And students will have fears about the coronavirus, so I shared a handbook for young kids from Amanda McGuinness, the Autism Educator, to help explain the coronavirus.

Creating a Sense of Familiarity

Next up is sharing a classroom plan for how learning will take place. One of the challenges is to find a way to provide assurance, support, routines, and familiarity.

Let's take a look at some ways you can take your current classroom routines and send them home. If you do a morning meeting, reflect on the elements you have in your meeting and what could be completed virtually at home. If technology allows, record and share daily video announcements and story read-alouds.

I'm going to use Seesaw for two-way communication. Communicate often-students will find comfort in seeing your face and hearing your voice. Record at school if you can, so they see a familiar setting. Have students share a photo or video of a toy, hobby, collection, stuffed animal, pet, or favorite book-students can share only with the teacher using Seesaw, not with each other, but teachers can create a blog to choose what gets shared with the whole class.

Dig out all your ideas for building a responsive classroom from the beginning of the year-I use The First Six Weeks of School-and see what you can use virtually to strengthen the learning community.

When you send work home, include daily SEL prompts for your students to reflect on, ideally one for the beginning and end of their day.

Possible SEL check-ins:

How are you doing?

What have you done today that was fun, and why was it fun?

What's your internal weather?

Roses and Thorns

Get your students communicating with their peers. If technology doesn't allow, create pen pals or other paper-and-pen activities by sending home envelopes, paper, and stamps if your school is able. Or mimic "turn and talk to a neighbor" by setting up phone pals where students call each other on the phone several times a week to discuss specific topics or prompts. Perhaps send home a link to a virtual field trip.

Just as you would in your classroom, be sure to have some individual communication with your students. If time allows, send a personal email, message, or video check-in, especially for students who may have a more difficult transition.

Getting Started on Academics

When you begin work on academic content, I would focus on no new material at first and keep it simple. Start with something successful and build from there. Send activities to students that they can feel confident in completing while they navigate working from home. Review topics are good, especially as your families figure out the technology aspect. We should remember the amount of pressure on families right now, and have realistic expectations about what can be achieved due to juggling work, child care, siblings, illnesses, and caring for extended family.

We all want the best for our students, so let's keep things in perspective. While students will be challenged, they will be learning more about technology, problem-solving, working together, and communicating, as well as any academic concepts we can integrate into our plans.

In the big picture, we're talking about a few weeks to a month or two over the course of a 13-year educational career. While we should try to provide activities that are as meaningful as possible, we should also remember that on short notice we can't switch seamlessly to online learning and tackle everything we wanted to do, especially when many of us and our students and families have limited experience utilizing these technology tools.

It's OK to give ourselves time and permission to figure this out. Please realize home learning will be different, and that's OK too-it will be hard, and it won't replace interacting face-to-face. But we can work to set up home learning activities that we hope our students will use to keep their love of learning alive.

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How to Support Home Learning in Elementary Grades

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Like me, you're probably now being inundated with emails, links to resources, and social media shares offering free access to educational programming for home learning. You're also juggling directives and restrictions from your district, administration, and technology department.

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Tips, Activity Ideas, and Resources for Virtual Learning | Responsive Classroom

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As you make the transition to online teaching, here are some tips, activity ideas, and resources to support your virtual classroom: Communicate to parents the supplies their children will need for at-home learning.

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10 Strategies Designed to Engage Elementary Students Online - Dr. Catlin Tucker

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A few weeks ago, I published a blog titled "8 Ideas Designed to Engage Students In Active Learning Online." Several elementary teachers requested that I work on a similar blog focused on younger learners. Below are ten strategies I hope will help elementary teachers to engage their young learners online.

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Whether you go by applied arts, unified arts, related arts, specials, or something else, there is never enough love for what we do. We're often last to get picked to accompany fun field trips, but first called when admins need a warm body to cover a class or duty (amiright?!). And honestly? Some colleagues don't see what we do as essential, academic, or a "core" subject. None of that is true, of course. As far as I'm concerned, specialists are miracle workers! To show collegial love to my fellow specialists, I'd like to highlight some of their inventive Bitmoji virtual classroom ideas!

Quick Links

Distance Learning & Virtual Classrooms

As I stated previously, the best way to combat the divide of trying to engage young learners while distance learning is to create a friendly virtual space to meet them in. In order to do that, you need to think about the content you want to deliver and how you intend on organizing it. Successful Bitmoji virtual classroom scenes are organized, educational, and inviting.

Think of your virtual classroom as a portal to all the learning content you want to deliver remotely. Many of you are recording lessons and uploading them to YouTube. You could make your virtual space a gateway to the content you want students to consume (rather than going directly to your channel and finding the content themselves).

Consider organizing your lessons based on grade level. If you're doing choice-based lessons, each grade level could have it's own color-coordinated slide. All kindergarten classes are red. All first grade are orange, and so on.

It's important that you give students directions on how to engage in the space. Just sending them a link to the space isn't enough. They need to know what to do once they get there. We would never provide lesson materials without directions on what to do. If your virtual classroom is too filled, put the directions on another slide.

Free Stock Photo Websites

When you start out designing a Bitmoji virtual classroom, begin with the background image for the slide. It sets the scene perfectly. You can either search for one or even better, use an image of your own.

There are many sites that have free commercial and personal use photos that don't require attribution. These are labeled CC0 meaning "Creative Commons Zero." Others, however, are allowed for commercial and personal use but do require attribution. Those are labeled as CC2.0. Just be aware of the difference. Here is a short list that may help you get going.

Posing Your Bitmoji

In my previous post, I talked about how to make your Bitmoji. But one common question that's asked repeatedly is how to find the right pose. The key is searching for the best word for your pose. Here's a chart that demonstrates some poses to help gear your search queries. I find this particularly helpful for specialists because it can be challenging to find poses that uniquely match what we do.

But what if you just want someone standing there? Just search the word "pose" and you'll get some of these.

More Tips & Tricks for Your Bitmoji Virtual Classroom

If you read my last post about Bitmoji virtual classrooms, you saw I gave a nice list of tips and tricks. Here are some more.

Kids are OBSESSED with animated gifs. So, include some! And the older they are, the more funny and ironic the gifs should be. They can be cropped to fit a tv, tablet, or laptop screen. Just select the image and then quickly double-click to crop. You can even link to outside content from the gif. There's nothing better than tricking kids into learning. Check out giphy for free animated graphics for nearly every topic imaginable.

15 Bitmoji Virtual Classroom Ideas for Specials Teachers

One of the best features within Google Slides is the REPLACE IMAGE feature. It does exactly what it sounds like it does. First, select a graphic on your slide. Then at the top of the screen, tap on the REPLACE IMAGE button. When the window appears, search for an image on your computer to replace that one with. Why is this so helpful? Say you spent a half hour trying to get magazines and books on a rack. You cropped them to fit perfectly. Simply swap them out!

Stay Fit Challenges

If you want to see what kids are clicking on (and not clicking on), try using a link shortener like bit.ly. It will cloak the link so when students tap it, they won't see the direct name of the link where it leads to. However, you can see roughly how many link clicks that particular item has received. If you're teaching a choice-based class, you can get a sense of what's popular and what's not. This can be helpful data that can inform you future lesson choices. Just be aware that some school servers block these cloaked links.

Add audio to your clips! Check out this great tutorial:

Want to pump up participation in physical education during distance learning? Why not create some exciting challenges! First, create a 5×5 grid. Then fill each with a Bitmojo alongside an object a child might have at home accompanied with an exercise they have to perform. The first have a select amount of time to search for the objects. Then they have a certain amount of time to perform the corresponding exercises. This is a great way to get their hearts racing!

Make Choice the Choice

Promoting choice in your lessons will increase your engagement rate. Think about it: would you rather be told what to do or would you rather have to choose from a list of options? Whatever you teach, think about using different objects to represent those different choices. If it was an art lesson, pencils, paintbrushes, play dough, blocks, and a camera could represent all the different choices you're giving students that week. Depending on which one they click, it could lead to another slide where you have a curated list of activities within that content area. Clicking a pencil would lead to a list of sketchbook ideas. Clicking a paintbrush could lead to painting ideas. Some of these could include links to video content where you're demonstrating techniques.

Sing Your Heart Out

There's something to be said for teachers showing their true colors ( Right, Cyndi? "I see your true colors shining through!). If you love to bring literature into your music lessons, include a bookshelf with your favorite musically-inspired books. Each book could link to YouTube videos that get kids singing, moving, and grooving.

Cultural Exploration

Speaking a foreign language isn't just about the language. It's about understanding how it's culture, it's people, and the unique region of the world that country is in. So why not take your students on a trip there to learn about the sights and sounds from the region? Each graphic in your Bitmoji virtual classroom could link to virtual tours, YouTube videos, and your daily lessons. This is how to make distance learning fun!

STEAM

Add a little art to STEM and you get something way better: STEAM. Include pictures of different devices like laptops, desktops, and tablets. Use them to link to content you're teaching that's saved on your Google Drive or elsewhere. Also, think about doing STEAM stations. Each of the cafe style tables below could represent one station giving kids a choice of activities to engage in.

Get in Shape!

Gymnasiums are naturally very active. And physical education teachers have to be all over the place. So why not make it look that way? Because what's more fun: one of you or more of you?! Bonus points for including clear signage in your slides to students know how to engage in your Bitmoji virtual classroom.

Get your Tech On

Are you head of your district's technology department or a computer specialist? You can get in on the fun, too! Curate a space for your colleagues. No doubt many teachers are learning how to use new technologies for the first time. And you're likely to be asked the same questions repeatedly. Why not gather all your frequently asked questions and design a space to help deliver them to teachers. Add objects in the room like laptops, desktop computers, TVs, routers, and other devices where links to a slide with tips, tricks, resources, and support.

Filed Trip Extraordinaire

Can't go on a field trip? Why not take a virtual one to a place you could normally not venture to? Bonus points for adding in some virtual reality experiences and links to Google Earth within your Slides doc. Discover cities, towns, and historic locations with your students! Also, a scene like this with all those old school TVs would be perfect for the animated GIF idea I mentioned earlier.

Say Cheese!

There are only so many drawing lessons and art teacher can do before kids get bored and don't participate. Why not change it up by designing some photography art lessons? If you recall, I mentioned this in my distance learning post awhile back. You can teach all the elements of art - line, color, shape, texture, value, form, and space - using whatever picture-taking device a student might have. Display some of your student's photos in each week's new Bitmoji virtual classroom scene. Show them you're proud of their accomplishments even though you can't be there in person to tell them.

Field Day Bonanza

Your field day might have been cancelled but there's no reason you can't still host it online! First, create all of your fun activities. Then, design your space. It can be indoors or outdoors. A nice picture of your school's gym of field would be awesome. Lastly, link to each of the activities using bright orange cones. You can even come up with a schedule like you normally would on field day so students can participate in real time. Don't let distance learning stop you from planning field day!

Be a Drama Llama

Create a cool vibe for your drama lessons using snapshots of you school's stage. If you can't get a picture, design your Bitmoji virtual classroom using bits and pieces to make it work. Any wooden floor will do. Throw in a couch, some theater signs, and link to some of your awesome lesson materials and YouTube videos. Bonus points for linking to funny animated GIFs of facial expressions that get kids laughing and smiling.

Coordinate with Specialists

Why not coordinate links to your lesson materials for all specialists in one Google Slide doc? This is such a fun way to continue creating a sense of community within your school. You can even use a snapshot of your school in the background, inside or out, to show school pride!

Beat Your Own Drum

Drum up some spirit by including different groups of instruments like string, wind, brass, percussion, etc. Each one of those instruments if clicked on could lead to a list of lessons. Adding your online office hours and classroom posters is a great way to top off your room!

Check Mic, One Two One Two!

