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spotlight

Brainstorm 2020: What Do You Like?

May 1, 2020

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Presented by Phil Strunk, History Teacher, Clarke County Public Schools

In an unprecedented year we all need words of encouragement and reminders that even in the midst of hard times there are things we do well. Check out this video where Phil Strunk (@MrPStrunk) encourages educators to learn from others, but also recognize that they themselves have talents to bring to the table.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form


Transcript

Hello everyone,

It is my privilege to serve as one of the spotlight speakers for the virtual Brainstorm Conference. My name is Phil Strunk. I am a teacher from Clarke County, Virginia where I teach sixth and seventh grade United States History I and II.
Let me be the 10,000th person to say during this pandemic that these are unprecedented times we are living in. Our world was thrown for a loop and now we are trying to put the pieces back together. We are craving normalcy. Today, it is my hope to provide you with some encouragement as we continue this new journey in education.
I’d like to begin this spotlight video by making a bold claim. I am sure some of you may disagree with me. Some of you may raise your hands in the air and say, “Yes, Phil Yes!” Some of you may be disgusted by my opinion while others may praise it. My claim is simple, but it is one that I like to be upfront with when I talk to people, because I think it is absolutely essential in knowing me. You see… my big… bold… claim… is that I LOVE pizza!
I love pizza with pepperoni, I love pizza with different kinds of cheese, I love pizza with basil, I do not love pizza with pineapple because that simple does not belong on pizza. I love fresh, oven-baked pizza. I love fastfood pizza. One of my favorite places to get pizza from is a national chain called MOD pizza. I imagine that my first time in a MOD pizza was much like Charlie in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The incredible thing about MOD is that when you go in, you are met with a wide variety of cheeses and other toppings that you can put on your pizza. The staff takes you down the line and asks what YOU want on it. Sure they have some recipes on the wall, but I like to embark on my own pizza experience here. I get red sauce with basil and then some mozzarella cheese, but I don’t stop there. I ask for some asiago cheese and if I’m feeling particularly dangerous I ask for bleu cheese as well. When we get to toppings I am a simple man, just pepperoni, bacon, and onion. Then I ask for their pesto finishing sauce after the pizza come out of the oven.
As I take that first bite into this pizza I am so thankful that I got to choose how I wanted this pizza constructed. It is absolutely wonderful as I savor bite after bite.
That being said… my wife is not a big fan of my pizza. She puts garlic, arugala, mild sausage, bacon, and olive with mozzarella and asiago cheese. That pizza is fantastic for her, though it would certainly not be my preferred choice by any stretch of the imagination. And you know what… that is OKAY! We can both go and get our preferred pizzas and enjoy our own meals together!
As we address how this applies to education and as I considered what I wanted to speak about, I wanted to speak about something that people had not heard before in keynotes. However, considering the world we are living in, considering the amount of posts on facebook, twitter, instagram, tik tok, and pinterest I am realizing that maybe like me, you could use this reminder. You do not have to copy and become a teacher that you are not; what students need right now is for you to be YOU! You do not have to be the Pinterest-perfect teacher. You need to embrace what makes you uniquely you as an educator and what helps you reach support your students.
I’ve tried to replicate other teachers and copy paste what they do in their classes. I’ve tried using the same mannerisms, the same one liners. I’ve tried attempting to replicate their lessons. You know… it just doesn’t hit the same. Students do not respond as well, because they smell a phony a mile away. You don’t have to put anchovies on your pizza because the person in front of you did. Don’t be something you aren’t! Be authentic. Be yourself! It took me a while, but I like to think I am beginning to come into my own, and borrow things from others, but losing the pressure that I need to be that other teacher. You can do that too!
