After a quick check to make sure this is Thursday morning and if I schedule it properly, it will come out tomorrow, here’s a sampling of the great thinking from Ontario Edubloggers.
So you’re teaching from home. How’s your back?
You know how your feet hurt when you get a new pair of shoes?
It might be that you’re experiencing different pain now as a result of teaching online from at home. I suspect that many people will be jumping in worried about teaching, worried about kids, worried about isolation, worrying about a lot of things except their own well being.
Will Gourley gives us a sense of the pain that he’s feeling in his particular work situation, along with pictures of folded clothes indicating that his desk doubles as a laundry space or that after allocating all the good spaces in their three stories to others, he’s left with this.
He offers five good suggestions for taking care of yourself and they’re all worth considering if you find yourself dealing with discomfort or outright pain these days. Or, use it as a check so that you don’t end up in that case.
What he didn’t include was taking a break and folding laundry…
As I said during the This Week in Ontario Edublogs podcast, Melanie White could be a poster child for effectively trying to engage all students.
She’s pedagogically savvy enough to try and ensure that all students are engaged in class activities and technically savvy enough to recognize that it may take more than one strategy to reach everyone.
I love this image from The Mentoree that she includes in the post.
I really appreciated the fact that she shared how all students don’t follow the formal conventions of writing when using email. I think it’s a nice reminder that the technologies that are often available and in use are our technologies and may not be the ideal solution for a new generation.
Of course, everyone just got thrown into the middle of this; it will be interesting to see if more relevant tools emerge that are more easily embraced.
Skyscraper Puzzles – printable package
When I think back at the Mathematics that I studied (and I studied a great deal of it), there really was a focus on Algebra and Geometry. For the longest time, Geometry was really about two space and it wasn’t until the later years that we got into three space.
Ironically, though, three space was represented in two space via the blackboard.
This post, from Mark Chubb, offers up free materials that he’s made to help students with the understanding of space. They’re called Skyscraper Puzzles and a link will let you download and work with them. The resource is in PDF format.
By itself, that would be worth the read of the post. But, Mark takes it to a new level. He indicates that he had some helpers with the work. Anyone who believes in the maker concept will immediately realize that they just wouldn’t be creating materials – they’d be learning the concepts as well. As we know, you never really know something completely until you teach or make it.
Ça va prendre un chapeau d’apprenant!
Anyone teaching from at home at this time will definitely identify with this observation from Marius Bourgeoys.
The comfort zone has left the building.
Marius includes a number of observations that are hard to disagree with. Towards the end of the post, he offers 12 suggestions for checkins with students.
I found number 7 particularly interesting.
Quelles nouvelles responsabilités as-tu à la maison?
We all know that it’s not life as usual. In some cases, though, it may be substantially different for some students other than just taking their schooling online.
Mom and Dad may be essential workers and that student is picking up additional responsibilities to make sure that the family continues to thrive. I think it’s a very powerful question to ask student and could easily be a great writing prompt.
Students in K-12 are not the only ones dealing with the current reality of teaching/learning. In this post, Sandie Heckel is looking for advice from the field to give to prospective music teachers.
It’s a good advice to be sought at any time, for any subject.
I would suggest that it’s particularly relevant in these times. Many of the school re-opening plans that I’ve seen specifically name music as a subject that won’t be there when school resumes.
Those providing the advice are looking beyond that. They recognize the value of music in a child’s life and offer ways to consider your own personal growth planning.
There have been a lot of memes circulating about the learning at home situation and one of the funniest was a couple of kids complaining that not only were they being schooled at home but that their mother was a math teacher.
Lots of that ran through my mind when I read this post from Lisa Corbett. Her son’s doing the math and she’s giving us a blow by blow account of how it’s going. And, they have a blackboard to do math on. Who has a blackboard at home these days? Got to be a teacher!
It’s a good accounting of what’s happening. I think there will be a big payoff when all this is over by re-reading blog posts and learning about the learning that everyone experienced. Journaling this experience is good advice for everyone. They didn’t prepare you for this at the Faculty of Education. You’re living history as it happens so why not document it.
There’s another element to this that can’t be lost. Not only is she working with her own kids schooling at home, but there’s still those from her day job that are learning at a distance too. Double-dipping.
This post, from Albert Fong, goes back to the beginning of March. It seems so long ago now.
Speaking of a long time ago, Albert relates a story of a youngster coming to Canada and learning to grow up in his new reality in different schools. This new reality includes fighting amongst schoolmates. That part, I could relate to. I suspect we all can.
But, what happened when an older student got involved was not something that I had ever experienced.
Albert learned from that moment and that experience and had an opportunity to apply his learning when he was a bit older.
For a Friday morning, please click through and enjoy these blog posts. There is some great inspirational reading to be enjoyed here.
Then, follow these folks on Twitter.
- Will Gourley – @WillGourley
- Melanie White – @WhiteRoomRadio
- Mark Chubb – @markchubb3
- Marius Bourgeoys – @Bourmu
- Sandie Heckel – @SandieHeckel
- Lisa Corbett – @LisaCorbett0261
- Albert Fong – @albertfong
This post appears at:
https://dougpete.wordpress.com
If you read it anywhere else, it’s not the original.
doug -- off the record 
Please share your thoughts here. I’d enjoy reading them.