Vocabulary is one of the Five Pillars of Literacy. A deep understanding of nuanced words is key for comprehension and spoken and written communication. Ensuring that students know the right words, that they learn them in a meaningful way, and that they can retrieve them when needed can be tricky and time-consuming for teachers.
Many teachers are unsure which words to teach. One of our favorite, teacher-friendly books on improving vocabulary is Bringing Words To Life, by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan. These authors introduced the concept of Tier 1, 2, and 3 vocabulary. They recommend emphasizing Tier 2 words–the words that add subtlety and nuance of meaning to a given text (e.g., melancholy, prudent, elaborate). These words are frequently encountered in literature and are often the “glue words” that hold concepts together in textbooks, as well. Tier Two words are often not overtly defined in those texts, and context clues about their meaning are often missing.
Strategies:
There are several strategies that can help students more effectively learn word meanings and word relationships. These strategies can apply to the classroom but can be equally effective in blended/flipped classrooms as well.
Index cards: One common strategy is asking students to write a word on the front and definition on the back of an index card. For Tier One words, (e.g., house), which tend to be more concrete, a definition and a single image are sufficient. However, for Tier Two words, especially ones that are more abstract (e.g., elaborate), it’s useful for students to prepare a slightly more detailed index card that includes three elements. 1) A student-friendly definition consisting of easily understood, familiar words. 2) Synonyms, antonyms, associated words, or even a personal example or experience with that particular word. 3) An image—students can draw or find three images online that show the meaning of the word in a variety of contexts. See below for a blank index card that can be copied for Tier Two words.
Word Webs: Word webs are very helpful for students to connect new words with known words. This anchors their understanding and helps them think more deeply as they are learning and storing new words, which in turn, increases the likelihood they will be able to retrieve them during oral and written tasks. Here are a couple of examples. The first web would be appropriate to ask students to complete if you have taught six emotion words and want them to arrange the words according to whether they are negative or positive emotions. The second is a completed web to show how direction words could be arranged so that students can more easily retrieve them according to their meaning.
Incorporate visuals: Visual support can benefit students when learning new vocabulary, not only when we talk about words and define them, but also when we link new words with known words. We have found that many students, when asked to associate a single picture with a concept, either over- or under-generalize their understanding of the concept when they use the single visual as a mnemonic device.
Semantic Reasoning: We have found that Semantic Reasoning—a process that asks students to infer the overall meaning of words by giving them multiple contexts and examples rather than a definition up-front—works well for students when learning Tier Two words. This step-by-step guide in Workbench will help teachers create their own Semantic Reasoning lessons.
Integrate technology: Consider integrating tech tools such as Quizlet or Study Stack into vocabulary study. When using these tools, students won’t lose their vocabulary cards and words since they are stored permanently in their account until they delete them—the words they learned in September are still available for review for midterms in January. Moreover, these tools allow users to add pictures for each word and print the cards out. Teachers can share word lists with their students, and students can create groups with other students in their class to collaborate.
Conclusion
As we guide students to more deeply comprehend, store, and retrieve Tier Two vocabulary, they will comprehend what they read and hear better, and they will more readily use sophisticated words in their oral and written communication. We have seen student scores increase on annual assessments, but more importantly, through use of these strategies, teachers share that students are excited to engage in learning.
Beth Lawrence is a speech-language pathologist with 20+ years of experience. She specializes in literacy and works closely with English Language Arts teachers. Beth has been a contributing author in Dr. Kathy Ganske’s Word Sorts & More and Mindful of Words books. She and Deena Seifert authored the norm-referenced Test of Semantic Reasoning, and created InferCabulary, the web-based, K12 application that uses Semantic Reasoning to teach thousands of important vocabulary words associated with categories and literature. They are popular presenters at language and literacy conferences and provide professional development around the country.
The COVID-19 school closures have caused many parents and caregivers to wonder whether their children have fallen behind in learning, and how they might catch up. To support these families, PBLWorks has created a free eBook with ideas and resources designed to help parents re-engage their children in learning throughout the summer.