As you watch videos from other educators throughout this virtual conference or learning from educators in general, they are going to express ideas that work well for them in their classrooms, with their kids, and their circumstances. But… You are likely not experiencing those same realities. You have your own classroom, your own kids, and your own circumstances. Now what I am not saying is to totally discount what you are going to see, rather I am saying you do not have to control c and control v everything you watch. Find things that work for you. Take an idea and modify it to meet the needs of your students. Don’t watch these videos or learn from others with the mindset of “Ugh, why haven’t I done this before” or believing that you are not enough. For YOUR students… YOU… ARE… ENOUGH! Your students rely on you, not the teachers in the videos. They are subconsciously expecting you to be the gatekeeper of strategies to support their learning, to do what will make them most successful. The people who are presenting at this conference who are trying to provide support to others are sharing things, because they have been successful for them, and there are certainly universal theme and concepts that can be extrapolated across schools, grades, and content. They are going to provide you with resources they have implimented that have worked incredibly well for them. Don’t shame yourself for never having used them, use this time to explore those resources, to learn about strategies that may turn out to be highly effective as well.
Some of these ideas may work now for virtual learning, some may work great for when we get back into classrooms, some may be a healthy combination of the two. Approach this with a confident growth-mindset. Go into this learning with the understanding of your strengths, and celebrate those strengths. Recognize the areas where you are knocking it out of the park. Identify growth points, areas where you can improve in. But don’t wallow in those areas and dig yourself into a pit of despair. Use other educators who are in the trenches in the war against ignorance like you are and learn from their tactics to develop a battle plan in the pursuit of student success and knowledge. Do this with a drive and sense of purpose, not with a sense of defeat. I know that I am constantly learning from others. I moderate a chat on Twitter and participate in others where we all learn and grow together. The more minds we have working on cracking the problems in education, the more likely we are to make serious headway. And that means we also need your mind! So in the midst of these times where we are told to wear masks in public, where we are teaching virtually, where a trip to a restaurant for a sit-down meal seems like forever ago, do not lose sight of what you also bring to the table.
Remember what you like on your pizza! Make it your own. If you like that your buddy put bacon on it, but the broccoli was one step too far, then forget the broccoli. If you want some extra cheese on it, DO it! Eat the pizza that is good for you; be the teacher that is good for your students.
Now with all this being said, I’d like to leave you with a call to action. This is where we are going to go a bit more interactive. Some of you may have already started writing down or taking notes of things you have learned from this professional development experience. However what I’m about to ask you to do is good both now, during future conferences, or anytime you want to intentionally reflect on your craft. Take a piece of paper out and divide it into 3 columns. We are going to do what my wife calls a self-growth-inventory. An SGI! Similar to a KWL chart, I am hopeful this will impact us as educators preparing for a deeper dive and reflection into the columns. At the top of the first column write an S. The second colum write a G. The third column write an R.
Your first column I want you to write your strengths. Identify areas that you know you are strong in as an educator. I know that I am strong in my content knowledge. I know that I am strong in my use of certain edtech tools. I know that I am strong in direct instruction. I know I am strong in building relationships with students. Are any of these strengths your own? Or do you have other strengths? Are you a master at station learning? Do you manage student conflict well? Are your warm-ups unmatched by others? Do you provide incredibly robust performance assessments? Write down each strength you can think of and pause the video if you have to. We get so obsessed in our line of work with our perceived weaknesses that we never really sitback to recognize the skills and talents we are blessed with. We take those things for granted, but I assure you, there is nothing to be taken for granted here. Write these strengths down and put a smile on your face as you maybe for the first time since this whole pandemic started or for the first time ever, you realize that you have strengths and they are important!
