Apr 01, 2020 Engaging and Inspiring Learners at Home: A Curated List of Distance Learning Resources for PK-12, College and Adult Educators, Facilitators, and Parents

It has now been three weeks since my in-person workshops with educators, facilitators, and students came to a screeching halt because of the Coronavirus crisis. Since then, I, like most of you, have been navigating the balance between focusing on keeping my family and community safe and healthy, managing the worry of losing jobs, and completely re-framing the way I work for the foreseeable future. The silver lining to this crisis has been witnessing people reach out to support each other and strengthen community in a myriad of ways from social media groups, to old-fashioned telephone calls, doorstep deliveries to neighbors, and letters (thank you USPS).

What I love most about my job is working with educators from all over the country and internationally from diverse backgrounds of all ages and grade levels PK-12, college, and in adult learning and community building. I am grateful that technology has allowed me to continue to socially engage with these dynamic educators and facilitators in this time of physical distance. During the past three weeks, I have been continually inspired by the creativity of the professionals in my global education community and the scope of ideas and resources they are generously offering for their peers and for parents whose roles have changed drastically in such a short time.

Last week I started a digest of some of these innovative distance learning and community building activities, strategies, and technology resources from educators in my network and gems discovered through my favorite education podcasts, and periodicals. Hopefully, this post is a way to build community and opportunities to collaborate between you and the other dynamic professionals and organizations listed here. I know this barely scratches the surface. I figure this list is a starting point, as there is a lot out there to digest! If you’ve used any of these resources, please share your experiences, and other useful tips, strategies, or technology you’ve run across.

This initial collection includes articles and tools for educators of all grade levels, PK-12, college, and adult education, as well as for parents managing homeschooling (and parenting) during the crisis.  I have categorized them by age group/grade level, but there is a lot of overlap of ideas and resources that apply to all. Innovative educators and facilitators can always find ways to adapt strategies offered by practitioners from different settings and age groups.

This list touches upon just a fraction of the tools and resources being shared by creative educators each day of this crisis. I’ve never been prouder to be an educator. I’m grateful to be part of such a dedicated community of professionals who are stepping up to help each other, learners, and families. I am hoping you will find these ideas and links useful in your teaching and facilitation. Hopefully, a silver lining to this crisis is that it is stretching many of us to grow professionally by learning new technology skills, reflecting on our practice, and despite physical distancing, networking, collaborating and building community with a broader circle of colleagues.

Articles Relevant to All Educators

• Justin Reich has become my favorite thought leader on this subject. He is the director of MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab. Listening to him talk last week on NPR about college-level distance learning took me down many paths of his work that is relevant to all educators. He regularly posts compelling articles, so I would recommend following him on Twitter or LinkedIn.
  • His advice to educators:
    • Partner with students & ask them to help you figure this out.
    • Consider how you will identify struggling learners and personally connect with them.
    • Reduce your curriculum goals.
    • Mostly choose asynchronous (with lots of check-ins) over synchronous.
    • If students need to learn something this spring, figure out how they’ll learn it late summer or next year.
    • Remember that the medium of instruction doesn’t matter as much as the QUALITY of instruction -see his twitter thread on research for more information (Reich, 2020).
  • Justin’s articles, interviews, and podcasts:
    • This is a link to the podcast devoted to online learning where I first heard Justin speak – it includes many helpful ideas about technology and shifting our mindset as educators: NPR’s ON POINT Podcast: How Colleges and Universities Are Teaching Students Virtually
    • An open letter Justin wrote to his colleagues at MIT that applies to all educators: Five Research-Informed Principles for Switching to Online Learning
    • Five Tips for Moving Teaching Online as COVID-19 Takes Hold Interviews by Virginia Gewin from Nature.com
    • He has a fantastic podcast: Teach Lab Investigating the Art and Craft of Teaching
    • And! His organization’s free online course on “Becoming a More Equitable Educator: Mindsets and Practices” at EdX.org
    • Follow Justin Reich’s Twitter account.
    • And, his recent compelling Twitter thread about research of online learning outcomes

 

• Asynchronous vs. Synchronous Delivery of Lessons/Experiences: As the educators I work with design distance learning, many are weighing how much asynchronous vs. synchronous learning they are using in their programs and lessons. Christopher Pappas, who has been a leader in online earning in the corporate training world for years, offered a simple exploration of both types of lesson design that could be useful to all educators in his 2015 blog post: Synchronous Vs. Asynchronous Learning, Can You Tell the Difference?

