parents/guardians

Flipped 3.0: The April issue of FLR looks at how we’re all managing the social-emotional cost of making a rapid transition to online learning.

On 05/06/2020, in flipping -- inverted learning, health, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, online learning, parents/guardians, participation, remote teaching and learning, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, youth, by Daniel Christian

The April issue of FLR looks at how we’re all managing the social-emotional cost of making a rapid transition to online learning.

Featured articles include:

Teaching From Home Is Exhausting: How Are You Keeping Your Spirits Up?
Why Is Online Teaching and Learning So Awesome and So Awful?
10 Ways to Help Students Cope With How COVID-19 Is Disrupting School Life.
What Teachers Need From Administrators While Shifting to Remote Learning.
Why the Two Most Important Online Teaching Skills Today Are Grace and Choice.
We Miss Seeing Our Students, How Can We Fill That Hole in Our Soul?
Unmasking the Social-emotional Cost of Going Online Overnight?
Teaching During a Pandemic Is Fragile: Self-care Is Good, Self-compassion Is Better.

10 Tips for Supporting Students with Special Needs in #RemoteLearning — from jakemiller.net by Jake Miller

Excerpt:

How can we support learners with special needs in remote learning?

While, certainly, some educators are doing great things to support these students, from my observations, this has taken a backseat to other elements of remote learning. And these students NEED OUR HELP.

Unfortunately, I am not an expert in special education, accessibility features or assistive technology. I am, however, skilled at asking other people to share their expertise. ? So, in episode 40 of the Educational Duct Tape podcast and in the 4.8.20 #EduDuctTape Twitter Chat I asked educators one simple question:

How can we support learners with special needs in remote learning?

And they DELIVERED. I mean, the awesome suggestions and resources, all from a perspective of support rather than judgment, POURED in. And so, here they are.

K-12 education in America: The quickly moving train that stops for no one! [Christian]

On 04/24/2020, in assessment, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, neurodivergent/special needs, parents/guardians, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, policy, reinvent, society, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, surviving, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, user experience (UX), vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
NOTE: The K-12 education system that I’m talking about in this posting is the pre-COVID-19 education system.

What Cory Henwood describes here…

The paradigm of one -- as described by Cory Henwood

…is what I describe as the quickly moving K-12 education train that stops for no one!

K-12 education in America is a like a quickly moving train that stops for no one.

(image source)

This becomes especially troublesome for those on either side of the 80% bell curve. I know about this, as one of our daughters has been living through this phenomenon for years. We are seriously considering homeschooling for her as we want her learning experiences to be more positive ones for her. We want to provide more choice, more control for what she wants to learn about — and the pace at which she can go through those experiences. We want there to be more joy in her learning experiences. This will hopefully help her build more positive perspectives about learning in general.

This is not a mute issue…nor is this a topic that’s focused on just students with special needs. In fact, this topic is relevant to every single student in America — as everyone is now required to be lifelong learners these days. Grades need to diminish in importance. The enjoyment of learning needs to rise.

Note: There were some times in public and charter schools that provided courses and topics of great interest to her, and provided some great joy to her. Plus, there were some incredibly-dedicated teachers and staff that created a team around our daughter. I’m very grateful for them and for their efforts. But positive learning experiences were becoming too few and too far between. The train left the station *for everyone* at such-and-such a time, and stopped *for everyone* at such and such a time. The education system required that she and her classmates move at a certain (high) speed — regardless of their mastery of the content. Teachers know what I’m talking about here…big time.

We need to get to what Cory discusses about when he discusses competency-based education.

We need to get to what Cory discusses about competency-based education.

Plus, we need to get to a place where there is:

For Southern New Hampshire, the future of the campus may be online — from educationdive.com by Hallie Busta
The president of the online giant talked with Education Dive about its decision to move all freshmen online this fall and bigger plans to reshape instruction.

Excerpts:

The university hopes to introduce a variety of online, hybrid and/or project-based programs in the fall of 2021. By that point, it also aims to have reduced tuition for campus programs from $31,000 to $10,000 — a 61% cut that makes the cost equivalent to what online students pay.