The second column, the “G” column is where you are going to write down your growth points. None of us know “everything” and we all have areas we would like to improve in. The point in calling them “growth points” instead of weaknesses is to shift our mindset. Instead of looking at others and then considering ourselves inferior to each other, we recognize that in learning from others they are helpful checkpoints along our own journeys. I know I would like to grow more with eLearning instruction, I’d like to improve in how I give feedback, I’d like to learn about tools that other teachers have used to enhance student success and see if they can help my students. What are some areas you are trying to grow in? Are you trying to improve with indirect instruction strategies? Maybe looking for ideas for alternative assessments? Trying to figure out how to better connect with educators? Recognize those growth points and embrace learning about them with excitement instead of focusing on a perceived deficit. I have students who love to tell me everything they know and then at the first challenge they give up because they do not know how to do something. It is during that time that I remind them that believe it or not, the reason why we go to school is to learn new things not just to talk about everything we know. Use this time to explore and celebrate learning new things by targeting areas that will help you grow and improve as the educator your students need!
Then we move on to the third column. The “R” column. This is where I want you to keep track of resources. These conferences are worthless unless they spur us to action, and if we don’t have resources and foundation to act with we’ve got a problem. What good is a pizza without the crust? Write down, type down, track resources. Maybe they are links to presentations, specific ideas, people to reach out to, social media handles or emails. Keep track of these ideas so you don’t lose them. These things may be useful now, or they may be useful in the new year, but they are useful to no one if they are forgotten.
After you complete this chart at the end of your conference experience, I’d like to encourage you to share it with others. Maybe you have a friend who is attending the conference. If you’re on social media, take a picture and use the conference hashtag and tag me in it to @MrPStrunk. Because maybe your SGI is similar to others and you can collaborate and grow together!
What do you like on your pizza? How much sauce? What kind or kinds of cheese? Is your pizza for herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores? Do you like it thin and crispy or deep dish? Let me say it again.... What do YOU like on YOUR pizza?
What works for your students? What resources do you have at your disposal? What are some free things you can easily implement at your school? What are some universal truths and research about students that you apply to your room? How do you build relationships with students? What makes you the teacher that you are?
It can be tempting to go online and feel the need to keep up with the Jones’s, but you do not need to feel that pressure. You need to do what is right for your students. You can always learn more and apply more ideas into your room, but add your own personal twist on it so it works for you too. During this conference, identify what your strengths are, identify your growth points and add to your arsenal as your record resources. If I had not done that with pizza, I wouldn’t have known how much I like certain toppings on my pizza. I don’t copy the exact pizza of others, I make the pizza that is right for me. Sometimes you can and/or should copy things from others. I, like many others, enjoy pepperoni on my pizza, but sometimes while I’m ordering pizza and I may hear what someone is putting on their pizza I’ll think “hey that sounds good” and copy them. I, like many others, enjoy using TpT for resources and lesson ideas, and sometimes I certainly do copy those things resources because that works for my students, but I do not have an identical classroom to another teacher each day, I have found what works for me and sometimes added my own twist on it to do the best for my students.
I hope this conference is rewarding for you. Like all learning, it is a journey not a destination. We can always grow, we can always learn, but we can also offer ideas, we can also teach. As unique human beings, there are attributes in the essence of our souls that make us who we are. Please don’t lose sight of your value. You matter, you are important, you are enough. Learning is not like climbing out of a hole. It is like going down a pure, running river as opposed to a stagnant lake. It is like heating up the pizza, instead of just eating raw dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings. Let’s be honest though, sometimes we do feel down. We feel like we don’t measure up. We have a self-defeating feeling of woe. We feel like we aren’t enough. What I would like to ask you to do, if you ever feel down, if you ever find yourself counting your deficits compared to other teachers, please remember to ask yourself… what do you like on your pizza?

