In this series, we have focused on building a positive mindset, revamping our expectations, setting up a productive workspace, and planning for instruction in this strange new “world.” Today’s focus is on general instruction tips.

1 – Use the same platform and the same technology tools that your students are already accustomed to. That doesn’t mean you can’t introduce new tools, but try to keep technology tasks as familiar as possible. Note: this is to help save YOUR sanity. Your students will quickly learn any new tool, but you might not have the time or the energy for that right now. If you do learn to use new tools, consider that a bonus but not a requirement!

2 – Re-think your teaching format. Make short (5-15 minute), informal videos. (They don’t have to be perfect! Let go of that.) You can use your phone or use my favorite tool, Screencastify. Link to articles, videos or infographics that are already out there instead of trying to re-invent the wheel.

3 – Change your expectations of what students do to earn “credit” for assignments. Could they post a response on Padlet? Participate in a Google Meet discussion about a book or article? Create something like a Google slides presentation or videos on FlipGrid?

4 – To keep your students motivated and engaged, offer as much choice as possible. Even if you need to require certain assignments to be completed, at least offer choices about when they complete each task.

5 – Other ways to keep your students engaged in your lesson: doodle or sketch during your video, use a toy or prop, suggest some physical activity for your students to do while you are teaching, ask students to post a photo of their work.

6 – Allow your students to create discussion threads or to comment on/evaluate each other’s work. They will probably put more effort into their work if they know that their peers will be giving them feedback!

7 – Stay connected with your students. Make short (3-5 minute) check-in videos to send to your students, updating them on the work expected plus other fun updates like shout-outs to individual students. Schedule class meetings with Google Meet or Zoom so that everyone can see everyone else. Send regular google forms to check-in and see how everyone is doing.

8 – Set up “office hours” when you can be available by email or discussion thread on Google classroom or a Zoom meeting. Offer online video chat or FaceTime calls for students who might need extra help.

9 – Set limits for yourself. Just because you could be available at all hours doesn’t mean you have to be. Follow your district’s guidelines on how soon you should respond to parent emails (usually 24-48 hours). Consider letting your parents and students know when you are “available” for any calls, messages, or emails.

10 – Try to create ways for students to discuss assignments or readings with each other. Zoom and Google Meet are two tools you could use for this. Zoom has breakout rooms feature where you can put students in smaller groups to discuss.

Here are some tried and true student engagement activities from Think CERCA:

~Think-Pair-Share

~Last/Final Word

~Silent Conversation

11 – We all know how important it is to give students feedback. But how do you do that when you can’t be face-to-face with your students? Two ways to do that might be to use a Google doc where you can add comments or use the chat feature. Another way would be to schedule quick 5 – 10 minute conferences with students via Google Meet.

12 – Simplify, simplify, simplify. You will not be able to teach your students in the same way you would if you were in your classroom. Make your peace with that. Just do what you can and let the rest go. Offering your students grace and reassurance during this time is the most impactful thing you can do for them right now.

13 – Priotizie reading over everything else. Make sure your students have access to high-quality texts (both fiction and nonfiction). See the free resources on my PDF HERE. Emphasize to students and families that reading should happen every single day. That is one assignment that everyone can actually do right now. Here is a recent resource I found for reading response choices.

The next three tips for online teaching come from college instructors in the article “Coronavirus Has Led to a Rush of Online Teaching. Here’s Some Advice for Newly Remote Instructors” on EdSurge HERE.

14 – Think Shorter
“If it’s hard to hold students’ attention in person, it’s even harder online,” says Bonni Stachowiak. “You’ll want to think about shortening that experience. The online environment tends to have shorter, more-compact opportunities and then other things to do that are more engaging than just sitting and listening.” Remember that students may be logging on through their smartphones, or watching a recording later instead of tuning in live.

15 – Make Sure to Record Online Sessions For Those Who Can’t Tune in Live
Stachowiak says to be sure you press record on whatever tool you use to offer remote classes. Then share the recording with students just as soon as a session is over, so you won’t forget.