“This Teachable Moment,” authored by PBLWorks CEO Bob Lenz and Curriculum and Program Manager Laureen Adams, provides an intro to Project Based Learning and features 21 “follow-the-recipe” PBL projects informed by educational research and designed for children of all ages and abilities. Using the projects as a roadmap, parents can create a simple summer routine that engages children and keeps their curiosity and love of learning alive.
To help parents get started, PBLWorks is offering two free 45-minute webinars with the authors to discuss how to kick off the projects at home. Participants can choose from one of two sessions:
Wednesday, 11 a.m. Pacific Time on June 23, 2020 Thursday, 2 p.m. Pacific Time on June 24, 2020
“Many teachers already know that Project Based Learning is a powerful educational approach to keeping students engaged in their learning,” said Lenz. “Now, we’re bringing these same ideas directly to families. This eBook is much more than a reading list, a workbook, or an online tutoring program. The projects inside will engage kids because the work they’re doing is interesting, meaningful, and fun.”
Projects are organized into three categories — “Me, My Family, My Home,” “Our Community,” and “The World” — and are designed to help kids flex the intellectual muscles that have been sitting dormant for the last few months. Example projects include: creating a cooking show focused on family recipes and the history behind them, enlisting the community in protecting the local environment for the future, or brainstorming a whole new reality–a world that supports the dreams they have for their lives.
The projects are laid out step-by-step so children can do them independently or with a small amount of supervision. Each project also includes recommended adjustments for different grade levels.
Señor Wooly is offering teachers two weeks of free access to its premium online platform for Spanish language learning. The offer applies to new, expired, and existing users and is not limited to those who have been affected by school closures. The company is also offering free one-hour training webinars on how to use its platform, as well as multi-week lesson plans. No credit card required and no auto-renewal.
To learn more about Señor Wooly or to register for two weeks of free access, click here.
Señor Wooly teaches students Spanish through story-based music videos. It is geared toward middle and high school students and can be incorporated into existing Spanish curriculum. The platform utilizes input-based and differentiated curriculum and offers more than 50 types of activities. It allows teachers to create and track assignments and uses a gamified leveling system.
DAN ALPERT: In Breaking Down the Wall, you underscore the problem of tracking English learners into lower-level courses in which “they experience a curriculum that remediates, rather than accelerates.” What are the most effective ways to combat this tendency at both the school and classroom levels?
TONYA WARD SINGER: It begins with mindsets. Beliefs shape program design, and beliefs shape instruction. A strong district-wide approach to accelerating learning of English learners (ELs) begins with a shared belief that being multilingual is an asset and students designated as “EL” are as capable of intellectual rigor and learning as any student.
A default mindset, inherited from a long history of systemic racism and white supremacy, is to see multilingual students through a deficit lens. Even when educators consciously reject this idea, it takes work to move the collective culture of an entire organization from one that marginalizes ELs to “serve” them to one in which all teachers and leaders share agency to transform teaching for more equitable schools.
Designing the right supports at the classroom or school level comes down to a critical question: When an English learner struggles, do we only blame or refer? Or do we also reflect and adapt our own teaching? We must collaborate across silos to break down the structures that make inappropriate referrals and marginalization of ELs the default instructional plan. All school leaders must build a culture in which all share agency to make courageous shifts in teaching, look humbly at data, and reflect to continuously improve for more equitable schools.
DAN ALPERT: Harnessing the benefits of teacher collaboration is an overarching theme of Breaking Down the Wall. What are some ways in which teacher collaboration can help shift mindsets and raise expectations for English learners to shift from watering down to challenging them?
DIANE STAEHR FENNER: We need to begin with a deep examination of mindsets, as Tonya mentioned. Courageous collaboration, which is built upon a framework of humility, curiosity, and openness to keeping the focus on our students, is a key necessity in order to shift educators’ mindsets and raise expectations for English learners. Collaboration is the foundation that must be present to shift from watering down to challenging ELs. Our vision from watering down to challenging consists of three key components: (1) shifting all educators’ mindsets so that they operate from an assets-based perspective and set high and attainable expectations for ELs, (2) positioning ELs for success by creating programs and schedules that facilitate ELs’ access to challenging content, and (3) ensuring all teachers use (and lose) scaffolds strategically to appropriately support and challenge ELs.