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Brainstorm 2020: Rediscover Your Voice!

April 30, 2020

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Presented by Chey Cheney & Pav Wander, teachers, Beaumonde Heights Junior Middle School, Toronto District School Board

Improving our teaching practices through podcasting! Through this presentation, we'd like educators to come away with the idea that their voices can be heard and rediscovered through so many different mediums, including podcasting, as is the case in our experience.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form


Transcript

Welcome to this webinar end session on rediscovering your voice improving your teaching practice through by my name is Todd and I will be joined by Che for this presentation today a special thank you to the Virginia Society for technology and education for inviting us to be a part of brainstorm 20/20 Limitless learning and we are so excited that you are checking our webinar presentation on rediscovering your voice to podcasting what does critical learning goals of our presentation is freaking to Come Away with the idea that you can reinvigorate your voice find your voice discover your voice casting platform for you to energize your voice become more sound in your beliefs with your pedagogy presentation is a jicama way of knowing how you can re-energize your voice to re-energize your teaching practice call Jesse so part of what we really want to be able to stress during this presentation is that there is a lot of value that comes from podcasting for an educator there are lots of different conversations that people are able to have with each other and then it also allows for you to really create a very type first professional Learning Network so the podcast and get self allows for a lot of self-reflection as an educator and allows for you to really do a lot of research and felt very deeply into some of the trends that are happening with in education and then by creating a professional Learning Network allows you to connect to other teachers from around the world and talk about what's not working where does he need more and so this is an area where through a lot without perhaps even meaning to do so we really wanted to get together and talk about some of the things that we see happening in classrooms but we didn't realize that we were going to learn so much along the way we need to be able to rely on the things that we have stored you know if be able to pull them up as we need them quickly and so that we don't have to use up all of his working memory to be able to that's it so we have this long-term memory that we really want to make our explicit instruction Foundation solid so we go to the store open ended concept called into work all defensive learning so much knowledge is just trying to find these out of the box Solutions because we just solidified a foundation and someone you're trying to justify why do I want my explicit instruction this is why I want nothing cuz I don't want authentic learning because I do want and I want and I don't want to be letting my kids off and working and they can't maximize the time to work on the foundational information necessary I mean it it seems to make complete and I've heard this from a few people in the past few no looking back in retrospect after that principle is gone and so many amazing things came out of it sometimes I feel like I know what I've been in that experience I'm appreciative of that and I feel like you know what I probably wouldn't push myself that hard somebody was there to push me to get to that particular vision and looking back the school was spectacular achieved everything that the administrator Scott out to achieve and you were on a high the school was going places and it was doing but where it needs to be podcasting 101 headphones not essential and then we can use as a browsing platform that allows you to podcast on your own for free just need to self email you some started computer so what would we say are some of the biggest impact of podcasting for an educator we'd likely have to say that number one would be professional development we have grown a lot in terms of our professional growth over the past 9 months. We've been interested in a particular topic for an incident will now we need to help a little bit steeper so does that mean reading up on some articles that we find on this particular topic does it mean engaging into a building perhaps right ministrator has people who can give us a little bit more of an inside or perspective that we haven't already offered so the growth that we have experienced professionally secondly we really built on our professional learning of something that happened along the way it wasn't entirely intentional actually a lot of these were not intentional but they sort of just happen once you get connected on Twitter and start to try and get your podcast out there to listen to you start connecting with a lot of different from all over the world and we really been able to see this as an impactful thing because it is a given take relationship people are listening to what you have to offer as a podcast are there hearing your voice but in turn they are offering their perspectives and their thoughts and their feelings about a particular thing as well. Connecting with schools around the world we talked about this a little bit already of these connected through so many different different places School group was probably the first website is the organization that really helped us connect with Educators around the world but then through our professional Learning Network that we connect with so many different people from different countries and also you know when you are podcasting if you choose to use a software application like where you were most listened to and so you know we are listen to in over 50 countries probably more than right now around the world which is which is very significant because your voice although you feel like it might be very centralized has a global reach what's most interesting is that so many educators will come back and let you know that you know things that you have to say resonate with that which is so interesting when you were sitting on one part of the globe and you know you hearing this feedback from people on the other side as well future impacts that decided that so many additional doors have been open to us because of our vulnerability inability to open up our voices and allowed other hear what we have to say this has been huge for us and allowing our voices to be heard on different platforms such as written form for school group record growing and growing and there are no limits the end result from this explosion from the podcast professional growth in your PL in the connections you made with other people for self-reflection someone else a feedback on that and so the power of your voice to talk to your other people in their voices Rose educator podcast Twitter chats podcast experience that has exploded your voice Network same for others feel such a masquerade of other Educators that you can learn from Kingsborough from so what are some of the things that really opened up for us what are we up to and what have we been up to since we started podcasting we originally started with the staff room podcast recording one episode that was our original expectations just based on what we thought we could do how much time we supposed to go into editing Hour podcast and preparing to release an episode. Quickly became once a week and once in the middle