Making your Bitmoji virtual classroom space warm and inviting is a great way to invite students to participate in your content area. Adding in instructional classroom posters, decorations, and other trinkets that might personalize the space is also awesome. But if you really want to know your students are engaging with your lessons, include a clickable link back to a self-correcting Google Form that students fill out to demonstrate their understanding of the lesson. It's tough getting work back during distance learning. So make it as painless as possible to receive.

I Can, Too!

Here a can. There a can. Everywhere an "I can" statement! Organize your weekly lessons using AIM or I Can statements. Add a title at the top of the slide so students know these will be all the virtual lessons for each particular week.

Templates to Make Your Bitmoji Virtual Classroom

Some of the ideas being shared by other teachers are simply amazing! But if you don't have the time to craft your own virtual classroom, I've gone ahead and created some for you.

The bonus here is that not only will you not have to spend the next several days searching for the right graphics, you won't have to be concerned about copyright issues.

All of the graphics in my sets have been designed by me and are for personal use. That means you can create as many rooms as you like to send to your students.

And because the pieces move, you can rearrange your space however you like. You can make multiple rooms using the same graphics in a different placement. I've also included 5 virtual classroom backgrounds. So you have all the space you need to spread out your lesson materials.

So far, I've designed spaces for visual arts, gym, music, and now media specialists!
Leave a comment if you think I should make one for theater teachers and what I should include. Love hearing your thoughts!

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15 Bitmoji Virtual Classroom Ideas for Specials Teachers

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Whether you go by applied arts, unified arts, related arts, specials, or something else, there is never enough love for what we do. We're often last to get picked to accompany fun field trips, but first called when admins need a warm body to cover a class or duty (amiright?!).

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help sheet for jam board

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Directions for "KNOW" Jamboard for families for an Interactive Brainstorm

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Remote Learning...

What the we as the the collective group of educators need to realize is that no matter how well we plan lessons and learning in virtual environments it just won't be enough for our most vulnerable learners. Nor will it meet the differentiated needs of our students with special needs.

Instead of focusing on the Edtech tools and ways to keep learning going (which is a valiant effort) let's instead look at the (perhaps more important) non-edtech ways to encourage learning and creativity during these times of isolation.

Here are 10 Remote Learning Ideas that require no technology. A few you might need to download instructions or a worksheet. But the vast majority only things you already have around your home, some space to move and time.

10 Remote Learning Ideas, No Edtech Required

Read- Reading is foundational to all learning. At the top of any learning list should be taking time to read. Adults and kids should be reading daily. 15-30 mins is all you need to keep your brain flexible and moving. And it's a great family activity. It can be challenging if you don't have any books at home. See if your kids school is letting you check any out or look up where a Little Free Library is closest to you.

Writing and Reflection- Writing is reading too. Keeping a journal of what is happening every day during these times will be a fascinating way to look back upon. Sure, you might be sharing on social media every day but social media comes and goes. Paper will stick around for a long while after they are gone. Writing, like reading keeps the mind malleable. So keep a journal, record your thoughts, or even just write a story.

Living History Project- For many kids they may not realize they are living in a historic moment that is unfolding before their eyes. A great thing for kids to do that requires zero technology is to interview themselves and their family members in their home about what is happening. If possible you could take this a step further and interview family members in another location over the phone. This could be part of a larger project where kids interview family members about other times in their history and compare what it was like then to now. The Living History Project is a way for kids to understand where their family has been and make a deeper connection to those stories that might be lost forever if we don't capture them. If you need ideas StoryCorp can help.

Learn an Offline Skill- During this period of physical distancing I have been occupying my time learning to be a better cook. ( Thanks BA!) It was always something I wanted to do with my daughters but never had the time because of my traveling. Now is the perfect time to learn a new skill you always wanted.

Learn To Code...Yep, Code- Coding involves a great deal of mathematics, logical and algorithmic thinking. And you might think coding is an exclusively online activity. However, it doesn't have to be. Code.org has an awesome collection of coding fundamentals that require no technology. (It does require internet access to get to the lessons, however). The basics learned, while fundamental to coding and can be used far beyond it.

Explore Nature- Being stuck inside can be a drag. (It is a good idea thought. We all need to stay healthy!) In the northern hemisphere we are undergoing a change into spring. And with it brings a whole host of changes. Get out in the backyard, front yard or where ever close to home to see what is changing. Record how many insects you find. Chart the growth of plants each day to see which ones grow the fastest. If you have a camera, take pictures of all the birds you see. Get out and explore nature around you!

Practice Mindfulness- It's important during these times when schools are closed and physical distancing is the norm that we keep mental health top of mind. Kids can feel the stress of the adults in their lives. Mindfulness can be a way to relieve some of that stress while building mental toughness. There are loads of apps that teach guided meditation but you don't really need any of those. Sitting quietly and comfortably for 10, even 5 mins a day while focusing on deep, rhythmic breathing can help bring focus to the mind while providing a center for the rest of the day.

Become A Maker- We traditionally think of makerspaces as places filled with lathes and 3D printers. Being a maker is exploring the edges of your creativity. But you don't need any fancy equipment to make. Have some LEGOs? The LEGO IDEAs page has 1000's of community submitted projects. Have an old appliance just collecting dust? Take it apart and see if you can put it back together or make it into something new. Even using paper and a pair of scissors. See if you can cut a piece of paper to make a hole big enough you can walk through. Being a maker isn't about the space. It's about the problems you try to solve.

Exercise- Not only do we have to keep our mental health in check, our bodies need attention too. You don't need a home gym or any equipment to get into an exercise routine you can stick too. Jog in place, sit ups, push ups, stretch, Yoga, there are lots of ways to get your heart pumping. And you can incorporate math too by charting your progress over time. Challenge yourself to do more than you did the day before.

Become A Scientist- As a former science teacher I have been filling my daughters' time with lots of science activities we can do a home. All of the things we have been doing (that you can do as well) don't require any skills or knowledge of science and all you need are things you probably have in your cabinets. Kids can work on their predicting and observation skills while completing many of these activities. This website is one I use a lot and has loads of ideas. None require any technology!

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10 #RemoteLearning Ideas...No #Edtech Required

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Remote Learning... What the we as the the collective group of educators need to realize is that no matter how well we plan lessons and learning in virtual environments it just won't be enough for our most vulnerable learners. Nor will it meet the differentiated needs of our students with special needs.

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With the pandemic not letting down in many places, schools are beginning to focus less on re-entry and more on starting the year with remote learning. Even in countries where COVID19 is under control, there is still a certain level of nervousness and anxiety that a second wave could perpetuate a shift to either a hybrid model or remote instruction. No matter the situation, lessons learned have to be acted upon in order to provide a valuable learning experience to all kids regardless of demographics. One of the most prominent obstacles encountered was getting and keeping kids engaged. A recent Chalkbeat article highlighted the results of some surveys that alluded to this issue:

And engagement with schoolwork was relatively low across the board, reflecting the challenges of keeping students engaged in a chaotic time and of teaching from a distance. Teachers in two separate surveys estimated that only about 60% of their students were regularly participating or engaging in distance learning. (Individual district reports of daily "attendance" varied widely, as districts defined the term so differently.) Two-thirds to three-quarters of teachers said their students were less engaged during remote instruction than before the pandemic, and that engagement declined even further over the course of the semester.

Engagement begins with a focus on sound instructional design that leads to pedagogical techniques that foster active learning. There are many successful remote teaching strategies that can be employed, which I have included in this post. A balance of digital and non-digital activities is preferred, but you might have to lean one way or another depending on the availability of technology and WIFI in your respective community. No matter the situation, the key to empowering learners is to create valuable and meaningful experiences that they want to engage in every day. Below are six concrete areas to consider when developing any type of remote learning activity for maximum student engagement.

Without relevance, learning many concepts doesn't make sense to students, which is supported by research. The why matters more than ever in the context of remote learning. What one must do is step into the shoes of a student. If he or she does not truly understand why they are learning what is being taught, the chances of engagement and improving outcomes diminish significantly. Each lesson should squarely address the why. When it is all said and done, if a lesson or project is relevant students will be able to tell you:

Social isolation is a real issue impacting many kids, thanks to quarantining and extended school closures. There is a dire need for students to interact with their peers, especially during synchronous lessons facilitated through live video tools. Discourse can easily be achieved through the purposeful use of technology. In this previous post, I outline important pedagogical aspects as well as tools that can be seamlessly integrated into remote lessons to foster conversation. If kids are just consuming content and completing activities in isolation, then chances are many won't be engaged.

Another way to counteract social isolation and potential SEL issues is through collaborative experiences. These leverage the power of discourse while empowering kids to work together to solve a problem or complete a performance task. Using the elements of well-structured cooperative learning (accountability, timeframe, equitable roles, equal opportunity to participate) activities can be designed as part of a remote blended learning experience. In the end, it is about creating the conditions for positive interdependence, group processing, and interpersonal skills. For specific online activities, click HERE and for tools visit this link.

Rigid schedules and expectations didn't work particularly well prior to COVID19. They sure don't facilitate an engaging learning experience for kids. Having kids meet at the same time for a synchronous Zoom session as they would for a traditional face-to-face class just doesn't make sense and is counterproductive, in my opinion. Any successful remote learning implementation ensures that flexibility is a core component in both attending lessons and completing work. Asynchronous workflows that are set up with some content can lead to higher engagement if there is some flexibility aligned to getting assignments done over a specified timeframe.

Many of the areas I have already discussed are integrated throughout a personalized experience. It represents a shift in focus from the "what" (content, curriculum, tests, programs, technology) to the "who" to create a more personal learning experience for all kids. At the forefront is developing and sustaining a culture that imparts purpose, meaning, relevance, ownership, and various paths that cater to all students' strengths and weaknesses.

High agency strategies such as voice, choice, path, pace, and place typically in the form of pedagogically-sound blended learning lead to high engagement levels. I encourage you to check out this post that provides a deep dive into effective personalized learning.

Most kids want to know how they are doing and what can be done to improve. If there are no mechanisms for timely, meaningful, and specific feedback, then the motivation to complete any type of remote learning activity wanes. Feedback justifies a grade, establishes criteria for improvement, provides motivation for the next assessment, reinforces good work, and serves as a catalyst for reflection. The assessment determines whether learning occurred, what learning occurred, and if the learning relates to stated targets, standards, and objectives. In reality, formative assessment is an advanced form of feedback. Consider developing digital feedback logs as an engagement strategy.

If students aren't engaged, then the chances are that they won't complete remote activities. The result will be widening learning and achievement gaps that will impact disadvantaged kids the hardest. A compelling reason to learn, coupled with meaningful experiences, is the best recipe for sustained engagement to avoid this potential pitfall while developing the motivation to learn.

Be sure to check out my entire #remotelearning series

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With the pandemic not letting down in many places, schools are beginning to focus less on re-entry and more on starting the year with remote learning. Even in countries where COVID19 is under control, there is still a certain level of nervousness and anxiety that a second wave could perpetuate a shift to either a hybrid model or remote instruction.

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ABC's 123's PK/K and up

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Starfall Education: Kids Games, Movies, Books & Music for K-5 and above

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At Starfall, children have fun while they learn - specializing in reading, phonics & math - educational games, movies, books, songs, and more for children K-5 and above.

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63 at home science activities

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Searching for kid-friendly science experiments? Don't worry if you never made it past biology: These 63 science experiments for kids are super-easy and a lot of fun to boot, as kids are exposed to a wide variety of scientific concepts. It's a great way to spend quality time together as a family and who knows, mom and dad may end up learning a new thing or two, too.