LEBLANC: Let’s imagine campuses can’t open for the whole year. To stay on pace, students typically would need to complete 10 courses. For us, if you enroll online, those courses are about $1,000 each. There’s your $10,000. I don’t know what version of taking undergraduates and keeping them fully online justifies me charging them more than I do the 130,000 students who are paying $1,000 a course. It simply reflects what we charge now.

While this announcement got a lot of attention, I know a lot of my colleagues are thinking very hard about how to reinvent their institutions to be meaningful again in a world that looks very different than it did just three months ago.

From DSC:
The successful education providers of the future — and by that I mean those organizations who can educate the masses, not the elite — will be those who can significantly reduce the price of obtaining the skills and knowledge that someone needs to remain marketable and relevant in the workplace. For. Sixty. Years.

Educating all learners during COVID-19: An alliance emerges to provide support for virtual special education services [Dene Poth]

On 04/23/2020, in accessibility / UDL, education, engagement / engaging students, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, neurodivergent/special needs, parents/guardians, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, virtual K-12 schools, youth, by Daniel Christian

Educating all learners during COVID-19: An alliance emerges to provide support for virtual special education services — from gettingsmart.com by Rachelle Dene Poth

Excerpt:

One group that is developing a supportive space for educators looking to support students with disabilities during this time is the Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA), a group dedicated to equity and aimed at providing resources that students with disabilities need. The EALA is a collaborative project between a number of education groups to curate education resources specifically for schools that serve the nearly 7.5 million special needs students in America. Lauren Morando Rhim, co-founder and executive director of founding partner the National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools, explains the motivation for the project: “We’re already seeing schools finding creative and innovative ways to ensure teachers and students with disabilities can engage in teaching and learning remotely—our goal is to help educators share those strategies broadly with their peers.”

Excerpts from Living on Curves — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Almost all of us maintain a normality bias where we assume things will go on about the same as they always have.
…
Young people are growing up on a jostling set of curves that will bring waves of dislocations to their lives. And even though we don’t fully understand the questions, much less the answers, it’s a good time to start this conversation with our children.

Reflections on “6 Steps to Prepare for an Online Fall Semester” [Villasenor]

On 04/11/2020, in 24x7x365 access, accreditation, adjunct faculty, business side of he, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education, education reform, education technology, elearning, funding / grants, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, Michigan, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, parents/guardians, participation, pedagogy, platforms, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, teaching online, telepresence, television, traditional / tradition, TVs, United States, universities, videoconferencing, virtual K-12 schools, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
On the positive side…

What I appreciate about John Villasenor‘s article is that it’s asking us to think about future scenarios in regards to higher education. Then, it’s proposing some potential action steps to take now to address those potential scenarios if they come to fruition. It isn’t looking at the hood when we’re traveling 180 mph. Rather, it’s looking out into the horizon to see what’s coming down the pike.

6 Steps to Prepare for an Online Fall Semester — from chronicle.com by John Villasenor

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Plan for a multiyear impact. If colleges are forced to maintain online-only instruction in the fall and to defer reopening their campuses to in-person instruction to January 2021, the impact will be felt for years. College leaders should start thinking now about how to manage and potentially adjust spring-2021 (and beyond) course offerings, course sequencing, and degree requirements to avoid saddling students with graduation delays and the accompanying direct and indirect financial costs. In addition, colleges should anticipate a smaller-than-normal entering first-year class in fall 2020 (and thus a larger-than-normal enrollment a year later) and devise strategies to help mitigate the resulting stresses on admission rates and classroom and dorm capacity for first-year students entering in fall 2021 and beyond.

If instruction remains online-only in the fall, colleges won’t be able to afford that sort of inefficiency. College departments should start now to identify opportunities for collaborations that would draw on the collective wisdom and labor of faculty members from multiple institutions who are teaching similar courses. This would lessen the burden of migrating teaching materials and techniques to an online format.

From DSC:
I’ve often wondered about the place of consortiums within higher ed…i.e., pooling resources. Will the impacts of the Coronavirus change this area of higher ed? Not sure. Perhaps.

On the negative side…

I take issue with some of John’s perspectives, which are so common amongst the writers and academics out there. For example:

Conversely, an entire generation of current college students is now learning that it can be pretty boring to be one of several hundred people simultaneously watching a Zoom lecture.

