For well over a year, school shutdowns and sputtered reopenings have tested educators' resourcefulness and resolve. As the new school year begins, many are reflecting on small triumphs and lessons learned from that experience. One practice that proved central to many schools' resolve and resilience during this crisis was teachers' collaboration on…

Perhaps the greatest tragedy to come from COVID-related distance learning would be "not" learning from this experience to improve teaching when teachers and students physically return to classrooms. A robust discussion of the evidence of success during this pandemic school could be a major boost to the process of teaching and learning.…

It is well documented that young children need social Interaction, self-determination, and play to learn. But in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, how does that translate to online learning? Psychologist and professor Wendy Ostroff suggests strategies and tips for engaging our youngest learners remotely.

COVID-19 has turned schooling into a universal large-scale experiment. Education systems, schools, and classrooms have had to stop many old practices and invent new ones. These changes were difficult and undertaken in a period of social crisis. However, as teachers return to school this fall, it would be a great mistake to slip back into…

How can we reassure anxious students while teaching remotely--especially as educators, too, feel overwhelmed by stress and the need to educate kids while minimizing risk of infection by COVID? Minahan details concrete ways teachers can support and calm students with serious anxiety or trauma histories. She includes examples of "what to…

Two advocates of grading reform, Joe Feldman and Douglas Reeves, answer questions about how grading practices and policies could--or should--be influenced by the current pandemic, and by U.S. schools' switch to distance learning. They weigh in on how the K-12 grading landscape will differ this fall--with likely more clarity about learning gaps and…

Using the Teach to Lead process and drawing on their own study of how teachers can lift their social-emotional skills, three elementary teachers in Connecticut created a plan to work with fellow teachers to increase everyone's camaraderie and regularly problem solve together. When their school closed to in-place learning, they pivoted to find ways…

In "The Fifth Season," the Afro-futurist and speculative fiction writer N.K. Jemisin (2015) describes a world upended by massive climactic events that end typical seasonal cycles--introducing a fifth season of climatic emergency--and require a reorganization of society. As our planet Earth rapidly accelerates climatic change, educators…

Over the last few years, the workplace, like school itself, has experienced change in unanticipated and disruptive ways. Many trends, such as a growth in the leisure and hospitality industry, came to a screeching halt while others, such as the demand for remote work, gained momentum. One thing that has remained consistent is this: the world of…

When the pandemic took hold, the superintendent of Selma City Schools realized the strategic plan her district had in place wasn't enough. She shares the collective steps her team took to embrace change and rethink what school could look like from the ground up.