Our vision first asks teachers as well as administrators to operate from an assets-based perspective of ELs and set high expectations for ELs. Further, it falls on all educators to shift the narrative from falling into the deficit think trap of noting the challenges ELs may bring to instead beginning with a sense of their students’ abundant strengths and abilities. Our vision of an assets-based mindset as the basis for all EL learning cannot come to fruition without courageous collaboration, which must be prioritized, supported, and modeled by administrators. School leaders must ensure that time, space, and structure are built into the regular school routine so that this collaboration can take place.
In addition to a shifting mindset that ensures a focus on assets of and high expectations for ELs, purposeful, informed programming and scheduling must be in place for ELs to thrive and their teachers to draw from their own full professional expertise and strengths. Our vision for program design is one in which schools and districts think strategically and engage their creativity to determine how they provide ELs language support services and also how they schedule ELs within those programs.
We envision program design and scheduling being a collaborative, inclusive process so that voices of diverse students, families, teachers, support staff, and administrators are all heard and all of these stakeholders are at the table when these important decisions are made. In particular, teachers know their students best academically and social-emotionally and are aware of what types of scenarios will best benefit ELs at different levels of proficiency.
DAN ALPERT: How can content teachers gauge when to introduce and remove scaffolds that help students build concepts, skills, and language?
TONYA WARD SINGER: This is such an important question. One of the great challenges of scaffolding is figuring out when to choose and when to lose scaffolds. It’s a humbling process because what’s the “just right” level of scaffolding changes by student, by lesson, by day and week. We have to be nimble and willing to adapt based on what we see.
So my first recommendation to teachers and administrators is to treat effective scaffolding as a process, not a product. The verbs of teacher reflection and action (expect, value, engage, observe, support, reflect) are more important than the nouns of the specific strategies. A sentence frame, for example, is a great support to help students get started in speaking and writing, or to use new vocabulary and language structures in their oral communication. The sentence frame is a noun. Sometimes it will advance student thinking, participation, and language use. Sometimes it will hold students back.
“How do we find the ‘just right’ level of scaffolding?” is a question that merits more space than this short article and is a core question to keep asking through continuous, collaborative inquiry about impact. In a nutshell, effective scaffolding centers on having clarity about our goals and actively engaging and observing our students to build on assets and address ever-changing needs.
I recommend teachers use the “expect, engage, observe, support” sequence to gather in-lesson data about the optimal level of scaffolding. The purpose of this quick sequence is to gather formative data about student strengths, challenges, and motivations specific to our goals and then use that data to adjust our supports. Here’s a brief introduction to the steps:
1. Expect: Begin with clarity about what you want students to be able to do. What does success look like? What language is needed for success?
2. Engage: Structure a task that allows students to attempt success with the goal(s). Err on the side of under-scaffolding so your students have an opportunity for self-direction, problem solving, and/or meaning making.
3. Observe: Listen and watch as students engage, with a focus on learning the assets they bring to this task and supports they may need. Notice thinking and language use. Notice participation with a lens for equity: who is engaging, who is not?
4. Support: Use the data you just gathered to both adjust your supports in this lesson and inform your next steps of instruction to help students thrive with these specific goals. Are more supports needed for content or language success? What strengths can you build on in next steps of instruction? What variations in supports are needed to address diverse needs across the classroom?
Effective scaffolding can be a bit of a messy process involving some trial and error. We expect excellence from every emergent bilingual student, we create the conditions for students to actively engage, and we pay attention to their strengths and needs in each moment of learning. We choose and lose scaffolds based on what we see to build on their assets and help them succeed with increasing levels of self-direction, content, and language success.
DAN ALPERT: At a time in which “sheltering in place” has become our new normal, what are some effective scaffolds that lend themselves to distance-learning delivery so we can help ensure ELs have access to appropriately challenging content?