of the week as well so we went from having potentially one episode full length episode 4 months to do in one full length episodes for we which it ranges from about 25 to 35 minutes and then we also have on top of that mini interludes which are about 5 to 10 Elaine stands are far more selfish self reflective and listeners a little bit more of our own personal perspective and not something that we do conversationally together from there our opportunities also have to doing a radio show which is very interesting so voi said radio is a Canadian online radio station that has a focus on education and they offer much more than radio there's a whole bunch of floss on the radio as well it is a website and a half and you don't see the Creator and founder of which type of radio Steven Hurley with somebody who which was after coming from thought that it would be great to have a teacher from their interest sort of rude into you know maybe we could start our own morning radio show so we currently hosts a morning educational radio show which mixes music into into our talk as well and and it's really blossomed to end a fit just offers us another opportunity for another medium to be able to explore voice and talk a little bit about things that we talked about in our place has so many as I would but in a much more casual or not and you know mixing it in with conversation with other people alive and also you know we're able to interact with a lot of people on Twitter at the same time during the broadcast show and so it is it is definitely a different five but again and opportunities in if we didn't start with just another door that was opened up to us along the way how do I fit in where do where do I know where can I step in what can I do what can I do to assist and you know we've talked about experience in the last week or so ways that supports that for now beginning to work their way back in to into the everyday learning environment and and not just to be helping the staff although that's a big part of it but also how are they now working their way into have more connection and more communication with the students that are are now more engaged with the remote learning experience as well so as we get more students into our learning environments were starting to see more opportunity and more places where the support staff can now start to fit in what else will be up to well education give does is what else were up to 30 3 questions and then a boxer group afterwards to discuss and expand on some of the issues and so his education Never Dies interact with each other what else is designed to connect International Educator connected and we are working on our education something that you really can't help when you start to feel a professional Learning Network on Twitter or any other social media platform has connections with these and this is definitely something that she and I have experienced so we can talk a little bit more about education Never Dies you know who started to feel this need to take the information gathered and sort of intermingle it with some of the perspectives that we see out there and and go one step further and try to help other Educators that that might need some more perspective from us and so teaming up with different Educators from different people who are administrators people who are a support staff people who are Consulting from the outside and using all of the knowledge and wealth of knowledge we have together as a team and putting that out there even further has been not only impact gold for us but also for people who engage in the conversation on social media and so on Twitter how we have created the education Never Dies which is made up of nine different Educators and one of the things that we have started is doing on Twitter and so you know he use that collaborative practice that we have built together to be able to help other teachers out there on Twitter who thrive on sort of that team effective learning we all learn together we all rise together so what's our story I want my class to always have different read podcast Studio any activity with a bathing suit or explain their passion and then we learn from our students we were motivated by learning opportunity didn't come Soulful Circle that we were very similar the ultimate remind me this much as we teach our students are students and Inspire us in our so inspired by our students on this podcast on the phone that's our motivation it is time for the swag bag what are your secrets we want your take me to be start podcast get your mic get started New Reflections of Reason always draw something you can always Forever by forever if you're always there always available in let's start reflecting and suffering our boys so continuing with our swag bag our takeaways from this presentation something that we really need to stress is that through podcasting we are really learning from there in the truest sense of the word we are building a professional Learning Network like none that we have ever experienced in our lives as teachers and we are exchanging information in many ways on a daily basis with people we've been participating and learn so much new information you know entering a child you have zero idea what anybody is talking about and walking away with a wealth of knowledge then go and you know embedded into our teaching practice the very next day and so it has really changed the way that we are teaching it has cheese perspectives and in many ways has changed the way we think as Educators and this is truly very important so building that professional Learning Community is Greenleaf and is one of the biggest impacts that we felt as Educators at as podcasters and and just for our own growth as well what's my third swag bag out of my 13th wait wait podcast so many different types of podcast subject-specific Shirley Jean from absorbing a diving fall into the podcast industry educational podcasts there are lots of different ways that you can connect with Chan myself on Twitter we have several handles of the very first and foremost would be at staff and this is our staffing podcast handled through here we we participate in a lot of stress to build our professional Learning Community we also put out our new episode Lane any other really big project radio is at the driveway said she can be reached at myself at wonder and then education Never Dies can be reached at Legend Never Dies other ways you can contact us if you can stay connected. From podcasting drive through Facebook Instagram Instagram comments feedback up question always goes to the podcast value you will rise together take a note is podcasting is something that you might be interested in doing as an educator please don't hesitate to contact us we were helped through somebody else who was able to give us a lot of information to get started and we would love to be able to offer the same to anyone else who might also be interested in as well please reach out to us at the staff at gmail.com we can also be reached through the education Never Dies email address if you'd like to reach us there and please feel free to ask any questions about getting started or about amplifying your voice as an educator in general it's very important that we are able to do that as teachers because it is us that is going to be helping to move this profession forward and to evolve not only as individual Educators but as a team of teachers and in the system we have to be able to put in that kind work if we want to see our system change and grow for the better for our students

