School has been back in a month for me already. As I go back a lot earlier than many of you I thought I would share my best advice and reflections on the first month of “real” distance teaching. The one where we grade and hold students more accountable 🙂 In a nutshell, I do have words of hope. they are … “It gets easier!” The first month has taken so much time and emotional energy, but the students and parents and I are finding our way. My best advice is to extend a lot of grace to yourself and others. Assume the best intentions. Remember that we all have the same goal – a successful school year for these students. Many parents are really struggling. Be there for them. I spend more of my “office hours” helping out parents than students, but I know that it’s an investment that will pay off in the long run.
I put together a quick video using one of my new favorite and free tools, Loom. I’ll be honest. The audio is bad, the Bitmoji’s didn’t share. It’s hardly professional quality. And I’m OK with that. As I often advocate, will putting another hour’s work into something significantly improve student outcomes? In this case, no. The result would be I won’t have time to make it “perfect” for at least another week, and then it might not be relevant. So I’m posting it as is. If you approach it with an open mind, you can find something in there of value.
Here’s the link to my ugly video. 
Content over presentation on this one 😉
Hang in there and know that it gets better.