DIANE STAEHR FENNER: We’ve all been quickly gearing up with the unexpected shift to distance learning and have been figuring out through trial and error what has been working with ELs within this construct. We have to first keep in mind that many students lack access to technology, some have parents who struggle with supporting their distance-learning endeavors, and many students have responsibilities beyond their schoolwork, not to mention a great deal of trauma in their lives.
That said, a few things to keep in mind when designing distance learning for ELs include knowing your ELs and their contexts at home, ensuring that any activity packets provided are created with ELs in mind and are culturally responsive, and scaffolding distance-learning tasks for ELs as a priority.
Some scaffolding examples of content provided through online distance learning include offering home-language support, audio and/or video instructions for students’ tasks in English and/or the home language, a brief video in English and/or the home language to build background knowledge, and sentence frames.
TONYA WARD SINGER: I agree on Diane’s important points. I’ll add that in these challenging times we all must understand the impacts of trauma on our own bodies and brains, and the importance of cultivating a feeling of safety and connection in our school communities. This crisis is impacting all of us, but not in the same ways.
At the time I write this, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people are disproportionately dying, and disproportionately losing work. Seek to understand more about how this crisis is impacting families in your school community and what students need to navigate the stressors and know they are safe in health, food, and housing.
Human brains are designed to put safety first, which means that when the amygdala triggers a fight-or-flight response, we react to survive but find it incredibly difficult (and irrelevant) to engage our prefrontal cortex in intellectually challenging work. To truly create equitable learning opportunities in this time, we must be trauma-informed and responsive to social-emotional needs for safety, connection, and resilience.
Tonya and Diane are coauthors of Breaking Down the Wall: Essential Shifts for English Learners’ Success (Corwin, 2019).
Tonya Ward Singer is an international consultant whose books and professional learning help K–12 educators transform teaching for equity and multilingual learner achievement. Connect with Tonya on Twitter @TonyaWardSinger or via her website, www.tonyasinger.com.
Diane Staehr Fenner, PhD, is the president of SupportEd, a woman-owned small business based in the Washington, DC, region that provides EL professional development and technical assistance to schools, districts, states, and the U.S. Department of Education. Connect with Diane on Twitter @DStaehrFenner or via her company website, www.GetSupportEd.net.
Dan Alpert is publisher and program director for equity and professional learning at Corwin.
View From Watering Down to Challenging: Breaking Down the Wall, One Essential Shift at a Time here
View From Monolingualism to Multilingualism: Breaking Down the Wall One Essential Shift at a Time here
View From Deficit-Based to Assets-Based: Breaking Down the Wall One Essential Shift at a Time here
View Breaking Down the Wall: The Other Side of Language Education here
While no one was prepared for the pandemic shuttering of physical school buildings, K–12 teachers of less commonly taught languages were perhaps the most accustomed to having to find community beyond school walls. Unlike with other subjects taught in schools, there may not be an Arabic teacher in the same building, school system, or even the same county. It has therefore been no surprise that the network of Arabic Teacher Councils throughout the U.S. has not only stepped up to provide invaluable support to Arabic educators during this unprecedented time but also banded together more broadly to form a robust online network of support, training, and perhaps most importantly, community.
Qatar Foundation International (QFI) currently supports Arabic Teacher Councils in New York, Chicago, Detroit, New England, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. Starting last year, our network of teacher councils expanded to include several Arabic Teacher Councils in the UK and Germany following several years of QFI’s work to support teachers and schools there. After Arabic educators from the UK and Germany attended the ACTFL convention and met other teachers from the U.S. who shared how their teacher councils operate, they asked for opportunities to establish networks of their own. During “normal” operations, each council organizes activities throughout the school year, including conducting outreach to current and prospective teachers of Arabic, holding meetings and conducting workshops, arranging professional development events, organizing local mentoring systems, and sending out newsletters, as well as building collaborative relationships between schools and other organizations, organizing events to educate the community about Arab culture and language, organizing events for students of Arabic, and developing shared libraries of resources and materials. Because of the decentralized nature of education in the U.S., some regional teacher councils have also developed ways to help teachers navigate the certification process and take advantage of programs to help teachers meet continuing education credit requirements.