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Brainstorm 2020: 6ft Apart, Lessons from Sick at School

April 27, 2020

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Presented by Katherine Fielding, Woodbridge Senior High School, Prince William County Schools

For years disabled students have been asking for accessibility accommodations and improvements in homebound learning. Let's take lessons learned in doing remote learning during the corona crisis to inform our practice moving forward in working with chronically-ill students in the homebound setting to provide limitless learning.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form


Transcript

Hi. I'm Katie Fielding a tech coach in Prince WilliamCounty Virginia. Thank you for taking some time today to spend with me to learn how we can really help our students move through this covided 19 crisis. I'm going to share some lessons from my experience at Stick at school and how we can all learn that six feet apart life even in education, it's going to be okay.

So I was born with cystic fibrosis but I love school and you can see in this picture that I was totally feeling my graduation. And I think all of us, a lot of teachers we love school and we're probably really missing it right now and there's a lot of students that are missing it too.

But just because we don't have a building to go to right now doesn't mean that we don't have a school. The school is the people. So we can all still connect with one another. We can all still learn from one another and we can move forward during this time.

So as I said, I was born with cystic fibrosis. This is the genetic lung disease; means that the lungs fill up with thick sticky mucus and over time it makes it harder and harder to breathe. You can see my dad really excited about giving me my breathing treatment in this photo.

I was diagnosed at your age one and at the time I was diagnosed my life expectancy was supposed to be about 12 years. Fortunately I've exceeded that and because I've exceeded that it's been really important that I had an education. So education even for chronically ill students that may not have a lifespan is really important because medicine is getting better every day and now here I am sitting talking to you at age 38 and if I had not been able to have an education, I might not be able to to afford my lifestyle as someone with a disability.

So, I love school and, I I loved it and I just wanted to always be there but sometimes I couldn't because I would be sick. And starting about sixth grade I started going into the hospital yearly or every six months for two to three week periods. And in those times, I would be in isolation.

So I can say that if I as someone in sixth grade can make it in isolation with two TV channels that we're all going to be pretty okay through these few months with all the ways we have to communicate and all the ways we have to collaborate with one another now.

In this photo you can see I'm at a Christmas party, but this isn't just a normal Christmas party. This is actually a hospital Christmas party for \kids with CF. They no longer have these anymore because when I was 14 years old, they discovered that my bacteria and my lungs could affect someone else with the bacteria in their lungs and we could cross contaminate one another.

Some bacterias are far worse than others. So they found that at times like this through the Christmas parties and summer camps that we had that we were all passing bacteria back and forth. So once sixth grade started, and there was no more camps there were no more Christmas parties, we all had to live by six feet apart rules, so even any fundraising events for cystic fibrosis, we all had to stay six feet apart.

