One silver lining: Sometimes it takes the unimaginable to jar loose our imaginations.
When we finally get back to face-to-face education with kids, I have a few changes I hope I’ll see. Some of these are based on my own personal experiences with distance learning, some are broader. I hope to see…
- Continued curricular flexibility and resources to individualize for kids based on their needs, interests, and situations.
- The devaluing [elimination…?] of grades and task completion as a means of measurement in favor of teaching and learning rooted in skills and standards.
- The dismissal of “the way we’ve always done it” as a argument with any merit whatsoever.
- The recognition that different environments (in-person, virtual, etc.) have strengths and limitations, that these vary from student to student, and that each student can have access to their own “just right” mix.
- Realization, without question, that quality teaching demands quality preparation, which demands time… and that we revise the teacher work-day to include actual, meaningful, and significant time for preparation, collaboration, and design.
How about you? In what ways do you hope school looks different upon our eventual return?
I also hope that we continue to “check in” on our students and families. Continuing to engage them and get a pulse on their needs could be a game changer for the relationships between student-family-school.
Like Inessa mentioned- I really hope we’ve exposed the lack of equity in how we serve, support, and teach ALL students. When you know, you know and there’s no going backward. I hope that better PD will result to help those who’ve struggled with modifying, differentiation, and ensuring that all students can access the learning targets.
I agree with Sharon! Great communication and summary as we learn forward.
Thanks Mark,
Ruth Moen
Well said, Mark! I love the ending question and my hope is educators will pose this question to themselves and of their system.
I really hope that we are able to target and identify student needs. This may be just for myself and my program, but I want to expand to supporting my EL students in mathematics. Our support has so far focused on ELA related language, but math is the basically the same in every country (there are differences in computation techniques). I can’t help but think that if I could provide my students language support in this area, they would flourish and build confidence.