Besides, children are born scientists. They're always experimenting with something, whether they're throwing a plate of spaghetti on the wall, blowing bubbles in the bathwater, or stacking blocks into an intricate tower only to destroy it in one big swipe. As they get older, you may decide to enroll them in a FREE online coding class to get a leg up in today's digital world, a STEM summer camp, or work together on their very first (or final) science fair project. But you can actually do some pretty mind-blowing, hands-on science experiments at home using stuff you probably have lying around the house.

Find more STEM fun for kids of all ages in our STEM and Science Experiments for Kids Guide.

Food-Based Science Experiments for Kids

1. Learn about the crystallization process by growing rock candy in a glass.

2. Mix Diet Coke and Mentos and stand back to watch the explosion. (Really! Stand back.)

3. Use lemon juice to make invisible ink that can only be seen when held up to a heat source.

4. Make homemade ice cream in a bag: shake salt, ice, cream, and sugar vigorously until the consistency is right, then enjoy.

5. Drop Pop Rocks into a bottle of soda and then place a balloon onto the opening to watch it inflate.

6. Plop oil into water to see that they really don't mix; try it with a variety of liquids to make a rainbow of stripes.

7. Build a container for an egg that protects it from breaking and then test it out by dropping it from on high.

8. Make your own butter by shaking a jar of heavy cream.

RELATED: 25 Exercise Games to Do with Kids Indoors

9. Force an egg to fit into a bottle by creating a suction using heat.

10. Change how an egg floats or sinks in a glass by adding salt to the water.

11. Turn milk into a material that acts like plastic using white vinegar.

12. Mix a batch of bread dough and separate it into several different bowls; place them in different places (outside, inside, in the dark, in the light) to see which environment yeast thrives in.

13. Grow mold on bread by putting slices in different environments (in a bag in the dark, in a bag in the sunlight, out in the open, in the refrigerator); see which one gets moldy first.

14. Have your kids close their eyes and hold their nose and see if they can still identify foods by taste.

15. Dabble in some kitchen science while making this yummy ricotta cheese.

16. Your egg will be so embarrassed when you leave it naked! Dissolve the shell right off an egg by simply placing it in a cup of vinegar.

17. Map their taste buds by dipping Q-tips into different flavors and placing them on different areas of your tongue.

18. Explore the fat content of different foods by wiping them on a brown paper bag; fatty foods leave behind a greasy spot, while fruits and vegetables leave no trace at all.

Slime, Putty, and Oobleck Science Experiments for Kids

19. You will be squeaky clean after creating this satisfying non-sticky putty by simply combining cornstarch and dish soap.

20. Whip up some Oobleck, a fascinating non-Newtonian fluid that can act like a solid or a liquid depending on certain conditions.

21. Microwave Ivory soap (or any soap that floats) to create a bizarre puffy soufflé.

22. Borax plus glue equals homemade slime.

Outdoor and Nature Science Experiments

23. Grow a bean in a clear cup to watch the roots grow down and the stem grow up.

24. Blow bubbles outside when temperatures dip to the single digits and watch them freeze.

25. Craft a duck call by cutting the ends of a straw into a point, then blow.

26. Set up a row of bottles with varying amounts of liquid and then blow across the openings to hear the different tones.

27. Make a sundial by placing a stick in a vertical position and a circle of rocks around it marking each hour.

28. Cut ice in half using a fishing wire-the pressure melts the ice faster than the air.

29. Make a rainbow by holding a glass of water up to the sunlight with a sheet of paper behind it to catch the colors.

30. Create a tornado in a bottle by taping two plastic bottles together neck to neck-one filled, the other empty-and swirling it quickly.

31. S'more science please! Harness the power of the sun and turn a pizza box into a solar oven and roast some delicious treats for the whole family.

32. Place white flowers in colored water and watch how they soak up the hues.

Science Experiments for Kids that Fizz, Bubble, and Foam

33. Mix baking soda, vinegar, and glitter for a sparkly volcano.

34. Make " elephant toothpaste" (a.k.a. an impressive large foam) out of soap, yeast, and hydrogen peroxide.

35. This glitter does more than shine, it sparks a scientific experiment to see how far germs can spread.

36. Baking soda and vinegar react to make these popcorn kernels hop around a jar of water.

37. Create a colorful and fizzy reaction by adding a drop of food coloring and a little baking soda to a sliced lemon.

38. Discover how to keep your pennies shiny by experimenting with different cleaning solutions.

Physics and Physical Science Experiments for Kids

39. Make a Rube Goldberg machine featuring a series of moving pieces that affect one another: marbles, dominoes, books, and most any surface.

40. Build a rocket balloon car using a Styrofoam tray, a balloon, and a straw; watch how air pressure moves it across the table.

41. Use a plastic bag and cup to build a parachute for a light toy.

42. Looking for hands-on science experiments? Ask your kids to do simple tasks with their hands, feet, and eyes (like grab a ball, stand on one foot, or wink) to see which side is dominant.

43. Build a marshmallow catapult out of a plastic spoon, rubber bands, and Popsicle sticks.

44. Test your reaction time by having a friend drop a ruler between two almost closed fingers. See how fast you can grab it.

45. Explore the scientific concept of density while taking a bath. Ivory soap boats do more than just float, they demonstrate density.

RELATED: 40 Snow Day Boredom Busters for Kids

46. Engineer a tall tower using red party cups and sheets of paper. How high can you go?

47. Fold a paper airplane and then bend a corner to see how that changes its flight path.

48. Find your blind spot by moving a card with a speck on it until you can no longer see the spot.

49. Build a miniature windmill using a few simple objects. Watch it spin faster or slower based on the direction of the "blades."

50. Bounce a ball on top of another to watch how the energy transfers to the top ball and leaves the bottom one "dead."

51. Demonstrate centripetal force by spinning a bucket of water on a rope in a vertical circle.

The Rest of Our Favorite Science Experiments for Kids

52. Dish soap, pepper, a toothpick, and a little bit of water are all kids need to feel like science wizards. Watch a little drop of soap chase pepper away in the Petter & Soap Experiment.

53. Make a lava lamp by pouring vegetable oil into water and then sprinkling salt on it to make the blob of oil move.

54. Fashion your own bouncy balls with this recipe to see how various shapes bounce differently.

55. Use a balloon to amplify sound by holding it to your ear.

56. Budding meteorologists can create shaving cream storm clouds and Technicolor raindrops.

57. Make static electricity by rubbing balloons on clothing or shuffling on the carpet with socks, then zap someone with a quick touch.

58. These gummies won't be so yummy in your tummy, but you can watch gummy bears grow by placing them in water, salt water, and vinegar.

59. Build your own periscope using a milk container and carefully angled mirrors that allow you to see things above or behind you.

60. Be a DIY spy with this fun fingerprint experiment. Collect fingerprints using one of these methods, and then dive a little deeper with a forensic study of fingerprint patterns.

61. Use food coloring and water to see how combining primary colors makes secondary colors.

62. Learn about surface tension by dropping food coloring into milk and watch as the colors move when you add some soap.

63. Fill a plastic bottle to the brim with water and put it in the freezer; in a few hours the bottle will crack because ice expands.
This article was first published in 2014, but it has since been updated. Additional reporting and photos by Ally Noel except where noted.

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63 Easy Science Experiments for Kids Using Household Stuff

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Searching for kid-friendly science experiments? Don't worry if you never made it past biology: These 63 science experiments for kids are super-easy and a lot of fun to boot, as kids are exposed to a wide variety of scientific concepts.

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early reading

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leveled books for kids 12 and under

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read alouds at home

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77 ideas + 77 more

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Okay teachers, help me...there was so much demand for the 1st two "77 Simple STEM Ideas"...I'll make a 3rd if:
1⃣ at least 77 people like/RT this
2⃣ everyone pitches in some new ideas in the comments
#COVID19 #RemoteLearning #BetterTogether #STEM

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Okay teachers, help me...there was so much demand for the 1st two "77 Simple STEM Ideas"...I'll make a 3rd if:
1⃣ at least 77 people like/RT this
2⃣ everyone pitches in some new ideas in the comments
#COVID19 #RemoteLearning #BetterTogether #STEM https://t.co/wC8Y41WpHI

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Okay teachers, help me...there was so much demand for the 1st two "77 Simple STEM Ideas"...I'll make a 3rd if:
1⃣ at least 77 people like/RT this
2⃣ everyone pitches in some new ideas in the comments#COVID19 #RemoteLearning #BetterTogether #STEM pic.twitter.com/wC8Y41WpHI
— dailySTEM (Chris Woods) (@dailystem) March 18, 2020

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Okay teachers, help me...there was so much demand for the 1st two "77 Simple STEM Ideas"...I'll make a 3rd if:
1⃣ at least 77 people like/RT this
2⃣ everyone pitches in some new ideas in the comments
#COVID19 #RemoteLearning #BetterTogether #STEM https://t.co/wC8Y41WpHI

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Okay teachers, help me...there was so much demand for the 1st two "77 Simple STEM Ideas"...I'll make a 3rd if:
1⃣ at least 77 people like/RT this
2⃣ everyone pitches in some new ideas in the comments
#COVID19 #RemoteLearning #BetterTogether #STEM https://t.co/wC8Y41WpHI

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Okay teachers, help me...there was so much demand for the 1st two "77 Simple STEM Ideas"...I'll make a 3rd if:
1⃣ at least 77 people like/RT this
2⃣ everyone pitches in some new ideas in the comments
#COVID19 #RemoteLearning #BetterTogether #STEM

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fun games with the learning you want

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from common sense media - an essential resource for parents

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Wide Open School's mission lives on at Common Sense

With schools back in person, we have closed this dedicated distance-learning site designed to guide families and educators through the sudden shift to remote learning.
Discover More Great Resources for Families & Educators
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Wide Open School's mission lives on at Common Sense With schools back in person, we have closed this dedicated distance-learning site designed to guide families and educators through the sudden shift to remote learning. Discover More Great Resources for Families & Educators

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Summative Assessment Tips from Rocky Hill Country Day School

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A performance task is any learning activity or assessment that asks students to perform to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and proficiency. Performance tasks yield a tangible product and/or performance that serve as evidence of learning. Unlike a selected-response item (e.g., multiple-choice or matching) that asks students to select from given alternatives, a performance task presents a situation that calls for learners to apply their learning in context.

Performance tasks are routinely used in certain disciplines, such as visual and performing arts, physical education, and career-technology where performance is the natural focus of instruction. However, such tasks can (and should) be used in every subject area and at all grade levels.

Characteristics of Performance Tasks
Here are seven general characteristics of performance tasks:
Performance tasks call for the application of knowledge and skills, not just recall or recognition.

While any performance by a learner might be considered a performance task (e.g., tying a shoe or drawing a picture), it is useful to distinguish between the application of specific and discrete skills (e.g., dribbling a basketball) from genuine performance in context (e.g., playing the game of basketball in which dribbling is one of many applied skills). Thus, when I use the term performance tasks, I am referring to more complex and authentic performances.
2. Performance tasks are open-ended and typically do not yield a single, correct answer.
In other words, the learner must actually use their learning to perform. These tasks typically yield a tangible product (e.g., graphic display, blog post) or performance (e.g., oral presentation, debate) that serve as evidence of their understanding and proficiency.
3. Performance tasks establish novel and authentic contexts for performance.
Unlike selected- or brief constructed- response items that seek a "right" answer, performance tasks are open-ended. Thus, there can be different responses to the task that still meet success criteria. These tasks are also open in terms of process; i.e., there is typically not a single way of accomplishing the task.
4. Performance tasks provide evidence of understanding via transfer.
These tasks present realistic conditions and constraints for students to navigate. For example, a mathematics task would present students with a never-before-seen problem that cannot be solved by simply "plugging in" numbers into a memorized algorithm. In an authentic task, students need to consider goals, audience, obstacles, and options to achieve a successful product or performance. Authentic tasks have a side benefit - they convey purpose and relevance to students, helping learners see a reason for putting forth effort in preparing for them.
5. Performance tasks are multi-faceted.
Understanding is revealed when students can transfer their learning to new and "messy" situations. Note that not all performances require transfer. For example, playing a musical instrument by following the notes or conducting a step-by-step science lab require minimal transfer. In contrast, rich performance tasks are open-ended and call "higher-order thinking" and the thoughtful application of knowledge and skills in context, rather than a scripted or formulaic performance.
6. Performance tasks can integrate two or more subjects as well as 21st century skills.
Unlike traditional test "items" that typically assess a single skill or fact, performance tasks are more complex. They involve multiple steps and thus can be used to assess several standards or outcomes.
7. Performances on open-ended tasks are evaluated with established criteria and rubrics.
In the wider world beyond the school, most issues and problems do not present themselves neatly within subject area "silos." While performance tasks can certainly be content-specific (e.g., mathematics, science, social studies), they also provide a vehicle for integrating two or more subjects and/or weaving in 21st century skills and Habits of Mind. One natural way of integrating subjects is to include a reading, research, and/or communication component (e.g., writing, graphics, oral or technology presentation) to tasks in content areas like social studies, science, health, business, health/physical education. Such tasks encourage students to see meaningful learning as integrated, rather than something that occurs in isolated subjects and segments.