Whenever I would go in the hospital, I'd have to be an isolation, um, so this is something that I've been living with over half my life down this six feet apart life so I can tell you that we're all gonna be okay after the initial impact we're all gonna find ways that we can still connect with one another the education can move forward and even maybe be transformed by this situation.

I hope that in this time that you'll understand that we can all. Make the best of this situation just like the CF community's been doing for the past 20 years. The CF community has a super strong online presence and we are super connected so just because we can't be and the proximity of one another doesn't mean that we don't have bonds that are super strong. And we all know that relationships with our students are really important so just because we can't see our students face to face doesn't mean that we can't create bonds with them.

So as I said, I was really fortunate to be able to have a great educational experience here. I am studying abroad. I'm in Europe and then I was even able to go on and I'm now finishing my 16th year of my education career. So nationwide there are 32 million students with chronic illness in our country many of those will go through periods of time where they're on homebound instruction.

These students have a unique situation in which they're vasculating between three different places the hospital, the home, and school. The hospitals in just a place they're necessarily going for appointments, but you also understand they're also a lot of stresses involved with going there traumatic chronic traumatic stress from ongoing medical procedures is actually a new area of emotional mental health that's being studied and I think we're all probably experiencing some of that chronic persistent traumatic stress right now in COVID-19.

And the home while it is a safe place for many people, um. People with chronic illness may not have a supportive family structure around that illness and some of them, you know, may have other concerns like money due to the stress that chronic illness can cause so there can be a lot of issues going on in the home as well and then they're also trying to manage school so students with chronic illness have three separate places that they're trying to manage and there are definitely ways we as teachers can help those students.

So how can we say some of these lessons these things from working with chronically ill students that I've talked to teachers about over the years and how can they help we apply them to everyone with during this COVID-19 time and beyond. So as I said students with chronic illness manage three spaces the hospital the home and school and I think we're all kind of managing three spaces now.

So we're all managing the wellness space. Maybe it's not a hospital maybe you have a relative with COVID-19 or a friend or you're just trying to keep yourself safe. And then the home which has become a much bigger space because that's where we're spending all of our time.

And finally school, which is now primarily online for every student. So how can we make managing these three different spaces a student's wellness our wellness is teachers? A student's home our homes as teachers and as students school in our school online. How can we manage that through this time?

So the first thing I would recommend and highly press is flexibility. Be flexible for yourself as a teacher being flexible with your students during this time is the number one most important thing. I could stress. So how do we want to be flexible modify assignments So something I tell teachers working with homebound students is this student may only need the essential assignments.

I know there are lots of things that we as teachers think are essential but it's really time to get down to the nuts and both of what is the core thing that my students need to do to learn what I want them to learn. There are a lot of great assignments but sometimes during these times we need to just pair it down.

So make sure you're modifying assignments and making them attainable for students while they're in the home environment. Also modifying time. So we want to make it so that students can do their work when they have access to the internet. They may be sharing a home computer they maybe having to pay for data on their phones.

Let's just be mindful that students may have some limitations during this time. And we also want to make sure that we are using these opportunities to keep students connected to the classroom. Just like I said the CF community, even though we have are now 20 years into not being in the same space with one another we have super strong connections.

And there's some really great ways that we can do this. One we can have offer students synchronous opportunities. So using Google Meat using any platform that your district approves of to have those face-to-nice connections. Now, I would stress this isn't the time for new direct instruction. This should be time for students to connect for you to connect with your students for questions not anything new because by making it synchronous and putting it in a specific time, you're maybe blocking students out that can't come during that time.

Maybe they're responsible now for watching siblings. As their parents are working or maybe again, they're sharing the computer. So making synchronous opportunities various, various times in the day can help as well as making these synchronous opportunities completely optional and just something for support and not again any new direct instruction.

We want that direct instruction to come during asynchronous times, times that are available for students to get it on their own. So use a tool like screencastify screencastomatic to record your lecture of new material. That way student can watch it at 2am or 2pm. I mean, let's be honest a lot of high schoolers are up at 2am.