 

• Distance Learning: A Gently Curated Collection of Resources for Teachers by Jennifer Gonzalez, author of the Cult of Pedagogy Blog. This is an incredibly well written and useful article on mindset, nuts and bolts, and tech tools. In this post, Jennifer offers a comprehensive set of resources in an easy to digest and compassionate way. I think this is a must-read for all educators designing distance learning. I look forward into delving into more of her Cult of Pedagogy offerings: Distance Learning from Jennifer Gonzalez

 

• 14 Tips For Helping Students With Limited Internet Have Distance Learning From KQUED’s Mindshift. Mindshift is one of my top go-to education podcasts and digests. They have been offering many articles focused on equity in distance learning.

 

• New Strategies in Special Education as Kids Learn from Home Nora Fleming Edutopia March 27th, 2020 In special education, teachers say that schedules, sensory supports, and close collaboration with families can help smooth the transition to remote learning during coronavirus.

 

• What Teachers in China Have Learned in the Past Month: An American whose classroom in Beijing is now online shares what she and her team have learned since the coronavirus hit, just as U.S. teachers make the same shift. By Laurel Schwartz Edutopia March 13, 2020

 

Educators Offering Innovative Resources for Other Educators

PK-12 All Grades

• Austin Independent School District’s Connect. Design. Learn. site is a platform for innovative PK-12 Austin teachers to share ideas. They are regularly posting articles from educators of all grade levels: https://connect-design-learn.org/

PK-12 Elementary K-6 (and Beyond)

• Authors Kristin Ziemke and Katie Muhtaris Have created their “Read the World Distance Learning Support – A Curation of Resources We Know, Use and Love – Both in the Classroom and Beyond” They are authors of Amplify: Digital Teaching and Learning in the K-6 Classroom and Read The World: Rethinking Literacy for Empathy and Action in a Digital Age. Their fantastic website offers, as the authors state, “a curated set of resources that we use with students to promote curiosity, student agency and deep thinking across the curriculum.”
  • Read the World Distance Learning Support Site
  • Virtual Workshop: Virtual Read Alouds, Interactives, and More

PK-12 Early Ed and Elementary

• Kristine Mraz is an elementary teacher, writer, pun nerd, and consultant. She is co-author—with Christine Hertz —of the Kids First from Day One and A Mindset for Learning.
  • She is offering a series of her lessons here: Kristi Mraz Blog
  • This week she has generously posted a packet to help parents of young children facilitate purposeful play and inquiry at home using easy to obtain household items. See parent section below.
  • Follow Kristi on Twitter
  • Follow Christine on Twitter

Older Elementary, Middle, Highschool

• Jess Lifshitz’s Learn Something New Lessons. Jess is a 5^th grade teacher, but her lessons could easily be adapted to upper grades: Check out the Learning Something New Project Google Doc
  • Follow Jess on Twitter
• Sandhya Nankani’s founder of Literary Safari created the Story Seeds Podcast to inspire students, families, and educators to cultivate creativity by showcasing and modeling the creative process Storyseedspodcast.com
• In Justin Reich‘s Teach Lab Podcast “A Math Teacher Goes Online” he interviews Michael Pershan, a New York City math teacher at one of the first schools in the country to shut down in the face of COVID-19. Michael joins Justin Reich to discuss equity, synchronous online learning, strategy, and planning: TeachLab Podcast
• NuHop Online Lessons: This is a site generously shared by outdoor educator friends of mine from their center in Ohio. The lessons are designed for grades 4-7^th and would be especially useful resources for science educators: NUHOP’s At Home Outdoor Education
• From High School Educators I work with at Austin ISD: “Educators Forget about Content! How are we staying connected with our students? Stay In Touch” by Contributor Elise Baughman Physics and Forensic Science at McCallum High School. Austin ISD’s Connect. Design. Learn site
• Facing History and Ourselves is a non-profit that uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. They have created a library to support teachers during the COVID 19 crisis and have lifted login restrictions: FacingHistory.org Resource Library