16 – Lighting is Key, and Think About Virtual Eye Contact
“Think about your webcam and having your light source in the room come from in front of you so that the light is shining on your face as opposed to turning you into this shadowy figure that looks a little scary,” says Stachowiak. “You should join the session early so you can look at yourself and ask, where’s the light coming from? Is it the right positioning for that camera? You can simulate eye contact by looking at the camera (for many of us the camera is at the top of our monitor), so put your notes at the top of your screen so you look at the camera more.”

I hope that some of these tips will help you navigate this very stressful and unusual time. Please let me know how these tips work for you and please share your own tips! You are one of the heroes right now. Keep doing what you can do for your students.

So far in this series we have focused on building a positive mindset, revamping our expectations, and setting up a productive workspace. Today’s focus is on planning.

As teachers, we are accustomed to planning. We plan for everything, all. the. time. But this new reality? This requires a very different kind of planning for our teaching and for student learning. Here are 10 tips.

1 – We all have our directives from our school districts or our principals. But even within those constraints, set your priorities. You can’t do everything right now. (That’s actually true all the time, but especially now!) What do you consider to be most important for YOUR students? Remember the saying that “we have to Maslow before Bloom.” Do your students need to hear from you in some way? Do they need to reminded that they are loved and cared for? Do they need food or other resources that your school or district can provide?

If those needs are met, then what do you want them to do? Do you want them to read every day? Write something every day? Solve some math problems? Watch a science or social studies video? Create something? You might also want them to be active in some way or to do things to help out at home. Think about what really matters to YOU, for YOUR students, right now.

2 – Encourage your students to use this time for actually reading. Not doing activities about reading or answering questions about the reading. Just reading. Provide some interesting articles or stories to read and chances to talk about reading. I send my students a new Padlet every week (a sample is HERE) where they tell me what they are reading for fun. Many of them add a sentence or two about the book and almost all of them add a picture of themselves with the book or a picture of the book’s cover.

3 – Don’t worry about grades or due dates. Allow everything to be optional to complete, open book or open note. Encourage your students to communicate and collaborate with you and with other students. Show compassion for yourself AND for your students. Everyone is in a different place in terms of their stress level and what they have going on at home. Unless you are required to assess everything, try to let most (or all) of that go for now.

4 – You don’t have to do this alone. Join Facebook teacher groups, talk to your colleagues, check your favorite blogs (I hope this is one!) and online resources.

5 – Use some sort of platform to post your lessons or assignments. The two most popular and easiest-to-use platforms are SeeSaw and Google Classroom.

6 – Just plan for one week at a time. Don’t try to overhaul your entire curriculum at one time. Just plan one week, check-in with your students and families to see how it went for them, and make adjustments. Learn as you go.

7 – Think about starting off your assignment or lesson with something fun. Maybe a check-in, either by video or by using a Google form. Then you might include something like a virtual field trip or an animal webcam. This could be tied to your curriculum in some way, but it doesn’t have to be. If you want to create a scavenger hunt or some form of questioning activity, fine, but it’s also fine to just have your students share what they learned or what they found interesting.

8 – Then move on to something to read. You might “assign” independent reading (always the first and best activity to improve student reading). If your students were able to take books home from school, remind them to read those books for a certain amount of time. You could include some way for them to tell you about the book they are reading. If your students have finished their books or do not have books at home, consider using a site like RAZ-Kids or Epic. After independent reading, you might assign a reading passage from a website like ReadWorks or NewsELA. See my posts about free resources for COVID-19 for more great sites. I have four posts up so far with more to come! Here’s the first post.

9 – You then might switch to math at this point, then some form of writing, then a content area task. Think about sharing ONE lesson or video or website or assignment in each area per day. Also, think about how long that particular assignment might take and make adjustments. A good goal to aim for is no more than two hours of academic work per day.

10 – And finally – make videos of yourself teaching a brief lesson. Check-in with your students via Zoom or Google Meet. Have digital “office hours”.Your students need to see you and hear you right now. Don’t worry about it not being perfect — no one will care.

As I write this, I realize that these 10 tips make it sound much easier than it is in reality. Do what you can do and do not feel guilty. We are in an unprecedented situation. Take care of yourself, know that you are so valued and appreciated, and just do what you can do.