You know what? I did that very same thing — over and over again — at Northwestern University (NU), but in a face-to-face format. And quite frankly, it’s a better view on videoconferencing. It’s far more close up, more intimate online. I agree it’s a different experience. But our auditoriums were large and having 100-200+ students in a classroom was common. There was no interaction amongst the students. There were no breakout groups. The faculty members didn’t know most of our names and I highly doubt that the well-paid researchers at Northwestern — who were never taught how to teach in the first place nor did they or NU regard the practice of teaching and learning highly anyway — gave a rat’s ass about body language. Reading the confusion in the auditorium? Really? I highly doubt it. And those TA’s that we paid good money for? Most likely, they were never taught how to teach either. The well-paid researchers often offloaded much of the teaching responsibilities onto the teacher assistants’ backs.

Bottom line:
Face-to-face learning is getting waaaay more credit than it sometimes deserves — though sometimes it IS warranted. And online-based learning — especially when it’s done right — isn’t getting nearly enough credit.

Addendum: Another example of practicing futures thinking in higher ed:

Campuses Might Still Be Closed in the Fall. How Should Universities Prepare? — from diverseeducation.com by Sara Weissman

7 guiding principles for parents teaching from home [Lee]

On 04/04/2020, in education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning spaces, learning theories, more voice more choice more control, parents/guardians, passions, play, student-related, youth, by Daniel Christian

7 guiding principles for parents teaching from home — from edutopia.org by Laura Lee
Understanding the “why” behind teaching practices can help parents create meaningful and effective at-home learning opportunities during the pandemic.

Excerpts:

One misconception about teaching is that its primary function is to help students retain information, but retention is just the first step. Effective learning requires that students retrieve information frequently and then make new meaning of it. This process, called consolidation, is often reinforced in traditional classrooms through reviews and quizzes, or through multi-sensory practices like drawing, composing a song, or building a model about what has recently been learned.

At home, prioritize opportunities to engage in active learning through discussion, writing, or producing art, over more passive practices such as re-reading or rote note-taking. Learning requires repeated, active manipulation of the materials being learned.

Finally, many studies reveal that teaching what you’ve learned to someone else—to a parent or to another sibling—is also a highly effective way to consolidate learning and make it stick.

In many parts of the world, schooling at home will continue for at least several months. Help students move beyond a compliance mindset—”I’ve completed my work, can I go now?”— by building in time for passion projects and fun.

Homeschooling During the COVID-19 Pandemic — from cato.org by Kerry McDonald

Excerpt:

In a recent three-part Cato Daily Podcast series, I spoke with host Caleb Brown about this unprecedented educational moment, including sharing strategies and resources for overcoming the challenges of unexpected, unchosen homeschooling, as well as possible outcomes as more parents seek alternatives to conventional schooling post-pandemic.

More Free Resources For New Homeschoolers — from forbes.com by Nick Morrison

Excerpt:

Last month I highlighted some of the free resources available for parents — and teachers — during the pandemic, but since then a number of other organizations have offered their resources, expertise and support for free, so here is another selection, for the benefit of ordinary homeschoolers in these extraordinary times.

From DSC:
Below are excerpts from a recent email that I received as a cc: to our son and am passing it along in case it helps others out there.
I would like to share with you important guidance on how to get the most out of your online learning experience.

ORGANIZING YOUR SPACE
Set up your home classroom space. This is important. Be sure you have a space that is comfortable and where you can focus on your studies, your practice, your craft and your learning. This can be private or shared, whatever works for you and your family.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

Computer
Internet Access, preferably high-speed broadband, is required for video conferencing and class assignments. Most of the expected work will not require streaming, but a secure internet connection will help a lot.
Headphones help minimize extraneous noise. They can also help signal to others in your home that you are online and on-task.
Zoom, our preferred video conferencing software, can be downloaded here.

SCHEDULE
You will complete your work and engage in your lessons in two ways. Some assignments are laid out in your Canvas class and can be completed at your own pace, turning work in when due. And some of your classes and lessons will require you to connect with faculty and students in real time. When a real-time option is possible, be sure to take it.

STAYING CONNECTED
Again, be sure to connect in real time as often as possible. There are lots of opportunities to connect with faculty and students every day.
…
Join in as many real time experiences as you can. These human connections, across the internet, are so important during this time when we are all separated physically.