Since these tasks do not yield a single answer, student products and performances should be judged against appropriate criteria aligned to the goals being assessed. Clearly defined and aligned criteria enable defensible, judgment-based evaluation. More detailed scoring rubrics, based on criteria, are used to profile varying levels of understanding and proficiency.

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A performance task is any learning activity or assessment that asks students to perform to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and proficiency. Performance tasks yield a tangible product...

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Do Something performance tasks ask students to demonstrate their anti-bias awareness and civic competency by applying their literacy and social justice knowledge in an authentic real-world context.

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Summative Assessment in Distance Learning

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Whether schools are using regular grades or not, teachers need to accurately assess learning while their students are at home. These are some helpful ideas to consider.

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Formative Assessment Tips from Rocky Hill Country Day School

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This is unfamiliar space for many of us. While not a panacea and certainly not an answer to all of the questions above, I believe that thinking routines can be a very useful tool during this time. Someone asked me the "best" thinking routines for distance learning. My reply was that the best routines would be the ones you have already established and with which your students are already familiar. This saves both you and your students the time needed to teach a new routine. This is precisely why we have routines, to provide structures that scaffold and support learning. As these structures are used over time, they become routine ways of interacting with content, and learners become more independent. Using familiar routines, allows students to learn in a familiar space in which they can experience a sense of agency and security. That said, new thinking routines can be taught online and I want to share a few with you that might be very useful in distance learning.

As David Perkins has said, "learning is a consequence of thinking." Therefore, as we engage students remotely with content that they are reading, listening to, or watching on their own we want to make sure they are thinking about that material. A simple routine that can help ensure students are thinking about the material is the " Take Note " routine, which is one of the new routines featured in the new book due out at the end of April. The Take Note routine asks students to respond to at least one and up to four different prompts after they have read/watched/listened to the material:

What is the most important point?

What are you finding challenging, puzzling or difficult to understand?

What question would you most like to discuss?

What is something you found interesting?

Students can post their response online for others to use (perhaps on Padlet or a Google doc) or you can collect them via email. Based on students' responses, you can then design online discussions & future instruction.

A second thinking routine that might be useful is Peeling the Fruit. Many teachers are using this time away from the classroom to have their students engage in some kind of independent inquiry. Students investigate a topic of interest using online and in-home resources. One way of documenting that inquiry would be to use the Peeling the Fruit routine.

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Using Thinking Routines with Distance Learning - Ron Ritchhart

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This is unfamiliar space for many of us. While not a panacea and certainly not an answer to all of the questions above, I believe that thinking routines can be a very useful tool during this time. Someone asked me the "best" thinking routines for distance learning.

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[Shared] 24 Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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Formative Assessment in Distance Learning

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The pandemic has closed schools, but schooling goes on—and it remains crucial that teachers find ways to see what students are learning.

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a padlet of resources and tools for documenting learning for assessment and feedback

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Example of Interactive KWL: KNOW - Google Jamboard

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Example of Interactive Jamboard for KWL: Wonders - Google Jamboard

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Example of Interactive Jamboard for KWL: Wonders

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Student Portfolio Ideas to Drive Effective Learning

When you imagine creating a student portfolio, what do you see?

Perhaps you envision a careful curation of final products: a collection of excellent work that's been revised, polished, and prepared for presentation. But, is emphasizing only the final product really the best way to drive learning?

What if we leveraged portfolios to capture the process of learning in addition to the products? At GOA, process portfolios are emerging as a tool in the push toward competency-based learning. The key difference between these portfolios and others is that the evidence of growth comes from process artifacts (discussions, project plans, working drafts) rather than a sampling of summative assessments.

As we begin working with students on process portfolios, we're already seeing four compelling ways they're working.

1. Process portfolios are a growth mindset's best friend.

The connection between long-term learning and helping students develop a growth mindset is at the heart of Carol Dweck's Mindset. The ideas that our abilities are plastic (rather than fixed) and that we can always improve suggests we should highlight how students' effective efforts lead to growth.

Student reflection is critical to this work, and thus a foundational element of a process portfolio. GOA Filmmaking teacher Brendan Gill of Catlin Gabel School asks students to use Google Slides as process portfolios. Students synthesize feedback from Brendan and classmates, articulate themes in their own work, and establish an intention for upcoming assignments (see the example below from Amelie of Think Global School).

The focus is squarely on what students have learned about themselves, about their process as filmmakers, and about their next steps. Students post their portfolios weekly and comment on one another's progress, focusing on moving forward as a community of learners.

2. Process portfolios unlock possibilities for student-driven, personalized learning.

If students' process portfolios are based on their movement toward mastery of a series of skills or competencies, it becomes easier to design courses in which students choose their own pathways.

In GOA's Arabic program, Ala Hamdan, Rania Al Natsheh, and Matt Westman of King's Academy in Jordan work with 60 students at various levels of Arabic. Students are invited to add reflections to their process portfolios periodically and to choose the GOA core competencies they want to reflect and be assessed on. The result is that the reflections (and students' grades) are aligned to their personal goals and their individual Arabic competency, which allows our most driven Arabic 1 students to push deep into the Arabic 2 curriculum by the end of the year.
Read more on rethinking time in our Arabic classes
The same is true in Social Psychology, taught by Chris Stapel and Natalie Broderick ( Hong Kong International School). Using parallel units, students choose the topics that interest them and set their own competency goals. At any given moment, students might be in one of four different units.

The portfolio assessment in the classroom follows this process:

The students begin each module by choosing their personal growth goals from among a list of skills or competencies that the course aims to impart.

At the end of the module, they reflect publicly on their progress toward those goals and submit their portfolios to the teacher.

Teachers seek to provide actionable, outcomes-based formative feedback and time to digest and apply it.

Students take their teachers' feedback and use it to set goals and reflect on their progress over time.

Using the process portfolio pivots the focus away from specific content and summative assessments and toward the development and transfer of key skills over time, freeing the students to pursue the content that most interests them.

3. Process portfolios peg grades to skills developed rather than to assignments completed.

If grading amounts to a glorified bean-counting exercise (5 points for turning in this assignment, 10 points off that assignment because it was a day late, half-credit for not showing your work, etc.), students are bound to focus undue attention on the beans as opposed to the learning.

Using process portfolios makes it natural to base grades on the quality of the students' submitted evidence and reflection on their learning rather than their compliance with instructions. Carey Pohanka, GOA's Advocacy teacher from St. Christopher's School, has experimented with a system that leverages Google Forms to have students submit evidence of learning to their portfolios. It is the entire process portfolio rather than the individual daily assignments that are graded.

If the only thing that counts towards a grade is the teacher's (and the student's) assessment of the development of key competencies via that portfolio, one can't help but focus grading on what's important.

4. Process portfolios can lead to more equitable grading practices.

Several GOA teachers have used process portfolios to support a move toward rolling grades. The essential shift in both competency-based and standards-based grading is relatively simple: replace the assignment labels that run across the top of your typical gradebook with the skills or competencies you want students to develop, then give students multiple opportunities to submit evidence of development of those skills.

A learner might earn a 3/5 on a given skill in October, but that particular grade will improve as her skills develop throughout the semester. This approach can dial down the anxiety around early assessments and support a culture of reassessment focused on growth. What's more, moving toward rolling competency-based grading has significant implications for equity. With rolling competency-based grades, your grades will reflect more clearly what students are taking away from your course, rather than dwelling on the shortcomings with which they may have started the course.

In the end, the purpose of competency-based learning is to help students develop the skills necessary to become lifelong learners. Using process portfolios helps guide students towards documenting and reflecting on how and why they learn, not just what they learn.
How do you leverage portfolios in your own work? Does a focus on process over product help engage students in learning? Let us know on Twitter. Learn more about GOA's work on competency-based learning in this series of articles, or contact us for more information.

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4 Advantages of Using Student Process Portfolios

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When you imagine creating a student portfolio, what do you see? Perhaps you envision a careful curation of final products: a collection of excellent work that's been revised, polished, and prepared for presentation. But, is emphasizing only the final product really the best way to drive learning?

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The practice of using single point rubrics is slowly but surely catching on. The simplicity of these rubrics - with just a single column of criteria, rather than a full menu of performance levels - offers a whole host of benefits:

Teachers find them easier and faster to create, because they no longer have to spend precious time thinking up all the different ways students could fail to meet expectations.

Students find them easier to read when preparing an assignment. With only the target expectations to focus on, they are more likely to read those expectations.

They allow for higher-quality feedback, because teachers must specify key problem areas and notable areas of excellence for that particular student, rather than choosing from a list of generic descriptions.

Want to Learn More?

I first talked about this type of rubric in an earlier post ( Know Your Terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics). If this is the first time you've encountered this type of rubric, reading this will give you some background knowledge on all the different types of rubrics and why the single-point deserves world domination.

To give credit where it's due, I did not come up with the name single point rubric. Although the idea for a simplified rubric with a single set of criteria came to me independently, when I went looking for academic support for its use, I found that the type of rubric I had in mind was given the name "Single Point Rubric" in 2000 during a conference presentation by someone named Mary Dietz. Attending that conference was a researcher named Jarene Fluckiger, who published a study on its effectiveness in 2010. (The reference to Dietz is in Fluckiger's paper, but no one named Dietz has published anything on the topic.)

Show Us Your Rubrics!

I urge you to take one of your most convoluted rubrics and make a single-point version of it. Then show it to the world, so other teachers can learn: Take a screenshot of it and post the picture on Twitter with the hashtag #singlepointrubric. If you aren't on Twitter or don't feel like doing this, just put a link to your rubric in the comments below. Help us start a movement to rid the world of ineffective rubrics!

Another Variation (Added in 2017)

After considering some of the limitations of this format, I played around with the rubric a bit more and came up with this variation:

The original version of the single point rubric allowed no space for actually pointing out when the student hit the standard, apart from maybe circling or highlighting the middle column. With this format, teachers can pinpoint where the student is on each descriptor, then offer feedback, either constructive, positive, or both.

To grab a copy of this for your own modification, click here.

Need Ready-Made Rubrics?

My Rubric Pack gives you four different designs in Microsoft Word and Google Docs formats. It also comes with video tutorials to show you how to customize them for any need, plus a Teacher's Manual to help you understand the pros and cons of each style. Check it out here:

Stick around.
Join my mailing list and never miss another post. You'll get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my new e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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The practice of using single point rubrics is slowly but surely catching on. Try one for yourself and let us see it!

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Vol. 70

No. 1

Abstract

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

Feedback Essentials

Progress Toward a Goal

"But There's No Time!"

Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning?

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Abstract

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

Feedback Essentials

Progress Toward a Goal

"But There's No Time!"

Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement.

Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

The term feedback is often used to describe all kinds of comments made after the fact, including advice, praise, and evaluation. But none of these are feedback, strictly speaking.

Basically, feedback is information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal. I hit a tennis ball with the goal of keeping it in the court, and I see where it lands-in or out. I tell a joke with the goal of making people laugh, and I observe the audience's reaction-they laugh loudly or barely snicker. I teach a lesson with the goal of engaging students, and I see that some students have their eyes riveted on me while others are nodding off.

Here are some other examples of feedback:

A friend tells me, "You know, when you put it that way and speak in that softer tone of voice, it makes me feel better."

A reader comments on my short story, "The first few paragraphs kept my full attention. The scene painted was vivid and interesting. But then the dialogue became hard to follow; as a reader, I was confused about who was talking, and the sequence of actions was puzzling, so I became less engaged."

A baseball coach tells me, "Each time you swung and missed, you raised your head as you swung so you didn't really have your eye on the ball. On the one you hit hard, you kept your head down and saw the ball."

Note the difference between these three examples and the first three I cited-the tennis stroke, the joke, and the student responses to teaching. In the first group, I only had to take note of the tangible effect of my actions, keeping my goals in mind. No one volunteered feedback, but there was still plenty of feedback to get and use. The second group of examples all involved the deliberate, explicit giving of feedback by other people.

Whether the feedback was in the observable effects or from other people, in every case the information received was not advice, nor was the performance evaluated. No one told me as a performer what to do differently or how "good" or "bad" my results were. (You might think that the reader of my writing was judging my work, but look at the words used again: She simply played back the effect my writing had on her as a reader.) Nor did any of the three people tell me what to do (which is what many people erroneously think feedback is-advice). Guidance would be premature; I first need to receive feedback on what I did or didn't do that would warrant such advice.

In all six cases, information was conveyed about the effects of my actions as related to a goal. The information did not include value judgments or recommendations on how to improve. (For examples of information that is often falsely viewed as feedback, see "Feedback vs. Advice" above and "Feedback vs. Evaluation and Grades" on p. 15.)

Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching less and providing more feedback, we can produce greater learning (see Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, 2008; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Compare the typical lecture-driven course, which often produces less-than-optimal learning, with the peer instruction model developed by Eric Mazur (2009) at Harvard. He hardly lectures at all to his 200 introductory physics students; instead, he gives them problems to think about individually and then discuss in small groups. This system, he writes, "provides frequent and continuous feedback (to both the students and the instructor) about the level of understanding of the subject being discussed" (p. 51), producing gains in both conceptual understanding of the subject and problem-solving skills. Less "teaching," more feedback equals better results.

Feedback Essentials

Whether feedback is just there to be grasped or is provided by another person, helpful feedback is goal-referenced; tangible and transparent; actionable; user-friendly (specific and personalized); timely; ongoing; and consistent.

1. Goal-Referenced

Effective feedback requires that a person has a goal, takes action to achieve the goal, and receives goal-related information about his or her actions. I told a joke-why? To make people laugh. I wrote a story to engage the reader with vivid language and believable dialogue that captures the characters' feelings. I went up to bat to get a hit. If I am not clear on my goals or if I fail to pay attention to them, I cannot get helpful feedback (nor am I likely to achieve my goals).

Information becomes feedback if, and only if, I am trying to cause something and the information tells me whether I am on track or need to change course. If some joke or aspect of my writing isn't working -a revealing, nonjudgmental phrase-I need to know.

Note that in everyday situations, goals are often implicit, although fairly obvious to everyone. I don't need to announce when telling the joke that my aim is to make you laugh. But in school, learners are often unclear about the specific goal of a task or lesson, so it is crucial to remind them about the goal and the criteria by which they should self-assess. For example, a teacher might say,

The point of this writing task is for you to make readers laugh. So, when rereading your draft or getting feedback from peers, ask, How funny is this? Where might it be funnier?

As you prepare a table poster to display the findings of your science project, remember that the aim is to interest people in your work as well as to describe the facts you discovered through your experiment. Self-assess your work against those two criteria using these rubrics. The science fair judges will do likewise.

2. Tangible and Transparent

Any useful feedback system involves not only a clear goal, but also tangible results related to the goal. People laugh, chuckle, or don't laugh at each joke; students are highly attentive, somewhat attentive, or inattentive to my teaching.

Even as little children, we learn from such tangible feedback. That's how we learn to walk; to hold a spoon; and to understand that certain words magically yield food, drink, or a change of clothes from big people. The best feedback is so tangible that anyone who has a goal can learn from it.

Alas, far too much instructional feedback is opaque, as revealed in a true story a teacher told me years ago. A student came up to her at year's end and said, "Miss Jones, you kept writing this same word on my English papers all year, and I still don't know what it means." "What's the word? " she asked. "Vag-oo," he said. (The word was vague!)

Sometimes, even when the information is tangible and transparent, the performers don't obtain it-either because they don't look for it or because they are too busy performing to focus on the effects. In sports, novice tennis players or batters often don't realize that they're taking their eyes off the ball; they often protest, in fact, when that feedback is given. (Constantly yelling "Keep your eye on the ball!" rarely works.) And we have all seen how new teachers are sometimes so busy concentrating on "teaching" that they fail to notice that few students are listening or learning.

That's why, in addition to feedback from coaches or other able observers, video or audio recordings can help us perceive things that we may not perceive as we perform; and by extension, such recordings help us learn to look for difficult-to-perceive but vital information. I recommend that all teachers videotape their own classes at least once a month. It was a transformative experience for me when I did it as a beginning teacher. Concepts that had been crystal clear to me when I was teaching seemed opaque and downright confusing on tape-captured also in the many quizzical looks of my students, which I had missed in the moment.

3. Actionable

Effective feedback is concrete, specific, and useful; it provides actionable information. Thus, "Good job!" and "You did that wrong" and B+ are not feedback at all. We can easily imagine the learners asking themselves in response to these comments, What specifically should I do more or less of next time, based on this information? No idea. They don't know what was "good" or "wrong" about what they did.

Actionable feedback must also be accepted by the performer. Many so-called feedback situations lead to arguments because the givers are not sufficiently descriptive; they jump to an inference from the data instead of simply presenting the data. For example, a supervisor may make the unfortunate but common mistake of stating that "many students were bored in class." That's a judgment, not an observation. It would have been far more useful and less debatable had the supervisor said something like, "I counted ongoing inattentive behaviors in 12 of the 25 students once the lecture was underway. The behaviors included texting under desks, passing notes, and making eye contact with other students. However, after the small-group exercise began, I saw such behavior in only one student."

Such care in offering neutral, goal-related facts is the whole point of the clinical supervision of teaching and of good coaching more generally. Effective supervisors and coaches work hard to carefully observe and comment on what they observed, based on a clear statement of goals. That's why I always ask when visiting a class, "What would you like me to look for and perhaps count?" In my experience as a teacher of teachers, I have always found such pure feedback to be accepted and welcomed. Effective coaches also know that in complex performance situations, actionable feedback about what went right is as important as feedback about what didn't work.

4. User-Friendly

Even if feedback is specific and accurate in the eyes of experts or bystanders, it is not of much value if the user cannot understand it or is overwhelmed by it. Highly technical feedback will seem odd and confusing to a novice. Describing a baseball swing to a 6-year-old in terms of torque and other physics concepts will not likely yield a better hitter. Too much feedback is also counterproductive; better to help the performer concentrate on only one or two key elements of performance than to create a buzz of information coming in from all sides.

Expert coaches uniformly avoid overloading performers with too much or too technical information. They tell the performers one important thing they noticed that, if changed, will likely yield immediate and noticeable improvement ("I was confused about who was talking in the dialogue you wrote in this paragraph"). They don't offer advice until they make sure the performer understands the importance of what they saw.

5. Timely

In most cases, the sooner I get feedback, the better. I don't want to wait for hours or days to find out whether my students were attentive and whether they learned, or which part of my written story works and which part doesn't. I say "in most cases" to allow for situations like playing a piano piece in a recital. I don't want my teacher or the audience barking out feedback as I perform. That's why it is more precise to say that good feedback is "timely" rather than "immediate."

A great problem in education, however, is untimely feedback. Vital feedback on key performances often comes days, weeks, or even months after the performance-think of writing and handing in papers or getting back results on standardized tests. As educators, we should work overtime to figure out ways to ensure that students get more timely feedback and opportunities to use it while the attempt and effects are still fresh in their minds.

Before you say that this is impossible, remember that feedback does not need to come only from the teacher, or even from people at all. Technology is one powerful tool-part of the power of computer-assisted learning is unlimited, timely feedback and opportunities to use it. Peer review is another strategy for managing the load to ensure lots of timely feedback; it's essential, however, to train students to do small-group peer review to high standards, without immature criticisms or unhelpful praise.

6. Ongoing

Adjusting our performance depends on not only receiving feedback but also having opportunities to use it. What makes any assessment in education formative is not merely that it precedes summative assessments, but that the performer has opportunities, if results are less than optimal, to reshape the performance to better achieve the goal. In summative assessment, the feedback comes too late; the performance is over.

Thus, the more feedback I can receive in real time, the better my ultimate performance will be. This is how all highly successful computer games work. If you play Angry Birds, Halo, Guitar Hero, or Tetris, you know that the key to substantial improvement is that the feedback is both timely and ongoing. When you fail, you can immediately start over-sometimes even right where you left off-to get another opportunity to receive and learn from the feedback. (This powerful feedback loop is also user-friendly. Games are built to reflect and adapt to our changing need, pace, and ability to process information.)

It is telling, too, that performers are often judged on their ability to adjust in light of feedback. The ability to quickly adapt one's performance is a mark of all great achievers and problem solvers in a wide array of fields. Or, as many little league coaches say, "The problem is not making errors; you will all miss many balls in the field, and that's part of learning. The problem is when you don't learn from the errors."

7. Consistent

To be useful, feedback must be consistent. Clearly, performers can only adjust their performance successfully if the information fed back to them is stable, accurate, and trustworthy. In education, that means teachers have to be on the same page about what high-quality work is. Teachers need to look at student work together, becoming more consistent over time and formalizing their judgments in highly descriptive rubrics supported by anchor products and performances. By extension, if we want student-to-student feedback to be more helpful, students have to be trained to be consistent the same way we train teachers, using the same exemplars and rubrics.

Progress Toward a Goal

In light of these key characteristics of helpful feedback, how can schools most effectively use feedback as part of a system of formative assessment? The key is to gear feedback to long-term goals.

Let's look at how this works in sports. My daughter runs the mile in track. At the end of each lap in races and practice races, the coaches yell out split times (the times for each lap) and bits of feedback ("You're not swinging your arms!" "You're on pace for 5:15"), followed by advice ("Pick it up-you need to take two seconds off this next lap to get in under 5:10!").

My daughter and her teammates are getting feedback (and advice) about how they are performing now compared with their final desired time. My daughter's goal is to run a 5:00 mile. She has already run 5:09. Her coach is telling her that at the pace she just ran in the first lap, she is unlikely even to meet her best time so far this season, never mind her long-term goal. Then, he tells her something descriptive about her current performance (she's not swinging her arms) and gives her a brief piece of concrete advice (take two seconds off the next lap) to make achievement of the goal more likely.

The ability to improve one's result depends on the ability to adjust one's pace in light of ongoing feedback that measures performance against a concrete, long-term goal. But this isn't what most school district "pacing guides" and grades on "formative" tests tell you. They yield a grade against recent objectives taught, not useful feedback against the final performance standards. Instead of informing teachers and students at an interim date whether they are on track to achieve a desired level of student performance by the end of the school year, the guide and the test grade just provide a schedule for the teacher to follow in delivering content and a grade on that content. It's as if at the end of the first lap of the mile race, My daughter's coach simply yelled out, " B+ on that lap!"