Making it flexible so that they can do it when works for them. It's gonna be especially important as students become sick with COVID-19 and have periods of weeks of where they're not able to work because they're not well. Allowing making it asynchronous allows those students to catch up just like we want homebound students to have the flexibility to catch up and be on their time schedule.

Also, we want to make sure that we're providing asynchronous opportunities for that connection. So use something like a Flipgrid to have students just connect with you in a social way can be really important for the social emotional well-being of both the teacher and the student during this time.

And again we want people we want to really help students piece it together. So make sure you are keeping all of your assignments, you know be it makeup work or new work in one space, whatever, you know your school designates try and make that uniform between all the teachers that way students know exactly where to go.

So if your school hasn't been using something like a CanvasLMS or Google classroom LMS, this is the time to really get together and I'll be unified on where you're putting work that way students know the one place to go. Also, make sure as a teacher that you're putting everything there.

It's also isn't a great time this end of the year to start using new tools you haven't before. Not only do you have to navigate the tool but, the student has to so while we may see all of these great deals and a freemium options offered by a lot of ed tech companies it's best to just pause and not dive into all of those.

Maybe dive into one or two but when you start throwing tons of new things that students it's gonna be really confusing and hard for them and their parents to navigate. So remember keeping it together online is gonna be a really super helpful thing for teachers and students both throughout this time but we want to make sure that we're doing that with a little heart.

So keeping the communication open keeping opportunities for building relationships, it's gonna be really important. Because empathy is the heartbeat of everything we do I went to teaching not because I love science which I do and I was a science teacher and I loved it but I wanted to connect with students and either make them love science or just make them love learning in general.

So the content that we teach is important but the way we do it and the relationships we build with these students is also important. We have to remember that for a lot of these students that are out now. School is their sanctuary, School is their safe place. So being able to provide these students with some empathy and some emotional stability and maybe an emotional place to go even online is really important.

You know, the CF community we haven't been able to interact physically, but we are there for eachother emotionally online. And it is okay to step away from that at times as a person I've stepped away from the CF community for periods of time from my own emotional well-being so I'd say as a teacher it's okay to pace your empathy and your your access to students to take care of yourself because this is gonna be a marathon for us through COVID-19, tt's not a race. So if you need to take periods of time, the evenings the weekends and mark those as your time, that is important and that is okay. You do not have to be a teacher 24/7 now just because we're at home.

Again, I think we it all goes back to why we became teachers and we became teachers because we care and we love to share knowledge.

So if we keep that at the heart of what we do moving forward and push aside a lot of these things that that may feel overwhelming right now like grades and test scores. We're able to push those aside and get to the core of what we do. I think there can be some real cool innovation in education coming up.

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VSTE Keynote and Spotlight Speakers

September 6, 2017

For the annual conference, we try to bring our members some of the most significant and influential voices in educational change. During the Sunday spotlight at VSTE 2016, we heard from Jaimie Casap, Google's Global Education Evangelist.

In his engaging and challenging talk, Jaimie discusses how our students will need to address global problems that we haven't even defined yet, and what we can do to help them learn the necessary skills to solve them.

Here is the video if you missed his talk, or if you would like to watch it again.

For VSTE 2017, our spotlight speaker will be Eric Sheninger, a Senior Fellow and Thought Leader on Digital Leadership with the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE). His work focuses on leading and learning in the digital age as a model for moving schools and districts forward. Sheninger is the author of the best selling book Digital Leadership.

At our Sunday spotlight we will hear from VSTE member Kim Wilkens, the founder of Tech-Girls, an organization with the mission of empowering girls to imagine and achieve their future in our tech-savvy world. Kim is the K-8 Computer Science Initiative Coordinator at St. Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville.

Registration for VSTE 2017 is now open. Super Early Bird rates end soon, so make plans now to join us at the Hotel Roanoke, December 3-5.

One more reminder: the call for conference proposals closes in a little over a week, on September 15. Consider applying to be part of the conference.

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