NORMS FOR VIDEO-CONFERENCING

Log in on time, and be fully prepared with any necessary materials, notebooks, etc.
Wear clothes like what you would wear to school.
Remain present and engaged throughout the session. Do not open additional windows or use other technology during the session, unless it is part of class.
Join sessions in a quiet space, if you can, where you will not distract others and not be distracted.
Mute your microphone when not speaking.

SUMMARY OF STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES

Establish a daily routine for your school work.
Find a comfortable, distraction-free place in your home where you can work.
Check email and Canvas each day to learn about the expectations for your work.
Perform tasks as outlined by instructors in Canvas and seek clarification from teachers on any assignments where you need it.
For classes meeting “live,” login to real-time video services (Zoom) for dialogue with teachers and members of your class. Attend faculty office hours. They want to see you!
Put forth your best effort.
Communicate with your instructors, your advisor, your residence life coordinator, and/or Academic and College Counseling.
If you need anything, let us know.

Under the Table and Teaching: 11 Expert Tips for Schooling Kids with ADHD from Home — from additudemag.com
Unschooling. Homeschooling. Crisis schooling. What is the difference? And what are the best learning strategies for your child with ADHD at this stressful time? Here are tips and strategies from education experts who understand the distinctions and today’s inescapable realities.

Excerpts:

11 Ways to Support Learning at Home

1. Focus learning on your child’s natural interests.
2. If your child gets stressed, take a break.
3. Make learning a game.
4. Embrace Minecraft.
5. Add movement to promote learning.
6. Build focus with busy hands and feet.
7. Tap into online tutors.
8. Ditch the worksheets. Use educational videos, phone apps, educational podcasts, or other media to introduce or expand on a subject.
9. Take things one day at a time.
10. Follow your child’s lead.
11. Accept that homeschooling may not work for you.

Research Quest Live sign up
Though the museum is currently closed, the Natural History Museum of Utah is allowing kids around the globe the opportunity to transport back in time to a past where dinosaurs roamed the world. With the recently launched Research Quest Live, offering a taste of the world with virtual tours and free access to daily online science classes taught by museum educators.

Common Sense Launches Wide Open School to Help Families and Educators Transition to Students Learning from Home — from commonsensemedia.org
As Schools Continue to Close as a Result of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Some of the Most Respected Companies in Education, Media, and Tech Join Forces to Offer a Free and Open Collection of Quality Online Learning Resources to Educators and Families.

Excerpt:

SAN FRANCISCO, March 31, 2020—Common Sense, the leading nonprofit organization whose mission is to help kids, families, and educators thrive in a world of media and technology, has convened a group of education, media, and tech partners to launch WideOpenSchool.org, a free online resource to support families and educators who are transitioning to remote learning as a result of the coronavirus.

Wide Open School features the very best resources from publishers, nonprofits, and education companies, including the American Federation of Teachers, Amplify, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Head Start, Khan Academy, National Geographic, Noggin, PBS, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop,Time for Kids, XQ Institute, and YouTube. Find the full site at WideOpenSchool.org.

DC: Yes! Perhaps teachers will gain some very well-deserved respect from this whole thing!!!

On 03/26/2020, in education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, parents/guardians, remote teaching and learning, society, student-related, surviving, teachers, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Yes! Perhaps teachers will gain some ***very well-deserved respect*** from this whole thing!!!

Eric Chilton talks about how homeschooling his own children has given him a deeper understanding and respect for what teachers do daily.

Moving to remote instruction immediately: Where to get started — from thejournal.com by Dian Schaffhauser
To help schools make the transition as quickly and comprehensively as possible, THE Journal reached out to education technology experts across the country to answer the questions we believe nearly every educator is rushing to answer right now.

Learning ecosystems across the globe are going through massive changes! [Christian]

On 03/25/2020, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business side of he, Canada, change, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, Europe, face-to-face, faculty/staff, flipping -- inverted learning, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, Michigan, mobile learning, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, parents/guardians, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, TVs, UK, United States, universities, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Due to the impacts of the Coronavirus, learning ecosystems across the globe are going through massive changes!

Each of us has our own learning ecosystem, and the organizations that we work for have their own learning ecosystems as well. Numerous teachers, professors, and trainers around the world are now teaching online. Their toolboxes are expanding with the addition of several new tools and some new knowledge. I believe that will be one of the silver linings from the very tough situations/times that we find ourselves in.