The advice for how to change this sad situation should be clear: Score student work in the fall and winter against spring standards, use more pre-and post-assessments to measure progress toward these standards, and do the item analysis to note what each student needs to work on for better future performance.

"But There's No Time!"

Although the universal teacher lament that there's no time for such feedback is understandable, remember that "no time to give and use feedback" actually means "no time to cause learning." As we have seen, research shows that less teaching plus more feedback is the key to achieving greater learning. And there are numerous ways-through technology, peers, and other teachers-that students can get the feedback they need.

So try it out. Less teaching, more feedback. Less feedback that comes only from you, and more tangible feedback designed into the performance itself. And, of course, send me some feedback on this article at gwiggins@authenticeducation.org.

Feedback vs. Advice

› You need more examples in your report.

› You might want to use a lighter baseball bat.

› You should have included some Essential Questions in your unit plan.

These three statements are not feedback; they're advice. Such advice out of the blue seems at best tangential and at worst unhelpful and annoying. Unless it is preceded by descriptive feedback, the natural response of the performer is to wonder, "Why are you suggesting this?"

As coaches, teachers, and parents, we too often jump right to advice without first ensuring that the learner has sought, grasped, and tentatively accepted the feedback on which the advice is based. By doing so, we often unwittingly end up unnerving learners. Students become increasingly insecure about their own judgment and dependent on the advice of experts-and therefore in a panic about what to do when varied advice comes from different people or no advice is available at all.

If your ratio of advice to feedback is too high, try asking the learner, "Given the feedback, do you have some ideas about how to improve?" This approach will build greater autonomy and confidence over the long haul. Once they are no longer rank novices, performers can often self-advise if asked to.

Feedback vs. Evaluation and Grades

› This is a weak paper.

› You got a C on your presentation.

› I'm so pleased by your poster!

These comments make a value judgment. They rate, evaluate, praise, or criticize what was done. There is little or no feedback here-no actionable information about what occurred. As performers, we only know that someone else placed a high or low value on what we did.

How might we recast these comments to be useful feedback? Tip: Always add a mental colon after each statement of value. For example,

"Good work: Your use of words was more precise in this paper than in the last one, and I saw the scenes clearly in my mind's eye."

"This is a weak paper: Almost from the first sentence, I was confused as to your initial thesis and the evidence you provide for it. In the second paragraph you propose a different thesis, and in the third paragraph you don't offer evidence, just beliefs."

You'll soon find that you can drop the evaluative language; it serves no useful function.

The most ubiquitous form of evaluation, grading, is so much a part of the school landscape that we easily overlook its utter uselessness as actionable feedback. Grades are here to stay, no doubt-but that doesn't mean we should rely on them as a major source of feedback.

References

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York: Routledge.

Mazur, E. (2009, January 2). Farewell, lecture? Science, 323, 50-51.

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Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning?

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Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work

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Ron Berger from EL Education demonstrates the transformational power of models, critique, and descriptive feedback to improve student work. Here he tells the story of Austin's Butterfly. First-grade students at ANSER Charter School in Boise, ID, helped Austin take a scientific illustration of a butterfly through multiple drafts toward a high-quality final product.

This video accompanies the book Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming Schools through Student-Engaged Assessment.

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread protest movements, the state of learning in the world has significantly changed. It has been extremely challenging and yet educators, parents, and students have found creative ways to connect and continue learning together.

At times of transition, we can help our children reflect back on the year - or the month, or even each day - and share the ways they have continued learning. Help them celebrate and build on their success managing these very challenging times.

To help start the conversation with your students or your children at home, ask them to reflect and be mindful of a Rose, Thorn, and Bud they have experienced. Help them describe new ideas and things they are looking forward to learning or experiencing this summer or in the coming school-year. Let's also give them the opportunity to reflect on those things they found challenging so we can better support them.

STEP 1: Define terms for the activity

Rose = A highlight, success, small win, or something positive that happened.

Thorn = A challenge you experienced or something you can use more support with.

Bud = New ideas that have blossomed or something you are looking forward to knowing more about or experiencing.

STEP 2: Brainstorm

Give students 30 seconds to a few minutes to sit silently and reflect on their their rose, bud, and thorn. Then give students 5-10 minutes to jot down ideas on a piece of paper or print out the graphic organizer provided here.

STEP 3: Debrief

Share your own rose, bud, and thorn, and then go around the room asking students to share their rose, bud, or thorn or reflect on the activity itself.

Check in after completing the activity and ask students to notice their energy level and thoughts before and after the activity.

A possible extension for this activity is to brainstorm strategies for turning thorns into roses or to describe ways thorns might support learning and growing.

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A Mindful Way to Reflect: Rose, Thorn, and Bud

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Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread protest movements, the state of learning in the world has significantly changed. It has been extremely challenging and yet educators, parents, and students have found creative ways to connect and continue learning together.

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Yoga Moves to Relieve Tension in the Neck & Shoulders

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yoga "yoga videos" "free yoga videos" "yoga for weight loss" "yoga for beginners" "morning yoga" "home yoga practice" "yoga with adriene" "at home yoga"

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WELCOME to Yoga With Adriene! Our mission is to connect as many people as possible through high-quality free yoga videos. We welcome all levels, all bodies, all genders, all souls! If you're brand-new to yoga, check out my Yoga For Beginners and Foundations of Yoga series.

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Squats

Squats are also a full-body movement, engaging your core while strengthening your glutes and quads. Robin Arzon, an RRCA certified running coach, NASM certified personal trainer, and Schwinn spin instructor, says to relax your upper body and keep your shoulders away from your ears. Stand with your feet spread, shoulder-width distance apart, and begin to engage your core and bring your hips back. Sit back as if you were aiming for a chair that was 90 degrees or lower. "You don't want to overextend your lower back, [as to] protect your spinal column," she says. "You want to get below the 90 degree angle with your hips and glutes to really fully activate your glutes and quads." Your weight should be closer to the balls of your heel, so that you could wiggle your toes at the bottom of the move. This enables you to push yourself back up. To make this quick workout move more challenging, hold a weight in your hands.

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Sneaking In These 60-Second Exercises Can Transform Your Body

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Squats are also a full-body movement, engaging your core while strengthening your glutes and quads. Robin Arzon, an RRCA certified running coach, NASM certified personal trainer, and Schwinn spin instructor, says to relax your upper body and keep your shoulders away from your ears.

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How to get unstuck from your anxiety.

Credit...

By

In this emotional equivalent to an ultramarathon, it's key to have some stress-reducing strategies available that work quickly and efficiently to help you hit the reset button.

Here's why: Struggling with chronic worry gets in the way of effectively managing your emotions. Unfortunately, many people who experience distress try to escape their unpleasant emotions by distracting themselves in ways that ultimately backfire.

If you suspect you might be one of them, ask yourself whether you have a tendency to judge your emotions - it's a common thing to do. But it can fuel a vicious loop of feeling, then avoiding the feelings and feeling even worse. Pushing away feelings is like trying to force a beach ball underwater: They will pop back up. Instead, notice and normalize difficult emotions; ideally, negative feelings, including fear, can motivate us to solve problems.

So rather than dealing with anxiety and uncertainty by getting lost worrying, then chasing short-term fixes with longer-term consequences, like procrastinating, using food or marijuana to cope or relying on benzodiazepines - the anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax - it's helpful to experiment with quick strategies that will empower you. These strategies are not necessarily a cure, but can help lower the intensity of overwhelming emotions, allowing you to recalibrate to better deal with challenges you face.

My patients often reflect that an additional perk of strategic coping is boosting your sense of mastery - the hope that arises when you stretch yourself and accomplish something difficult, like coping with your anxiety in a productive way.

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Focusing on relaxing sounds reduces stress. In research spearheaded by Dr. Veena Graff, an assistant professor in the department of anesthesiology and critical care at the University of Pennsylvania, preoperative patients were assigned either to music medicine - listening to Marconi Union's " Weightless " - or prescribed a benzodiazepine. Remarkably, serene music proved nearly as effective in easing patients' jitters as the medication option, with no side effects.

To honor your unique taste, explore different options and create a playlist that you find comforting when you need a break. Keep in mind that although it can seem cathartic to hear songs that validate your emotions (for example, listening to lyrics about heartache while feeling lonely), research on inducing varying mood states concludes that we can improve our experience with a more uplifting soundtrack. "Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear," as Dr. Oliver Sacks wrote in "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain."

Marsha Linehan, a professor emeritus in psychology at the University of Washington, popularized an exercise in dialectical behavior therapy to regulate intense emotions that involves immediately lowering your body temperature by creating a mini plunge pool for your face. This sounds odd, but it activates your body's dive response, a reflex that happens when you cool your nostrils while holding your breath, dampening your physiological and emotional intensity.

To do it, fill a large bowl with ice water, set a timer for 15 to 30 seconds, take a deep breath and hold your breath while dipping your face into the water. While this isn't conventionally relaxing, it will slow your heart rate, allowing blood to flow more easily to your brain. I love watching my clients try this over our telehealth calls and seeing firsthand how quickly this shifts their perspective. Just being willing to do this, I tell my clients as they prepare to submerge, is a way to practice being flexible.

One of my favorite ideas that never fails to fill me with gratitude, no matter what else is happening, comes from the mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn, who likes to say, "As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you." In "The Healing Power of the Breath," Drs. Richard Brown and Patricia Gerbarg offer a range of exercises to promote resilience. One of my favorites: Slow your breathing down to six breaths a minute by consciously inhaling and exhaling (to practice this timing, you can use a secondhand and inhale for five seconds, exhale for five seconds, and repeat four times, or try a guided recording). Paced breathing offers a host of physiological benefits, like reducing your blood pressure, which helps promote a sense of tranquillity. When people tell me it feels challenging to breathe in a certain way when they feel panicked, I tell them to start with alternative soothing activities, like music, and work their way up to paced breathing.

Another way to stay present rather than spin into a crisis is to notice if you are engaged in thinking that isn't helping you. Our interpretations of events supercharge the intensity of our emotions. After all, anticipating, "This will go on for years!" in a moment of anguish will only inspire more hopelessness. But mindfulness, or learning to see more clearly as opposed to jumping to conclusions, is a nice remedy for anxiety. One brief way to enter the moment is known as "anchoring," a popular strategy.

The Coronavirus Outbreak ›

Frequently Asked Questions

Updated August 4, 2020

I have antibodies. Am I now immune?

As of right now, that seems likely, for at least several months. There have been frightening accounts of people suffering what seems to be a second bout of Covid-19. But experts say these patients may have a drawn-out course of infection, with the virus taking a slow toll weeks to months after initial exposure. People infected with the coronavirus typically produce immune molecules called antibodies, which are protective proteins made in response to an infection. These antibodies may last in the body only two to three months, which may seem worrisome, but that's perfectly normal after an acute infection subsides, said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University. It may be possible to get the coronavirus again, but it's highly unlikely that it would be possible in a short window of time from initial infection or make people sicker the second time.

I'm a small-business owner. Can I get relief?

The stimulus bills enacted in March offer help for the millions of American small businesses. Those eligible for aid are businesses and nonprofit organizations with fewer than 500 workers, including sole proprietorships, independent contractors and freelancers. Some larger companies in some industries are also eligible. The help being offered, which is being managed by the Small Business Administration, includes the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. But lots of folks have not yet seen payouts. Even those who have received help are confused: The rules are draconian, and some are stuck sitting on money they don't know how to use. Many small-business owners are getting less than they expected or not hearing anything at all.

What are my rights if I am worried about going back to work?

Should I refinance my mortgage?