QFI began working with U.S. public and public charter schools when it was founded in 2009 and quickly found that teachers longed for a community to share ideas, challenges, and best practices with each other. Given the geographic spread of Arabic programs in K–12 schools across the country, local professional development opportunities specific to the teaching of Arabic were few and far between. The Arabic Teacher Council program started in 2012, providing support to self-directed organizations through universities, schools, or educational organizations. This took form through working closely with Arabic teachers nationwide to provide relevant programming and opportunities such as workshops, seminars, and events to engage their students and communities. The professional development opportunities that teacher councils provide have always been open to educators from all schools and levels, allowing teachers to learn from each other’s experiences and also serve as a gateway to professional opportunities and development. Involving Arabic instructors from K–12 and higher education also allowed for natural conversations and opportunities to break down the barriers between secondary and higher education language education, which enhanced the pipeline of students continuing Arabic in college. Teachers have traditionally loved their involvement with teacher councils because it allows them to form close bonds with other teachers in their general regions and networks. A natural result of the teacher councils aside from the support and relationships is the opportunity to collaborate, build new skills, develop curriculum, and share innovative teaching approaches.
As the pandemic bore down on the global community this spring, the network of Arabic Teacher Councils mobilized. At first, like so many of us who had planned events, conferences, and workshops this spring, Arabic Teacher Councils found themselves trying to pivot to hold professional development events in a virtual format. QFI began checking in with our grantees and community as we all regrouped from home, and perhaps not surprisingly we started hearing common themes from all our teacher council partners. Everyone was motivated to provide as much support as possible to the teachers, schools, families, and students who found themselves suddenly thrown into a new normal. They not only wanted to draw on their individual teacher council experiences and expertise to provide this support but also looked to each other for inspiration and coordination.
After making it through those initial few weeks of rescheduling and reworking previously planned events, QFI gathered the leaders of the Arabic Teacher Councils for a (virtual) meeting to discuss ways that we could collectively expand our outreach and support to teachers. The teacher council leaders traditionally gather once a year at the annual ACTFL convention as both a family reunion and a chance to share accomplishments and tackle larger topics and challenges in teaching the Arabic language. Similar to so many of us who have taken the sudden time at home to reconnect with friends or networks that may have been neglected through the busy nature of 21st-century life, it didn’t take long for the teacher council group to say, “why haven’t we done this more often?” The group quickly decided to coordinate online workshops and panels to cross-promote as many opportunities for teachers as possible to extend the traditional regional offerings to everyone. The anxiety of the pandemic and the uncertainties facing us all quickly transformed into action, ideas, and plans.
From those initial planning meetings came a truly robust set of online workshops for Arabic teachers across the U.S., UK, and Germany (for any of our intrepid U.S./UK-based Arabic instructors who also happen to speak German!). These remote teacher council workshops have included “Synchronous Learning: Getting Started with Zoom,” “Collaboration through Google Classroom,” “Designing Tasks for Final Assessments,” “How to Design an Engaging Conference Proposal,” and “The Student-Centered Arabic Classroom.”
The New York Arabic Teacher Council webinar on April 29, “Teaching Arabic through Stories,” reached teachers from six different countries, 17 states, and 52 different schools or organizations. And while our teacher councils are designed to particularly support Arabic teachers in K–12 schools, this webinar attracted 25 attendees from colleges/universities, in addition to over 40 educators from preschool through high school. Another session hosted by the Southern California Arabic Teacher Council was “Language Assessment in Distance Learning,” focusing on performance- or product-based tasks, as well as technology tools that teachers could use to facilitate learning and assessment according to the needs of different age groups. Workshops were open to Arabic teachers across the world (time zones permitting), and they were offered for free.
