WAHS Wisdom

We've Got This We are meeting the challenge of online teaching and learning. There's no doubt about that.  Over the past three weeks, we've seen engaging lessons and teaching strategies that demonstrate your professionalism, dedication and flexibility, thus making the transition to online learning smooth and worthwhile for our students.    Have you noticed that students are still showing up to your classes? This is proof that they are interested and engaged!  Below are nine strategies that I've seen used that engage students in their learning and have tremendous instructional value whether we're online, blended or in-person. Using Flipgrid to allow discussions outside of the classroom and to check-in with students on a weekly basis.  Prioritizing longer, student-driven assignments where students have more autonomy but include clear checkpoints, deadlines and ways to connect with students to ensure that they are engaged in their learning and meeting the checkpoints. 

Text Rendering Text rendering is an instructional strategy that maximizes live learning time by incorporating individual responsibility, collaborative work and reading. Prior to class, students are assigned a reading to complete individually. They will render the text during class. This protocol can be used for all sorts of readings from introductions of topics, reviews or a deep dive. It works well with both fiction and non-fiction reading.  Individually and prior to live class: Students read and identify an important sentence, phrase, and word. They can answer "Why did you find this significant?" Have students record their words and insights on to a teacher-shared document. On this same document, share the learning intentions and the steps to the protocol to ensure clarity.  During the live meeting: Teacher provides directions and students are placed into groups. The first scribe is assigned.  Round 1: Students shares their sentences and explain why they chose it.  Round 2:

Meeting the Challenges of Change At the beginning of March, few of us even knew what Zoom was. Since then, we've been  Zooming and have experienced  Zoom Bombing  and  Zoom fatigue. This rapid change reminds me loosely of my third year of teaching when we made the shift from a 7-period schedule to a block schedule. As early adopters of the block and absent any professional development, we were overwhelmed and quickly discovered that simply combining 2 days of lesson plans into one did not work. Even though I felt I was better prepared than many, I remember feeling exhausted, confused and even inadequate after the first week of block scheduling. We all did. Lunch time conversations went something like this,      Remind me again why we made this change?      I told you this block scheduling thing was stupid.     This is horrible. I feel so bad for the students having to sit through this experiment.     Yeah, this is the worst.     It won't last.      This was just another way for

Building Teacher-Student Relationships During Online Learning You may be feeling overwhelmed right now. I know I am. Nobody has this all figured out. Managing the demands and uncertainties seems daunting. How will I build relationships with my students? How can I ensure equity? How can I ensure the success of all my students? What about asynchronous learners? How do I teach virtually? Where do I begin?  Being overwhelmed is often the result of not knowing where to begin. Remember sitting down to write that research paper in college and not knowing where to start? That's being overwhelmed. For me, it meant going to the computer lab--I'm dating myself with that statement--and staring at a blank screen; paralyzed at the thought of having to write 10-20 pages. I didn't know where to begin and then once I began, I frequently found myself having to start over again.  Even though I am feeling overwhelmed about the new school year, I feel much better about where WE are now than I d