It could be a good idea, because mortgage rates have never been lower. Refinancing requests have pushed mortgage applications to some of the highest levels since 2008, so be prepared to get in line. But defaults are also up, so if you're thinking about buying a home, be aware that some lenders have tightened their standards.

What is school going to look like in September?

It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California's two largest public school districts - Los Angeles and San Diego - said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won't be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation's largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There's no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.

Start by physically centering yourself by digging your heels into the floor - this evokes a feeling of being grounded in reality. Then take a moment to observe: What am I thinking? Feeling in my body? Doing? Then ask yourself: Is my response: A) Helpful? B) Aligned with my values now? Or C) Related to future worries or a past problem? While we can get stuck in specific thoughts, stepping back to more generally decide if those thoughts are helpful can get us out of rumination mode. It may also help to tape a list of these prompts on your computer to remember to take a step back and refocus when your thoughts are only making things worse.

If you struggle with physical sensations of anxiety, like muscle tension and feeling like you can't get enough air, a counterintuitive yet important way to manage is to practice bringing on those sensations in more quiet moments to improve how you tolerate stressful ones.

Learning to repeatedly welcome physical symptoms allows you to stop seeing them as catastrophic. In a recent therapy group I led on Zoom, my clients prepared to try this by ordering thin coffee straws. I set my timer for a minute as they pinched their noses and tried to breathe only through the straw.

We also worked on replicating the other sensations they associated with fear, like muscle tension, dizziness and shortness of breath. We held a plank, spun in circles and ran in place. Some people were surprised that the practice experience was worse than the anxiety they normally felt. Others found it was similar, which felt liberating - they didn't have to wait for the feelings to catch them off guard - and instead could purposefully habituate themselves to them.

Recently, at the end of a long day of video calls with patients, my 5-year-old daughter asked, "When will the germs go away?" After removing my 3-year-old's sneaker from my 1-year-old's mouth, I saw a request from a client about an urgent check-in. I practiced paced breathing and pulled up our nightly dance party playlist (by request: Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling") before discussing my daughter's feelings and returning to work.

Now I hope you create your own plan with the strategies above. By practicing managing your emotions, you'll experience a sense of freedom in your life. I don't know about you, but I'd chase that over any mindless short-term alternative.

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How to get unstuck from your anxiety. Credit... By In this emotional equivalent to an ultramarathon, it's key to have some stress-reducing strategies available that work quickly and efficiently to help you hit the reset button. Here's why: Struggling with chronic worry gets in the way of effectively managing your emotions.

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If you are a sleep deprived teacher you may not be aware of the term woodpeckering, but you've probably done it. It happens the day following a bad night's sleep. You're sitting in a long meeting and you can barely keep your eyes open, so you prop your head up with your hand. Next thing you know, you are jerking your sleeping head back to its upright position. Do this a few times and you are woodpeckering.

I thought I knew sleep deprivation when I did my medical internship in hospital. That year I frequently went 36 hours with no sleep. When I finished my residency in neurology, I welcomed the promise of full nights of sleep ever after. It went pretty well for the next 10 years until I became a school teacher and experienced a whole new level of sleep deprivation.

Teachers' working hours go far beyond the 8am to 3pm schedule of kids in school. There are hours spent at faculty meetings, correcting homework, preparing for the next day - and then there is the worrying. Nothing I ever did in a hospital emergency room or doing CPR required the intense mental energy needed to keep 30 kids attentive enough to learn what I was teaching.

Good teachers are like jugglers keeping a dozen balls in the air so come nighttime, with alarm set for 6am to finish grading papers, memories of the day that's gone - including the students who didn't understand something, forgot their lunch or were embarrassed by wrong answers - become sleep-resistant barriers. Add to these financial stress - potential loss of income from spending cuts and job losses - and you have cycle of insomnia with its band of unwelcome consequences.

What is the impact of not getting a good night's sleep?

With inadequate sleep comes irritability, forgetfulness, lower tolerance of even minor annoyances, and less efficient organisation and planning. These are the very mental muscles teachers need to meet the challenges of the next day. In wanting to do a better job the next day, the brain keeps bringing up the worries that deny it the rest it needs.

Studies of teachers' response to high job strain reveal that they spend more time than most people ruminating about work-related issues and their brains take longer to unwind. Sleep hours suffer as well as sleep quality.

We need sleep to think clearly, react quickly, and create memories. It is during the later hours of sleep (especially between the sixth and eighth hour) when the brain releases the neurochemicals that stimulate the growth of the memory connections. The average teacher is reported to sleep six hours a night, falling short of the most valuable sleep time.

It is also during sleep that the brain has some its most profound insights and does some of its most creative problem solving. During the day, the neural networks for highest cognition are kept busy directing the rest of the brain's moment-to-moment decisions, choices, prioritising, and just getting through the day. At night, these executive control circuits are free from those distractions. As seen on brain imaging, these regions can be extremely active during sleep.

After such brain activity, the subjects often awaken with solutions to problems, new insights, and ideas for creative innovation.

How to get a good night's sleep: tips before bedtime

Increasing sleep time from six hours or less to eight hours promotes the growth of the brain connections that increase memory up to 25% and restore emotional calm, alert reflectiveness and job efficiency. Here are some general and teacher-specific tips:

1. The best sleep hygiene includes regular sleep and wake schedules - even on weekends. Exercise is also good, but avoid vigorous exercise in the two hours before bed. Vigorous exercise releases adrenalin and noradrenalin, both stimulants that could delay falling asleep. Vigorous exercise before bed also means it will take longer for your body to cool down to the lower temperature that promotes sleep. That said, calming music and gentle stretching, yoga, and progressive muscle relaxation (going through each muscle group and tensing and relaxing it) before getting into your cosy bed is great.

2. Thinking about what you eat and drink before bed also has an impact. You may think you are avoiding caffeine, but look carefully at teas, soft drinks, cold and headache medications where caffeine may be hiding. Alcohol near bedtime might help you fall asleep, but when it wears off, you'll wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back to sleep.

In the normal cycle, deeper REM sleep does not come until several hours in. Alcohol before bed results in early onset REM thus helps with falling asleep. However, after several hours, the early REM is followed by sleep fragmentation - frequent awakenings. One lies in bed awake and come morning does not feel refreshed. The environment in which you sleep should also be cooler as this is more sleep conducive.

3. For teachers, bedtime rituals can clear your brain of that ruminating about work-related issues so why not have a warm bath with relaxing music before you go to bed?

4. If some worries do wedge themselves into your sleep cycle, write them down on an external notecard. Most importantly, let your last thoughts include self-recognition for the vital work you do and drift to dreamland recalling the day's school successes and the faces to which you brought smiles.
Judy Willis is a neurologist and former teacher. She writes books and does international presentations about how the brain learns best.

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Teacher's guide to sleep - and why it matters

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If you are a sleep deprived teacher you may not be aware of the term woodpeckering, but you've probably done it. It happens the day following a bad night's sleep. You're sitting in a long meeting and you can barely keep your eyes open, so you prop your head up with your hand.

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Over the course of my over forty years as an educator and researcher, I've learned that teachers are often incredibly altruistic and devoted to making a positive difference in children's lives. But too many of them are not well prepared for the social and emotional demands of today's classroom. Stressful conditions-like high-stakes testing or students with severe psychological problems-can lead us to feel discouraged, burnt-out, and ready to quit.

Most teacher training focuses primarily on content and pedagogy, overlooking the very real social, emotional, and cognitive demands of teaching itself. Luckily, learning and cultivating skills of mindfulness -the ability to stay focused on one's present experience with nonjudgmental awareness-can help us to promote the calm, relaxed, but enlivened classroom environment that children need to learn. Mindfulness can also help us to be more effective at reducing conflict and developing more positive ways of relating in the classroom, which can help us feel more job satisfaction.

How does mindfulness do this? By training our minds consciously to become more aware of our inner and outer experience, and learning how to manage our emotions.

In my new book, Mindfulness for Teachers, I outline several mindfulness practices-including focused breathing, open awareness, loving-kindness, and others-that teachers can use in the classroom, whether they want to invoke a sense of mindfulness in the classroom or to become a more mindful person, in general. These practices can help a teacher to slip into a mindful presence when it's most needed, allowing us to pay better attention to the learning environment and our students' needs within the classroom.

Here are some of the many ways that developing mindfulness can help us be better teachers.

1. Mindfulness helps teachers understand our own emotions better

When I teach, I sometimes notice that my mind is so focused on thinking about what I need to do and how to do it that I'm not paying attention to the present moment. I have expectations about how things ought to be and I become attached to them, rather than noticing and accepting how things actually are.

This causes distress, making me emotionally volatile, which in turn affects my perceptions and makes me more sensitive to threat. I may imagine a student's disruptive behavior is intentionally designed to interfere with my teaching when in fact it is the normal behavior of a child who needs help with his self-regulation. If I take his behavior personally, I may lose my temper and say something that makes matters worse.

Practicing mindfulness can help teachers to recognize our emotional patterns and proactively regulate how we behave, responding in the way we want to rather than reacting automatically. It can also help us to savor the positive moments in our job-when we feel the joy of true connection with our students or resonate with the joy and excitement our students feel when learning clicks for them.

2. Mindfulness helps us communicate more effectively with students

During my first year of teaching I had no idea how to get my students to pay attention to my lessons, respond to directions, or behave appropriately. I thought that if I was nice to my students, they would like me, want to please me, and do what I wanted them to do.

However, I was wrong. My students didn't respond or behave that way at all, and, day by day, my frustration grew to the point where I was impatient and snapping at them.

One day a supervisor came to observe my teaching and gave me some important feedback: She told me that I was saying "okay?" at the end of many of my instructions to students, giving them the message that whatever I asked of them was optional. No wonder they were so unresponsive!

After that feedback, I began to monitor myself to break this bad habit, and this helped me see how mindful self-awareness could help me succeed as a teacher.

3. Mindfulness helps us manage students we find difficult

All teachers have problems with particular students who misbehave in the classroom. Mindful awareness helps us attend to what's happening with a child to cause them to misbehave.

Sometimes students misbehave because the environment is inappropriate for their developmental stage-for example, we can't expect kindergarteners to sit quietly listening to an adult talk for long periods of time. Children exposed to trauma in their lives tend to be hyper vigilant-which consumes a lot of cognitive resources, and can lead them to learn more slowly than other students or to be overly sensitive to changes in environment.

Nonjudgmental awareness is an important aspect of mindfulness, too-one that involves accepting things as they are in the present moment. When we first practice mindful awareness, we often notice how hard it is not to judge. But, as we observe ourselves engaging in judgment, we become more aware of it in the moment, our mind begins to settle, and eventually our tendency to judge subsides.

Judgment often induces feelings of guilt and shame. Sometimes teachers judge their students harshly and unconsciously use guilt and shame as management techniques with their students-probably because they've learned these techniques as a child from their own parents. But there's plenty of evidence that this approach doesn't work. Rather than encouraging children to behave, it promotes resentment, distrust, and retaliation.

Mindfully recognizing our emotional responses toward students may help us understand why they are behaving the way they are. If we feel annoyed, the behavior is likely attention seeking. If we feel threatened, the behavior is likely a bid for power. If we feel hurt, the behavior is likely an attempt at revenge, and if we feel discouraged, the student is likely giving up. These feelings can help us respond more appropriately to the underlying issues of our students, and help us shift from a negative appraisal to a state of compassion.

4. Mindfulness helps us set up a positive learning environment

There is a mistaken belief among many teachers that we can and must control our students' behavior. This sets us up for power struggles, where our attempts to control are likely to backfire.

It's far better to create and maintain an effective learning environment by learning to control ourselves. We can control how we communicate, how we behave and where we position our bodies in space. We can set and reinforce expectations and limits. And, we can control the classroom physical space so that it supports learning.