Trying to recreate workshops in a virtual environment is far from perfect, of course. Satisfying time zones, finding time amid school and homeschool responsibilities, and everything else putting pressure on educators during this unprecedented time make it nearly impossible. It is also a difficult balance to know whether to focus solely on professional development to help teachers trying to teach online or to also provide topics that allow teachers to think (hope! dream! plan!) for the day that we are all back in classrooms working with students in person again.
Another challenge that networks face in providing professional development for teachers across multiple districts, states, and countries is that every school system has approached learning and teaching during COVID-19 closures differently. But regardless of the format of lessons, teachers in the teacher councils are constantly learning and sharing methods, resources, and tips for keeping students engaged, supported, and connected.
While none of us quite knows what the next year will look like, and as some areas of the country and world reopen while others remain locked down, one thing we know perhaps now more than ever is that an amazingly resilient and supportive group of Arabic language educators continue to be there for one another and for the collective professional advancement of the teaching of Arabic worldwide, no matter where they are located. And for this, QFI remains grateful and inspired to continually improve and learn from our community of educators.
Julia Phelan Sylla is the director of programs at Qatar Foundation International (QFI) in Washington, DC.
Victoria will soon be home to more French-medium schools
After a ten-year battle, Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that the province of British Columbia has failed in its responsibility to provide equal access to minority language education by underfunding its only French-language school board.
In a 7-2 decision with implications nationwide, the country’s highest court found that the British Columbian government had violated Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees education in one of Canada’s two official languages, and awarded , the Conseil scolaire francophone (CSF) de la Colombie-Britannique CAN$6 million in damages for underfunding its school bus transportation system and CAN$1.1 million for operations.
In the ruling, Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote, “The fair and rational allocation of limited public funds represents the daily business of government. The mission of a government is to manage a limited budget in order to address needs that are, for their part, unlimited. This is accordingly no pressing and substantial objective here that can justify an infringement of rights and freedoms. Treating this role as such an objective would lead society down a slippery slope and would risk watering down the scope of the charter.”
The case revolved around a claim by some parents and the school board that the provincial government denied their charter rights by systematically underfunding French-language schools, in particular their transport which impeded access to them.
“The Court has the opportunity to clarify what is meant by real equivalence. There is legal vagueness on how to apply section 23 [on minority language education] of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and much discussion and disagreement as to, for example, whether a certain number of students justifies or not to have a gymnasium, a science laboratory… The judgment of tomorrow can allow governments and school boards to settle their disputes more quickly,” explained CSF attorney Mark Power to ONFR+, a francophone media outlet, before the decision.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented that he thought “the Supreme Court decision was good news for minority-language communities right across the country who’ve long felt that they haven’t been receiving the right level of services from their provincial governments.”
“We now hope that the provincial governments will step up further in areas that are their exclusive jurisdictions, like education and certain services for minority-language communities. As a federal government, we will always stand ready to support and help minority-language communities across this country.” Trudeau concluded.
To comply with the ruling, new French-medium schools will need to be founded in British Columbia, where over 60,000 speak French as their primary language, according to 2016 data— up 21% since 2006.
The Canadian constitution guarantees the right to publicly funded K-12 English education in Québec, and publicly funded K-12 French-language education elsewhere in Canada wherever there are enough people who want it.
K12, Inc. announced that it is providing more than 150 summer courses to students across the country. The company’s summer programs will give new and returning students the opportunity to experience a ready-built online learning platform as they look forward to the school year ahead.
“This summer in particular, parents are eager to find exciting, meaningful ways to keep their students engaged and keep them excited about learning,” said Kevin P. Chavous, K12’s President of Academics, Policy, and Schools. “Our personalized approach to summer programming helps ensure that students invest in their own academic growth and reach their full potential along the way.”
K12’s summer offerings feature a variety of programs and enrichment activities for returning and newly-enrolled students in online public schools supported by K12. One program, Brain Boost, offers an interactive learning experience designed to help students hone their creative skills and master core subject matter. As part of Brain Boost, new and returning students will have access to thousands of eBooks in both English and Spanish through Big Universe, and to Stride, an online, adaptive game-based learning platform for math, reading, and English language arts.
