There are many things that you can do starting the very first week of school to build a classroom environment that is responsive in nature and supports all students within your virtual classroom.
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Whether we are teaching remotely or in the classroom, it is important to invite our students to annotate digital readings and transform print readings into digital products.
Here are some website ideas that help students connect to their reading and writing instruction:
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One challenge that has kept us up at night is how to build a strong classroom community while teaching remotely. We start building our student relationships and classroom communities on day one. This year will be no different, even if we are connecting through a computer screen.
We have resigned ourselves to the fact that our lessons that we would like to teach may take a bit longer when taught remotely, and we have also decided that our main focus will be to spend more time getting to know more about our students each and every day.
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Whether we are teaching remotely or in the classroom, it is important to create a supportive and nurturing classroom for all students to learn and thrive as human beings. Here are some websites that will help students feel more connected to a remote learning classroom:
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So, you decided to become a teacher… Congratulations! Welcome to the most rewarding profession of all time (as well as most time consuming). Every teacher knows how much work and effort goes into creating an insanely awesome lesson as well as the importance of a well managed classroom environment. With over two decades in the profession, we have compiled our must read, go-to, favorite education and curriculum books for new (and veteran ) teachers.
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In an article that Schmoker wrote for ASCD, he says that one of the impactful things teachers can do for students is to have them read for a minimum of 60 minutes and write for a minimum of 40 minutes every day in all subject areas. Unfortunately, many students spend class time in aimless group activities such as completing worksheets, cutting, coloring, and gluing. Additionally, reading assignments have been lowered several grade levels. If there ever was a time to switch things up and do them differently, now is the time. Here is Schmoker’s minimalist standards framework:
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There are so many options and choices for remote learning these days. It can be overwhelming and daunting to find them, learn how to use them, and then have our students utilize them in class or through remote learning. Here are a few of our favorite websites to use for distance learning.
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Will your school district be teaching remotely, hybrid teaching, or full return to school? My school district has decided after much deliberating to start school remotely. So, I started to buy some helpful items to make remote teaching easier this time around.
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2020 will definitely be a year to remember, not only for the Coronavirus pandemic causing mass shut downs and shelter in place orders that have swept the world, but also for the vast inequalities it has helped to shed light on. A disproportionate amount of Black Americans have died from COVID-19 than whites or other ethnic groups. Black Americans represent 13.4% of the US population, but over 60% of the deaths from the virus. How is this even possible? After all, “The virus knows no race or nationality; it can’t peek at your driver’s license or census form to check whether you are black. Society checks for it, and provides the discrimination on the virus’s behalf. The effects of that discrimination are found in the morgues.”
Disparities could be due to inequalities in access to health care. However, a much more likely reason is the systematic, structural, and institutionalized racism that has plagued this country for the past 400 years. To exacerbate these glaring inequalities is the continued news cycle of Black people dying at the hands of police and white supremacists. And now, months later, an uprising has begun.
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As teachers, we know that one of the most important things that we can do for our young children is to read to them each and every day. Bedtime is the most important time in our household. We plan on getting our toddler to bed 30 minutes early so we can read to them. Not only can reading help your kiddos learn sounds, words and language, it also helps to develop early literacy skills. Reading can also help children to learn the value of books and stories. We know that reading helps to spark our student’s imagination and stimulate curiosity- the same goes for even the youngest of our children. Not to brag, but our toddler has a killer vocabulary. Reading to our toddler helps to develop their brain, their social skills and helps to improve their communication skills.
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One of the standards that we find that our students need the most growth is Speaking and Listening. Year after year, that strand is marked the lowest in our CAASPP scores. There are several things that we do to improve our students’ listening comprehension as well as speaking skills. Read on to learn more…
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To make your teaching life a little easier, we have created lessons that focus on directly teaching your students informational text reading strategies.