A kindergarten teacher I know couldn't get his students to stop running in the classroom, even after repeated reminders, and he was getting very frustrated. But, once he became mindful of the fact that his classroom furniture was arranged to create distinct "runways" in the class space and remembered that children have a natural inclination to run in open spaces, he could see what needed to be done: he moved the furniture to block the runways, and the children stopped running.

Knowing what's going on in your classroom and with your students is critical to your ability to orchestrate the social-emotional dynamics and the physical spaces that are conducive to learning. Practicing mindful awareness helps you develop the skill of paying attention in the present moment and learning to see what's truly happening in your classroom, allowing you to come up with better solutions to problems you see.

5. Mindfulness helps strengthen our relationship with students

Research on effective classroom management points to the importance of teacher-student relationships. We can set up great management systems involving guidelines and limits, but if our students don't trust and respect us or think we don't respect them, we're in for some challenges.

Giving each student our full mindful attention for even a short period of class time gives them the message "I see you." By making a connection with our students, we let them know we value them as individuals.

Because the goal of school is learning, we naturally tend to signal to students that we value high academic achievement. However, we need to be mindful when we see students displaying non-academic attributes, such as helpfulness, friendliness, creativity, problem-solving, and conflict resolution, and to communicate that we value these as well. Students feel connection with teachers when they know their teachers truly see them and appreciate them.

6. Mindfulness helps us slow down when we need to

Sometimes as new teachers we can be overly concerned about getting through our lesson plans and can unconsciously start to rush. Slowing down and deliberately pausing for a moment of mindfulness can give us time to ask ourselves how we are feeling, what's happening in the classroom, and what our students need at that particular moment. It also models mindfulness for our students.

The speed at which students process information varies. Some students process auditory information very quickly, while others tend to have more visual or sensory-motor strengths. Younger children require more time to process than older children, though adults often forget this. No matter their ages, students process information better when there are given a little extra time, and consciously creating pauses throughout a lesson helps support learning.

Too often teachers forget to pause after asking a question or interrupt student pauses and hesitations, not giving students a chance to think through their answers. Pausing is helpful during lecturing (to give students time to absorb the information and consolidate their thinking) and during student work periods (to give students uninterrupted time to figure things out for themselves). It can also generate feelings of suspense and expectation, enlivening the classroom.

If we rush because we are anxious, we may miss these opportunities to deepen learning. Mindfulness can teach us to wait and be patient and to time our pauses appropriately.

7. Mindfulness helps us build community

Students have a basic need to belong to and contribute to a community. We can foster a sense of community by modeling caring and other prosocial behaviors, instituting caring routines, and mindfully listening to our students.

To cultivate a community of learners, we can provide students with opportunities to collaborate with and help one another-for example by having students work together in groups where each student has a specific task that contributes toward the outcome. Collaborative learning gives students the opportunity to help others and to reflect on the experiences and needs of others, which promotes empathy and perspective taking.

Another way to build community among students is through joint service learning projects, where students work together on giving back in some way to their community. Mindfully taking note of different student strengths and challenges can help teachers make these shared work opportunities enrich student learning and can help build a positive classroom climate.

In all of these ways, mindfulness can help teachers to be the best they can be and bring out the best in their students. Being able to approach a classroom with a sense of calm understanding and the skills to intervene appropriately can make learning a pleasure for everyone.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Seven Ways Mindfulness Can Help Teachers

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Patricia A. Jennings explains why teachers should cultivate moment-to-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, and surroundings.

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Covid-19 has brought with it a greater need for this restorative and trauma-informed approach. Even a short pause for a check-in goes a long way to settle the elevated stress levels and experiences of isolation, and this leads to more learning. Here are some simple tips that create a more relational, stress-reducing, and engaging online learning environment for both you and your students.

Prepare a Warm Space

Specialists in the fields of social neuroscience and trauma-informed practices confirm what we know to be true: Students are more open to learning when they are emotionally and physically regulated, feel connected to others, and have opportunities for meaningful engagement.

Your physical presence, warmly represented, provides key support to your students, so maintain eye contact and talk in a relaxed, friendly tone. Set up your physical space so that your face is easily visible and warmly lit. Remember-online learning inherently feels less personal than your physical classroom, so intentionally share something from your life, like photos of your family or pets, a favorite painting, or items that represent your interests or hobbies.

When giving a lesson online, avoid relying too much on slides and videos-they help focus student attention on the material, but too much time away from human faces will drain energy and engagement and undermine the sense of connectedness you are trying to build.

Check In With Your Students Regularly

A restorative approach is much more than a non-punitive way to respond to harm; it is a process for building a positive classroom culture that starts at the beginning of the year. One class activity central to this approach is collaboratively developing a class ethos or set of guidelines. It helps establish some relational trust and expectations for how you and your class want to be together as a learning community.

When you start a lesson online, don't jump right in-take a few moments to slow down with a few mindful breaths and set the right tone for the class by sharing a positive message, such as an inspiring quote, song, or video. Survey your students often on what they need to feel engaged and connected. Provide ways for them to give anonymous feedback and to be heard. Perhaps they'd like to share an item from home that means something to them, or they need more thinking time before jumping into a discussion.

Build in frequent opportunities for engagement during your lesson by asking for thumbs up, thumbs down, or one-word answers in your meeting's chat window, for example. Pause and ask students to check in with how they are feeling, and let them provide a silent gesture or signal that reflects how they are doing. Check-ins do not need to be long to be effective.

At the end of your lesson, close with a reflection activity-students can talk about a few goals they want to accomplish or share a few words of appreciation in the chat for something or someone in their lives.

Remember: Anxiety Is Contagious

Your calm, grounded state has a lot more influence on your students than you know. Offer co-regulation through your online presence by slowing down, pausing between sentences, smiling, and being mindful of your anxiety level. Before a lesson, take a few minutes to relax and center yourself. If you're distracted during your lesson, students will pick up on that, so have everything you need ready. Struggling to find files, links, or browser tabs can cause your stress level to rise, which students will feel and mirror. Close any programs that you won't be using, and print out your agenda so that you don't need to frantically search for it on your screen.

Your students may be feeling higher anxiety levels, so be transparent about your process, acknowledge how challenging these times are, and remind them that their feelings are shared by many others. If you are feeling stressed, share that as objectively as possible. Just name it and tell your students what you are doing to support yourself. They need to know you are human and hear what strategies you are using, but they also need you to be a positive model and co-regulator.

Focus on the Positive

Finally, take some to reflect on and leverage the positive aspects of our new "normal." Many teachers report an increased degree of connection with parents, students, and each other. Support meetings for students can be easier to schedule online. Parent-teacher conferences are seeing greater participation. School leaders are prioritizing social and emotional wellness. As Margaret Wheatley wrote, "It is possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another."

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Tips to Create a Warmer, More Engaging Online Classroom

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Covid-19 has brought with it a greater need for this restorative and trauma-informed approach. Even a short pause for a check-in goes a long way to settle the elevated stress levels and experiences of isolation, and this leads to more learning.

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Ways to guide elementary students to regulate their emotions and feel connected to their teacher and peers so they're ready to learn.

As I work with families, educators, and students during this pandemic time, we're trying to figure out how to do school in a way that feels safe, comprehensive, and doable with limited technology and internet accessibility. The traumatic conditions of isolation, chronic unpredictability, and physical and emotional constraint are affecting all of us at some level. How do children express their feelings of abandonment, loss, grief, and confusion? How do adults express these feelings? Often, our behaviors tell our stories, signaling the pain we can barely speak of or understand.

The therapist Bonnie Badenoch says that "the shards of these accumulating experiences that linger in our muscles, belly, hearts, brains, and body systems gradually shape our perceptual systems and how the world looks." We can plan distance learning curricula, create new ways of presenting content, and innovate our assessment protocols for virtual learning, but with so many unknowns in this time, students' emotional and social well-being must be a priority.

We don't know exactly how schools across the country will reopen, but we do know that every student will need to feel safety and connection to teachers and peers. Many of our students are going to walk in relationship-resistant, and we will need to set aside chunks of time for emotional regulation practices.

Below are strategies and mini brain-aligned practices intended for distance learning that prepare the brain and body for a calm regulated state, improved focus, and attention. They are ways to create touchpoints-moments of connection-and to release anxiety and build a strong sense of connection in a class.

Strategies for Promoting Calmness and a Sense of Connection

1. Express Yourself: When we can share our sensations, thoughts, and feelings, we feel a sense of relief, safety, and calm, and artistic expression is one of the most powerful ways to regulate our nervous systems during stressful periods of time. The teachers I work with have used these questions before distance learning lessons, sharing them in packets sent home so students can have some time to express how they feel before the academic part of the lesson. These questions are also great discussion starters that families can use to explore children's emotions.

What are two images or pictures that pop up in your mind when you think of this pandemic? What do these look like, sound like, smell like and feel like? Can you draw them, write about them, or act them out?

What are two ways this pandemic has affected you and/or your family? Can you express them through images or words?

How does your world feel different now compared to six months ago?

We cannot see the virus, but imagine that you can. What does it remind you of, and how does it look? What are its colors, its lines? If this virus could talk, what would it say? What would you say to this virus?

If you could help create a better world as we go through this pandemic together, what is one change you would like to help create or see? What would your plan look like?

2. Dual Drawings: Students working with a peer, the teacher, or a parent can create a shared drawing as each takes a turn and draws a line or shape and then passes the drawing to their partner to add their line or shape to the drawing within a specified amount of time. Each partner can add shapes, lines, and color and can observe how this shared activity produces a collaborative design. When I have done this, we usually create together without talking-when the time is up we discuss our creation.

This activity can be shared with students through packets sent through the mail over a longer period of time. The teacher can begin the drawings and send them home to students as a weekly or biweekly design unfolds. Once students have the starter drawing, they can also mail it back and forth to each other, rather than sending it to the teacher. The key step of reflecting on and discussing the creations can happen throughout the process by having students write short journal entries about what they added and why.

3. Dual Story Writing or Journaling: This activity designed for closure is similar to the dual drawings except we create a story together. This story could be created with images or words and could be a 30-minute, one-day or weekly family activity, or a distance learning collaboration. A student and a peer, the teacher or a parent can write a fictional story together, or create a dual journal by writing alternating entries to share experiences from their daily lives.

4. Brain Scavenger Hunt: This creates movement, shared and expressed feelings, and connection, and it can be a family ritual or a part of distance learning if students have an internet connection and a device. I have played this through Zoom with fifth-grade students, asking them to find objects around their home that answer these five brain-aligned questions in a specified amount of time. We place our responses on a Padlet so everyone can share what they discovered.

Can you find something in your home that can change its shape, is malleable, and stretches like our brains when we learn something new? This represents the brain's amazing neuroplasticity-our experiences structurally and functionally change our brains, and we are always growing and learning, repairing and healing.

Can you find something that feels calming and soothing to you? When we calm our nervous systems, we open up the regions of the brain that can self-regulate, think clearly, remember, and pay attention.

Can you find and share something in your home that stresses you out? What you can name, you can tame. For this question, students can draw a picture or write out their answer if it's not practical to bring the actual object to the Zoom call-for example, if the stressor is the student's sibling.

Can you find something in your home that creates a memory for you? What experience does an image, or an object invoke that creates feelings of joy or peacefulness?

Can you find and share something in your home that makes you feel smarter and more focused?

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4 Strategies to Help Students Feel Calm During Distance Learning

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Ways to guide elementary students to regulate their emotions and feel connected to their teacher and peers so they're ready to learn. As I work with families, educators, and students during this pandemic time, we're trying to figure out how to do school in a way that feels safe, comprehensive, and doable with limited technology and internet accessibility.

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a padlet of additional choiceboard and hyperdoc examples - including the underlying pedagogy

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What tool will do what I want?