Most of us don't want to start over.  As we switch to distance learning, we are trying to balance our students' mental well-being with their academic needs.  To that end I am thinking about what I had already planned to do for the last two months of the year versus what is realistic.  Since, I don't know how long we will be doing distance learning, I am planning for finishing the school year remotely.  I HOPE to see my students in our classroom to finish the year, but who knows?  
Some changes I have made already:

• Instead of having a final exam, I am giving students a project.
• We will have one more exam (open note, open book)
• All quizzes are now open note, open book
• Independent student notebooks occur at home are followed by in-person discussions
• Altering some of the content pieces to make distance learning more feasible.  For example instead of focusing on specific new content which is difficult for some of my new students to access, I am focusing more on skills such as writing, analysis, and synthesis.
• Changing collaborative activities to independent projects

As we move into a period of distance learning across the world, I am sharing both digital and pen and paper ideas.   Today, I share one of the easiest activities to take out of the classroom and send home.  You can use it in math, social studies, and science (although I haven't tried it).  I call it graffiti.  I used to call it the doodle because it was inspired by the Google doodles but some teachers use doodle notes which can make it confusing.  In English they do a similar activity which they call the one-pager, often for a novel students have read.    Basically, graffiti is the summary and analysis of a topic.  It's great for assessment or review or ongoing analysis.

In this new (hopefully very temporary) reality where the majority of students have entered distance learning environments, lots of advice is being thrown out there.  Some people suggest giving students low level work that they can complete with little or no help.  Some believe that activities should be simple.   While there is a place for some of that, I respectfully disagree and encourage you to keep students challenge and engaged by skipping the worksheet.  This is EXACTLY the time for projects.  

How often in your traditional classroom do you think a project would just take too much time or too much space?  But now you have students stuck at home with more time than they ever had.  Students have time to think about a topic, investigate, analyze, and unleash their creativity!  Read on for tips to take projects offline with your students.

One of the challenges teachers and students are facing right now is a long lag time for teachers to give feedback.  For many teachers they will have little to no direct contact with their students during these long months of school closure.  While I personally have several projects planned for students, I have to balance the projects with skill-based activities.   This includes notes and self-checking problem activities.  Here's three of my favorite to send home with my students, each of which can replace a worksheet or problem set:

As the education world adapts to finishing the school year offline, you may be struggling to keep students engaged while teaching remotely.  In this post I show you how to take one traditional lesson offline and leave you with 5 tips for adapting a traditional lesson into a remote learning experience.

As I wrote about in 7 tips for teaching in a remote environment, this is an excellent opportunity for projects.  Projects can be time-consuming in the traditional classroom setting.  I hear more often than not from my colleagues that they want to try projects but when?  This is the time.  Here's what my AP Statistics students will be doing with linear regression:

Our school is closed.  The teaching staff is working on solutions so that students still get the education they need but we can keep everyone safe for public health reasons.  In an ideal world, schools stay open even when disaster strikes, but these are unprecedented times.    

Remote instruction, online or otherwise, presents its own challenges.  How do you keep students engaged?  How do you generate material for students to work on their own?  How do you stay connected to students?   Here's 7 tips to get you started:

UPDATE:  Thank you to all who entered the "A little love Giveaway"

The winners are:
1st: Barbara T.
2nd: Margie W.
3rd: Tyra P.

Please check back on the blog for tips and more opportunities to win! 

 It's time for another giveaway (and sale). Spread the love and enter to win a $10 gift card for Teachers Pay Teachers plus resources from Education with DocRunning.

Giveaway details:

1. $10 TPT gift card + $20 in Education with DocRunning resources of your choice
2. $20 in Education with DocRunning resources of your choice
3. $10 in Education with DocRunning resources of your choice

Complete the google form by February 5, 2020, 11:59pm for your chance to win.  Good Luck!

This year marks my first year teaching Calculus.  I am excited!  As a student my love for math was reignited in Calculus teacher.  My teacher was a quiet man, Mr. G., who had classical music playing in between classes.  Thinking back on it now, it was a very clever way to help us all calm down and focus when we arrived.  He had high expectations, a consistent style and was generous in taking time to explain concepts.  Taking on Calculus this year, I can only aspire to teach it as well as he did.  This is the first of several blog posts on the joys, challenges and failures of the journey in my Calculus class. 

Day 1: Jump in feet first!