No images? Click here
Still With Us? Good.
It has been an eventful week for us at Gateway Public Schools, as it has certainly been for most of you as well. Monday marked our first day back from Spring Break and the first day of our formal Distance Learning program, and with it the joy of “seeing” students again coupled with the anxiety of piloting a whole new way of teaching and learning for our community. Then Tuesday brought news that San Francisco would be joining the rest of the state and Bay Area in keeping campuses closed for the rest of the school year, meaning we are officially all-in on distance learning for the long haul. While this wasn’t entirely a surprise – in fact, it was the contingency staff were already planning for – the thought of our halls remaining silent for the rest of the year is, well, a bummer.
There is tremendous joy, however, to be found in the evident truth that we really are all in this together. Every museum that virtually opens its doors for students, every tech company that takes a hit to offer teachers its services for free, and every neat idea that a teacher shares for colleagues on the other side of town or the other side of the continent makes it just a little easier to imagine what it would look like for educators, students and families to survive and thrive until campus life one day resumes. It might not be as soon as we’d hoped, but that day is coming; we hope the resources in this issue of HomeRoom help you get there all in one piece. In this week's issue:
- Bringing Your Instruction Online
- Questions to Guide Teacher Planning
- How to Make Video Tutorials for Students with Screencastify
- Bolster Executive Functioning and Support Visual Learners with Video “Orientations”
- Student/Parent Roles and Responsibilities for Distance Learning
- Yoga for Teachers (and another treat if you're not into yoga!)
What Do You Need?
Gateway Impact’s mission is to serve as a free resource and partner to educators across the nation – and that means you! Email us with a distance learning challenge you’d like help troubleshooting and a Gateway educator will address your question in a future issue.
Alternatively, is something going well? Find a great resource to share? Let us know and we’ll highlight your bright spot.
Resource: Bringing Your Instruction Online
Being asked to go from teaching in a classroom to doing so virtually can feel like being asked to switch to politics years into a career as an academic - sure, they’re related, but it can seem like an enormous leap.
Well, Barack Obama made the leap and so can you! Your skills and sensibilities are as needed as they were last semester, if not moreso. By making clear the limits and opportunities of your new “medium,” you’ll be able to efficiently adapt your “IRL” teaching for the distance model, and anticipate challenges that may arise.
This organizer breaks down components of teaching that are common to teaching across grade, subject level, and platform: things like assignments, feedback, and grading. Questions to consider for each section will assist you in thinking through what aspects of your current practice lend themselves well to distance learning, what will need to be adapted or scrapped, and what opportunities exist to try something entirely new.
How will you help students meet their social needs when they can’t share a classroom with peers? Should your grade weighting values change as we rethink how to deliver feedback to students in this new model? These are questions only you and your colleagues can answer, but considering them in advance will prove invaluable in the weeks and months ahead.
This resource is available at Gateway Impact in both Word and PDF file formats. You can also access our full GPS Distance Learning Plan, where you’ll find our thinking around these challenges reflected on pages 2 and 3.
Resource: Questions to Guide Teacher Planning
It goes without saying that all of us who work in public education are in uncharted waters. Veteran educators may have experienced temporary unexpected school closures for natural disasters or other emergencies, but nothing in living memory has shuttered so many campuses for such a long period of time.
As such, we find ourselves experimenting and improvising, which can be stressful for those of us who were drawn to a profession that practically requires a love of meticulous planning, data-heavy spreadsheets and color-coded organizers.
Many of us will be more or less on our own for the rest of this year when it comes to making many decisions, both large and small, about how to best serve students’ academic and social-emotional needs. And while none of us has all of the answers, asking the right questions can help us make decisions that we can feel confident are in line with our values and goals for distance learning.
GPS leaders developed these Questions to Guide Teacher Planning as “guideposts” to help teachers develop distance learning lesson plans that are relevant to students in this unique time, sustainable for those implementing them, and prioritize student equity and well-being. They’re designed to be relevant across all grade levels and subject areas, and applicable to individual or team planning.
What other “guideposts” have you found useful as you plan for the coming months? Let us know and we’ll feature your insights or resources in a coming issue!
Note: Screencastify is offering free premium access to its services to help educators transition to distance learning due to COVID-19, which unlocks the time limit on videos and includes a host of other features. Take advantage!
Video: How To Make Video Tutorials For Students With Screencastify
Are your students being asked to rely on technology tools they may have only used sparingly before, or are using new tools entirely? Our resident ed tech expert Sam Kary recommends making video tutorials using the Chrome extension Screencastify, which allows you to visually walk students through everything they need to know and is a permanent resource they can refer to if posted somewhere accessible. And there’s no need to stop at technology! You can create video guides for projects, procedures, or anything you think students might need extra support with. Check out Sam’s blog post and video on the topic to get started!
Bolster Executive Functioning and Support Visual Learners with Video “Orientations”
Doubtless you’re producing new syllabi and other documents to help orient students as distance learning begins in earnest at your school. But we love this idea from our 9th grade humanities teachers: a 15-minute video orientation walking students through their documents, reviewing class norms, and troubleshooting potential Google classroom issues.
Produced simply and minimally edited, the video is a valuable resource requiring a relatively brief time commitment to make. Consider creating videos of your own while helping students transition to new policies and procedures for distance learning. “I imagine it will work best for kids who need to be walked through things visually, students who are less comfortable with technology, and students who could use a little extra executive functioning or planning support,” said 9th Grade Learning Seminar Teacher Caroline Mar.
Are you using video to reach students in interesting ways? Share with us to be featured in a future issue!
Resource: Student/Parent Roles and Responsibilities for Distance Learning
For as many questions as we find ourselves faced with at the outset of this new venture, our parents and students almost certainly have more. And just as we know clear expectations are the cornerstone of any good working relationship with students, our parents need them too!
These two organizers will help you delineate clearly what students will be responsible for as distance learners and the commitments parents are expected to make in order to help their children be successful. A mini-directory of staff and resources who can address specific student and parent concerns helps streamline communication with families and minimizes frustration, and an optional parent resource page details more in-depth how parents can help set their students up for success. Paired with schedule, calendar and grading information, this resource will be a one-stop shop for students’ and families’ most frequent questions.
Have a great tool for communicating with families? Share it with us and we’ll feature it in a future issue!
Are you feeling the impact of switching from days spent mostly on your feet to days spent in front of a laptop? Do something kind for your body and your mood with this 30 minute yoga practice designed especially for teachers. Is it as
good as getting the free Teacher Appreciation Burrito from Chipotle? Probably not, but few things are.
Not a yoga person? No problem. Join these capybaras in a hot spring to mellow out instead.
That's it for this week! Next time, we'll take a closer look at ULD and social-emotional learning in the distance learning context, and more!
Know a friend or colleague who’d be interested in HomeRoom? Forward along and encourage them to subscribe!
 |  |  |  |
1430 Scott Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
You are receiving this email because you are a public school advocate
