Planning & Preparation

"Students can do no better than the assignments they are given." -Ruth Mitchell

1A: DEMONSTRATING KNOWLEDGE OF CONTENT & PEDAGOGY

Planning and Preparation maybe hasn’t changed that much... unless you or your students can’t access textbooks online. If you find yourself in that situation, check out these resources:

You can also collaborate with general education and SPED teachers through Google Workspace.

1B: DEMONSTRATING KNOWLEDGE OF STUDENTS

As we continue with remote learning, you may find yourself with new students. That may leave you wondering how you can get to know these new kiddos when synchronous meetings can be a hurdle. Here are some ideas:

Surveys — You can create your own with Google Forms
Collaborative Google Slides — This allows you to get to know your students and your students can get to know one another.
Student Portfolios — There are many sites that can help your students create portfolios or they can leverage Google Docs or Slides to create their own. Portfolios can help students showcase who they are as well as what they can do.
Synchronous Meetings — To continue getting to know your students, you will want to meet with them regularly. You may do this through Google Meets or Zoom or another online meeting platform. These meetings should be as much about academic support as they are emotional support. Part of the emotional support you are offering your students comes through getting to know them. So how can you do this? Perhaps you can have a good old fashioned “Show-N-Tell” to let students share their interests with you and others. You could do this weekly or bi-weekly, but it is a way for students to share with you and their peers, allowing you to learn about their interests, their culture, and their passions.
Videos — You and your students can record videos to share asynchronously. You can use the Screencastify extension on Chrome, Flipgrid (which allows other students to see the videos and respond), or other platforms to help you do this. You can use similar topics/ideas from the synchronous Meetings, but by making these videos, they are available for students as they need.

1C: SETTING INSTRUCTIONAL OUTCOMES

Again, this is an area where not much has changed. However, you will want your instructional outcomes to be overtly apparent to your students who will likely be asking, “Why am I doing this? What’s the point?” Your goal is to be able to answer that question for your students. You might even consider creating a checklist of skills so that you, your students, parents, and administrators know what students are getting out of their project/unit/activity.

1D: DEMONSTRATING KNOWLEDGE OF RESOURCES

The internet is your oyster. See 1A for some suggestions and use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social networking platforms to connect with educators across the globe for resources.

1E: DESIGNING COHERENT INSTRUCTION

Remember when I mentioned checklists in 1C: Setting Instructional Outcomes? Two birds, one stone. If you are able to delineate all the skills and scaffold instruction to help students reach those outcomes, you are designing coherent instruction. Be sure to use multiple resources and consider how you group students. (See Domain 3 for more ideas.)

1F: DESIGNING STUDENT ASSESSMENTS

Computers are great at grading things online quickly, especially those multiple choice questions. Give yourself permission to focus on personalized feedback by letting computers give your students feedback about topics that have a clear black and white answer. Please check out these assessment resources:

Now when you use essays, projects, or other assessments that can’t be graded by computers, please consider creating a personalized video to give students feedback. (Screencastify is great for that!)