Today’s tips are about setting up your workspace, taking breaks from that workspace, and being productive!

You may have already set up a space that is working for you. If so, read these tips and see if any of them can help you make your workspace even better. If you’re struggling, I hope these tips will help you figure out a small space that will work for you.

First, as always, take a deep breath. We can make this work.

1 – Try to choose a space where there will be as few distractions as possible, where you have good lighting, a decent internet connection, and where you can be comfortable. This can be super difficult if you live with other people and everyone is crammed into a small space. Currently, I am using a comfortable chair in the corner of my bedroom. I pulled a lamp nearby, made a stack of books and materials I need, and I’m making it work. It’s not ideal, but it will do for now. Nothing is perfect and we’re all just doing the best we can.

Of course, if you’re lucky enough to have a spare bedroom or a room in your home that is not being used as much, that might be an ideal space to use as your workspace.

2 – Every 20 minutes, take a break from the computer by looking away from your screen. Try looking at something that is 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

3 – Every 30 minutes, take a stretch or movement break.

4 – Every hour, take a break to use the restroom (and wash your hands!), get some water (or more coffee), check social media.

5 – Eat your meals and snacks away from the computer. Take a break for yourself.

6 – Along with those tips, keep your workspace dedicated to working. When you are taking those breaks mentioned above, leave your workspace. Then your brain knows that when you sit down at the workspace, you shift into work mode only.

7 – Create a schedule for yourself, even if you don’t follow it to the letter. List the things you want or need to do daily and an approximate time for when you will do them.

Examples: check email, grade or provide feedback, plan lessons for the day/week, create resources, make videos, “office hours”.

I am trying to follow a routine of 60 minutes of work, then take a 15-minute break schedule. I’m not perfect with it, but I’ll keep trying.

You might also include self-care activities for yourself such as when you will take breaks, when you will work out, when you will take a break for some sunshine and fresh air, and when you will break for meals.

A very important part of setting a schedule for yourself: choose a “quitting time.” I don’t know about you, but I am finding myself working WAY MORE at home than I did when I was in school. Even though I usually took work home at night, it was still a task with a definite endpoint (grading math tests, for example). Now it feels like I am responding to emails or looking for one more thing online, right up until bedtime.

So now I’m trying to set a definite “end of the workday” time for myself.

8 – Even though I don’t have to be at school, showered and dressed, at 7 a.m., I still try to have a set time to shower and get dressed for the day. I admit that the time for that is much later than 6 a.m., but it still helps to have a set time!

9 – If you are using Google Meet or Zoom or making videos, pay attention to what is in the camera view. You don’t have to rearrange/redecorate your house or make the background look “school-like”, but you might want to remove anything that is distracting.

THIS is a funny video from Mary Ehrenworth about what to include and what NOT to include!

10 -You may need to set your boundaries with your own family. And this is a hard one.

If your own children are at home with you, set up “work time” for both of you and structure activities so that your children can be (mostly) independent. Here are some ideas:
~find resources or activities that your children can do independently (or with limited assistance);
~create a (flexible) schedule for your children that aligns with your own work schedule;
~have designated workspaces for yourself and for your children. If you have younger children, they might need to be nearby. If they’re teenagers, you might want them far away from you!

Sometimes it helps if your children know they will get a set time with you later. Try to make this time of working from home time for you and your children to do things you might not ordinarily have time to do (cooking or baking together, crafts, outside time, board games, puzzles, coloring books, reading, yoga, meditation, watching movies, cleaning out closets, etc.). This will ease your own stress as well!

Katie Workman at The Mom 100 has a great website with recipes you can make with your kids.

11 – If you need to make a video, let everyone know so that you won’t be interrupted.

12 – Internet access or speed is an issue for many of us, with so many people online at the exact same time. You might need to set up times for different people in your family to do their work, stream Netflix, or use social media.

13 – Try to work on your most essential tasks in the morning. Or — if you are not so much of a morning person — work on your most essential tasks at your most productive time of day.

