Virtual Learning Toolkit for Teachers

In summer 2020, twenty-two students and eleven teachers from across Baltimore City Schools came together for a five-day design experience to answer the following question:

How might teachers and students build relationships and meaningful engagement in virtual classrooms?

Through the liberatory design process — 1) Empathize, 2) Define, 3) Ideate, 4) Prototype, and 5) Test — they identified five needs for a successful virtual teaching and learning community. This Virtual Learning Toolkit and some of the resources you'll find here were prototyped by teachers and students and tested with students.

In this toolkit, you'll also find district-curated resources in one place, based on what teachers and students said they needed during focus groups, summer programming, and Design Camp. This includes information about the Instruction Framework 3.0 in the virtual classroom, SEL lessons and practices for building community and relationships in a virtual classroom, tools for connecting with families and opportunities for engagement beyond the classroom, and exemplar virtual teaching and learning practices from a group of teacher leaders in the district.

We'll be updating this website as we find resources, so check back often - and if you have found any best practices during your online teaching, please share using the link below.