Expanding our teaching toolboxes

At the WMU-Cooley Law School, our learning ecosystem is also fluid and continues to morph. This blog posting speaks to those changes.

Learning from the Living [Class] Room: Due to the impacts from the Coronavirus, this is happening today across many countries. But this vision is just beginning to develop. We haven’t seen anything yet.

Some resources for teaching at home

On 03/22/2020, in 24x7x365 access, active learning, art, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), elearning, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, multimedia, neurodivergent/special needs, online learning, online media, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, parents/guardians, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, play, reading, remote teaching and learning, society, student-related, teaching & learning, tools, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Below are some resources for teaching at home. And some of this (much of this?) is not typical homeschooling, just as much of what’s being done out there isn’t necessarily typical online-based learning. And some out there may not like such lists, and would prefer a detailed report on just one tool. But this last week was incredibly busy — and time is not a luxury I have right now. And these resources might provide someone out there with just the right tool or pedagogy that they’ve been looking for.

Also, I might suggest:

Creating a Google alert (google.com/alerts) on HSLDA, on homeschooling, on homeschoolers, and/or on related searches.
Create a Keyword Alert on an RSS aggregator such as Feedly
Follow relevant hashtags on Twitter such as #homeschooling

Some analog ideas:

Reading a book together
Watching a play, drama, or another type of program together
Taking a walk out in nature together
Gather together as a family and/or lingering over breakfast or dinner
Drawing
Painting
Taking pictures

And now is a great time to see what your child or children WANT TO LEARN ABOUT! Turn over the control to them for a while — and watch what happens when intrinsic motivation takes hold!

Not a teacher but find yourself homeschooling? These educational apps are free — from parade.com by Stephanie Osmanski

This posting covers 25 Free Learning Apps

We are all homeschoolers now (podcast) — from cato.org featuring Kerry McDonald and Caleb Brown
Thanks to COVID-19, many parents find themselves with kids at home all day. What’s the best way to keep them engaged in their educations? Kerry McDonald, author of Unschooled, comments.

Getting Smart’s Getting Through

Free, Online Learning Resources When Coronavirus Closes Schools — from cato.org by Kerry McDonald

Homeschooling Mother and Author: 6 Ideas For Parents While Schools Are Closed — from fee.org by Kerry McDonald
Amid the Covid-19 lockdown, there are steps parents can take to make time at home with their children more rewarding and tolerable.

Apps for Special Needs Students—As School Buildings Shutter — from edutopia.org by Janey Clare
The coronavirus creates a unique challenge for special needs students—educators share recommendations for apps to support learning at home.

How to Support Home Learning in Elementary Grades — from edutopia.org by John Thomas
A first and second grade teacher shares his home learning plan for his students and how he is engaging their families.

6 Lessons Learned About Remote Learning During the Coronavirus Outbreak — from blogs.edweek.org by Mark Lieberman

Especially for students: “10 ways to make your LinkedIn stand out to recruiters” [Fielding]

On 03/10/2020, in business, career development, corporate / business world, Microsoft, parents/guardians, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, student-related, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

10 ways to make your LinkedIn stand out to recruiters — from fortune.com by Sarah Fielding

Excerpt:

According to the 2018 Jobvite Recruiter Nation Study, 77 percent of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn to find candidates, making it the most popular social media used for this purpose. So, if that job description is out of date or your photo is the one you took way back in your college dorms, you should definitely be serious about updating your profile. To ensure it stands out to recruiters, we spoke to career experts about the changes you can make…

From DSC:
I’m posting this especially for students…though it would likely be good for all of us to consider these tips.

Debt among oldest Americans skyrockets 543% in two decades [Iacurci]

On 02/27/2020, in generational differences, parents/guardians, society, United States, by Daniel Christian

Debt among oldest Americans skyrockets 543% in two decades — from cnbc.com by Greg Iacurci

Excerpt:

Older Americans have seen their debt levels increase sharply over the past two decades, straining seniors’ finances at a delicate time — when they’re preparing to retire or have already entered their golden years.

The total debt burden for Americans over age 70 increased 543% from 1999 through 2019, to $1.1 trillion, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Learning Ecosystems

Debt among oldest Americans skyrockets 543% in two decades [Iacurci]

Categories

Tags