14 – Plan your day the night before. Make a list of what you need to do so that you can jump right into it in the morning. This has really been helping me. I used to do this when I was teaching at school (remember those days?!), but stopped doing that once work shifted to home. I just thought, “oh, I can make my list in the morning before I get started.” But I noticed a big difference in my own productivity when I made my list the night before instead of in the morning. Try it and see which works best for you.

15 – Consider using some kind of background noise, white noise, or calming instrumental music while you are working. Or if there is a lot of noise in your home, consider using headphones or earbuds.

I hope you found something useful here. The next post will be about planning for instruction!

This is a hard one for me.

I have very high expectations for both myself and my students. I’m sure you do as well. So suddenly being told that I can’t expect my students to even work on (much less complete) the assignments that I am expected to create really bothers me.

But then I stop and take a deep breath (always good advice).

Yes, I will still work hard to create engaging assignments and resources for students. Yes, I will still send my Google form check-ins and schedule Google Meets with my students. But even if only a few students do the work or fill out the forms or join the meetings, I’ll accept that and call it a win.

I have to continually remind myself of these five things:

1 – Understand that every student is in a different space in terms of what they can actually do.
Some students will have more support than others. Some students will be doing more work (childcare, other chores) at home than what they usually have to do.

Some students will find it difficult to focus on distance learning. (This last one will come as no surprise in terms of students having difficulty with focus. But this type of learning might be more difficult even for the students that ordinarily stay focused and engaged.)

2 – Be flexible and offer as many choices as possible. This will help me to best meet different student learning needs and differentiate as best I can, under the circumstances.

3 – If students are not completing any tasks, I have found it helpful to reach out to them by phone. This is not to berate them for not completing tasks, but just to find out what is going on with them and find out what they might need from me. They were so excited to hear from me. And when I reminded them that I was also reaching out to them through email and Google classroom, they actually worked on several tasks.

4 – When you start to get overwhelmed with all you have to do, remember: You only need to stay one or two steps ahead of your students. You don’t need to overhaul everything in one day or one week. While you may have made plans for a longer range period of time, you only need to provide a few things for your students at one time. In fact, I’m finding that all of this works better when I only send ONE assignment per subject at a time. (I do think it helps to have a weekly learning calendar, like THIS ONE, but a daily reminder or a daily assignment posting is sufficient.

5 – Give yourself grace, give your students grace, give your families grace. Understand that you are on a huge learning curve right now and nothing will be as perfect as it would be if you had had months to prepare for this change. Your students may be doing more “work” at home in terms of helping with younger siblings or doing extra chores. And your parents/caregivers are either continuing to work outside the home or they may be working at home and juggling multiple responsibilities. There will be varying levels of commitment to academics right now.

Here’s a good reminder:

In the next post, I’ll share tips for setting up a productive working space.

This is part one of an eight-part series of tips on distance teaching and learning while saving your own sanity. Today we’ll talk about your own mindset. Here are 17 tips.

1 – Take a deep breath. You can do this. You have done hard things before and learned how to do things you didn’t think you could learn. You can learn to do this — to make videos, to interact with your students over Zoom or Google Meet, to sort through resources and to choose what best fits your students and your own situation. You can do this.
*Do your best but do not try to be superhuman.

2 – Accept the uncertainty of this entire situation. Do what you can do and try to let go of what is outside of your control. (Easier said than done, I realize.)

3 – Don’t try to be perfect. Give yourself some grace. All of us have been thrown into this situation with zero preparation or training and we are doing our absolute best. Do what you can do.

4 – Take care of yourself first. Make sure that you are eating healthy-ish, drinking water, getting enough sleep, and moving your body in some way every day.

5 – In addition to your physical health, it’s important to prioritize your own mental health right now. Do what makes you feel the calmest and relaxed right now. For me, it’s going outside daily, even for just a brief walk. I am also trying to work out daily, in some form, and to get enough sleep. See my post HERE about self-care during this stressful time.

6 – Set up a daily routine for yourself. You might not have to stick to as rigid of a schedule as you do when you have to leave the house for work every day, but try to still have an approximate time when you will take a shower, get dressed, etc. Make sure you take breaks to eat meals. Take breaks to do any necessary home tasks. Do what you need to do for your own family.

