Is anyone else wavering between love and loathing during this moment in history? Love for what people are doing, sharing, and taking others into consideration? Simultaneously loathing how others are just “business as usual’ – the business of trolling, mean-spiritedness, and sniping? Time to separate the treasures from the trash, and understand I don’t have to put up with the second.

A reminder to myself that all I can do is support myself, my family, and my students. That’s all I’ve ever been able to do, and some things don’t change. I’ve been providing LMS classes for years for students (Learning Management Systems) first through Moodle, then Canvas, and now Google Classroom. (Canvas is far and away superior, but oh well. Not my current district’s platform, so I’ll make do.)Best Practices:

Best practices:

• Make sure grading is equitable as possible: develop assignments that foster growth, allows for mistakes, and mastery of learning
• Update my grade book as soon as possible. Yes, it is annoying when students turn things in late. (And never mark down for late.) But you do not know what is happening at home. You do not know what some parents do if their child’s grades slip. Save your judgment for something else. Even if the child is acting rude or entitled, so what? You can respectfully let them know what your schedule is for updating grades. Remember, their brains are developing.
• Support them with other content areas: no matter your content area, you can help make connections to all the other content areas. This is so true for ELA/SS teachers. Find out what students are learning in math, science, their electives, and even PE! There are abundant cross-content connections and curation opportunities

best practices for online teaching and learning:

• See all of the above
• Use the Digital Tools as best you can, and take this opportunity to learn something new! My new learning includes Zoom, Google Meets, etc.
• Things I will bring to the forefront: Actively Learn, ThingLink, and my YouTube Channel.
• We are inundated with resources now, and I use this blog as a means of keeping track. However, I think Wakelet may be a great resource for this time. Here is a Wakelet I put together for Art History: https://wke.lt/w/s/GyP0bN

I’ll end this post with a promise to myself to share a schedule next. There is nothing like a binder and color-coded tabs to make me feel some semblance of control.

Smithsonian Educational Resources

Finding a Book When You’ve Forgotten Its Title from the New York Public Library