Higher Education/Adult Learning and Facilitation

• I mentioned Justin Reich at the start of this article. He is a professor at MIT and director of the Teaching Systems Lab. Justin has many resources relevant to college and university educators.
  • This is a link to the podcast devoted to online learning that included many helpful ideas about technology and shifting our mindset: NPR’s ON POINT Podcast: How Colleges and Universities Are Teaching Students Virtually learning-colleges-educating-students-virtually
  • *This is a link to an article wrote for his fellow professors at MIT (a valuable read for all instructors):Five Research -Informed Principles for Switching to Online Learning
• ISTE’s EdSurge Series on Higher Education in the time of Coronavirus Sustaining Higher Education During the Coronavirus Crisis
  • ISTE offers a Google Doc with a comprehensive list of remote teaching resources posted by colleges and universities.
  • Seven Ways to Create Professional Development Webinars That Engage Your Audience by Kristin Fontichiaro, Liz Kolb, Jeffrey Stanzler and Kwame Yankson from the ISTE Blog

• Using Zoom for remote instruction? Beware of Hacks, Hijinks and Hazards —This article by Tony Wan is part of ISTE’s EdSurge series on distance learning. Holding Class on Zoom? Beware of These Hacks, Hijinks and Hazards
• How to Assign Google Forms to Your Students: Jennifer Findley offers a variety of resources for upper elementary teachers on her blog. This piece on Google Forms seems useful to educators across age/grade levels: jenniferfindley.com/asssign-google-forms/
• Flip Grid! Many of my colleagues have found this useful for working with groups asynchronously. They report that it works well for Google Classroom, is free to educators and has Microsoft capabilities. Flip Grid 100% Free for All Educators, Learners and Families
• Poll Everywhere:
  • Live polling for virtual meetings, classes and events.
  • Icebreaker Questions from Poll Everywhere
• Mentimeter Polls, Quizzes, Word Clouds from mentimeter.com/
• *Jennifer Gonzalez’ blog post mentioned previously is an excellent digest of tech tools and their usage: Cult of Pedagogy Distance Learning Resources

For All Parents

• NPR Life Kit: Tips for Homeschooling During the Corona virus
• The Kid Should See This – Smart videos for curious minds of all ages
• Joe Wicks known as “The Body Coach” on Youtube has been offering daily videos PE With Joe which are just as beneficial for parents as they are for kids
• Sandhya Nankani’s Story Seeds Podcast captures the magic that unfolds when kids ages 6-12 collaborate with beloved storytellers who grow original stories inspired by their story ideas! Storyseedspodcast.com

For Parents of Young Children

• Kristen Mraz an early educator mentioned above, has generously posted this packet to help parents facilitate purposeful play and inquiry at home using easy to obtain household items. And, it has been translated into Spanish! The lastest Play Packet is designed for PreK to 2nd Grade
• Cosmic Kids Yoga Making yoga and mindfulness fun for kids Cosmickids.com

For Parents of Older Elementary –Middle School

• NuHop Outdoor Education: This is a site with resources generously shared from friends of mine from an outdoor education center in Ohio, they have some fun and engaging resources designed for grades 4-7. NUHOP’s At Home Outdoor Education
• Jarrett Lerner has posted an online Classroom Guide to his book Enginerds Enginerds Classroom Guide, which offers a variety of engaging activities and projects.
• The Right Question Institute is offering resources on their site to promote learner-centered inquiry and engagement: TheRightQuestion.org

For Parents of Adolescents

• Articles on mental health and mindfulness for adolescents:
  • 5 Ways to Help Teens Manage Anxiety About the Coronavirus
  • Self Care Tips to Get Through the New Coronavirus Normal
  • Taking a Walk Without Your Cell Phone
  • How Parents Can Help Kids Develop A Sense of Purpose

It would be wonderful to keep the conversation going. I am happy to update and expand this post with your comments and contributions. If you have ideas to add or have used any of the resources listed here, please share your experiences. Sending love to you all as we work together to meet the needs of learners, families, and each other during this challenging time.

Jen