Identify set times when you will work on specific school tasks and, even more importantly, when you will NOT work. One “trap” I am falling into is to not leave school at school, as I would during regular classroom teaching. It’s easy to sit down with my laptop to do “one more thing.” Try to set regular hours for yourself and stick to those.

7 – Set up a weekly routine for yourself as well. You might have specific weekly tasks that your district or principal are giving you, but also try to have specific self-care tasks you do for yourself throughout the week. Schedule time to do your regular chores around the house. Try to set up some sort of predictability to your week. Doing so will help you to feel more in control of something during this time when it feels like we have so little control over anything.

8 – Work out at home every day. This might mean taking a walk, a run, or a bike ride outside. If you join the FASTer Way to Fat Loss plan, you will be given daily workouts to do at home (even workouts you can do with your kids!). Beachbody On Demand is another great option. Use any other streaming workouts or YouTube videos or apps. Just do something active every single day.

9 – Take care of your family. Many of us are home with our own children. While we may also be required to work from home on school tasks, we also have our own children to reassure. Keeping to a routine will help.

10 – Check on the other people you love. Even when you can’t physically check on them, a quick phone call, FaceTime, email, sending funny memes, mailing a handwritten note, or texting reminds them that you’re there and that you love them.

11 – Understand that it is next to impossible to transfer all of your content to an online course in a day or a week. You can’t be expected to do that. Provide review and enrichment, but don’t worry about teaching new content as effectively as you would be able to do in your own classroom.

12 – Remember that your students and their families are stressed. Recognize that you (and your students and families) need rest right now. Rest is critical to staying healthy. Expecting yourself to maintain your typical productivity level is not a realistic expectation right now, nor is expecting your students to complete assignments in a “normal” time frame. Nothing is normal right now! Accept that and allow yourself time to rest.

13 – Watch out for social media. While it is more important than ever in some ways (opportunities to connect when we are all social distancing, getting ideas and support from others), it can also trigger guilt and anxiety. Understand that we are all in different places and have different expectations. Do not be intimidated by people who are posting amazing assignments AND cooking gourmet dinners AND re-organizing their entire house AND happily and successfully home-schooling their four children. Delete or unfollow if you must, but remember that YOU need to do YOU.

14 – And by the way: feel free to disregard any tip or suggestion that I, or anyone else, offer. I hereby give you permission!

15 – If there is some project or goal that you have been wanting to tackle at home and it gives you energy to think about it, make plans to work on that during this time! This should not be something you feel like you should do. This should be something you absolutely want to do.

16 – Use this time to learn something new. You can learn how to do most anything online, especially if you start with YouTube. I am working on my Spanish skills using Duolingo. I’m also buying an air fryer and learning how to use that. (Send me all your best tips and recipes if you have an air fryer!)

Other suggestions:
~learn to do something with your hands. Crochet, knitting, sewing. A friend of mine spent a recent afternoon sewing face masks for our local hospital with her daughters.

~learn to cook something new. Another friend of mine is posting a daily recipe trial on Facebook, complete with photos along the way. It’s keeping her mind occupied and helping the rest of us too!

~learn to bake something new. I am still working on mastering the perfect cinnamon roll. (Send me any of your best tips or recipes for that as well!)

~work in your yard or garden or plant flowers in pots

~learn to do something artistic. Paint or draw or use watercolors.

~learn a new craft. Calligraphy is on my list.

~declutter or organize something. This, too, makes you feel a bit more in control. It doesn’t have to be a huge area. Even decluttering a drawer or a shelf will help you feel productive.

17 – If you are a person of faith, spend some time reading devotional books or websites daily. Spend some time doing some Bible study. Pray. Meditate, which is a way you can listen for God’s leading. Even if you are not a person of faith, spend some time in silence and solitude daily. If your kids are home with you, do this together. (Or escape to the bathroom for a few minutes!)

This is a difficult and stressful time. Nothing is normal about this. Remember that, slow down, and take care of yourself. You’ll be a better teacher, mom, partner, and friend if you take care of yourself first.