Through content provided by Roadtrip Nation, high school students can explore different career paths in growing and in-demand fields. Additionally, through The Keystone School, high schoolers can get a jumpstart on graduation requirements by enrolling in tuition-free summer elective courses covering topics such as health, personal finance, and art appreciation.
In addition to the Brain Boost and Keystone opportunities, K12 offers a summer school catalogue designed to help keep students’ minds engaged during the summer. Courses allow eligible students to earn supplementary credit through core, credit recovery, and elective courses.
Enrollment in summer school has already started in some states. For more information and to review a list of schools by state, please visit https://www.k12courses.com/summer-school.html.
Catapult Learning announced the launch of its new Virtual Summer Journey program. The K-12 Virtual Summer Journey offers educational opportunities and activities designed to prepare students for success in the fall by reinforcing foundational skills that have been lost due to disrupted learning time.
In light of COVID-19’s impact on in-person learning, the company expanded its summer solutions offerings to include a virtual summer school program. Designed to deliver a turnkey solution that’s easy for school districts to implement, flexible for families, and fun for kids, the Virtual Summer Journey aims to help students keep pace academically and can accommodate varying levels of access to technology.
As part of the program, Catapult Learning provides the teachers, materials, and training to run a summer program for students. The Virtual Summer Journey program offers options that combine instruction in literacy and math with project-based learning and other activities designed to keep students engaged.
“Given the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this year could bring a significantly greater summer slide than ever before, especially for students who are already struggling,” said Steve Quattrociocchi, president of Catapult Learning. “It was important we offer a comprehensive suite of solutions that can be tailored to the unique needs of schools, districts, and families across the country to ensure learning continues during summer break. Our Virtual Summer Journey program is designed to sharpen skills and reduce summer learning loss from home.”
Virtual Summer Journey includes enrichment activities designed to help students have fun and remain active participants. Activities vary based on grade-level and may include STEM-based projects, interactive, virtual field trips or online coding and robotics. Additional features, like counseling, teacher one-on-one check-ins, and social emotional learning are available to students and their families.
“Incorporating enrichment and other activities that allow for family engagement was important to our team as we developed the virtual program,” said Devon Wible, vice president of academics, Catapult Learning. “We want students learning, but we also want them engaged in meaningful ways without constant screen time.”
Discovery Education announced the launch of its new Summer of Learning initiative. Designed for all learners, the Summer of Learning initiative features a collection of grab-and-go lessons and at-home student activities, as well as on-demand professional development for educators.
Users of Discovery Education’s digital services can find this new content here.
The Summer of Learning resources designed to support students’ continued engagement in learning include:
Student Learning Activities – Self-contained lesson activities for student exploration in a variety of subjects
Virtual Field Trips – These resources take students outside and into some of the world’s most iconic locations
Behind the Scenes Museum Visits – Young students can access famous art pieces from around the world with One Minute in a Museum, and older students can visit some of world’s most renowned museums with Janson Media’s Museum Access
Audiobooks – A library of classic children’s stories and fairy tales, from science fiction and famous poetry like Edgar Allan Poe to Goosebumps and the Hunger Games series
Podcasts – The short podcasts included in the Summer of Learning initiative are designed to help students build listening comprehension skills as they learn about important topics ranging from technology to history to art
Learning at Home Channel – A collection of at-home resources designed to help students follow their interests, sharpen skills, and have fun
Among the professional learning resources and supports for teachers and school leaders included in the Summer of Learning are:
Professionals Learning NOW – A series of professional learning opportunities for educators that are designed to be short, convenient, and relevant to remote learning
Instructional Inspiration – A curated selection of over 1,000 grab-and-go lesson activities
SOS Instructional Strategies – A compendium of research-based strategies for integrating Discovery Education’s digital curriculum resources into instruction
Events – A series of special events including the Equity Talks Series, which features the nation’s top education leaders discussing how to ensure underserved students are given the opportunity to succeed
Instructional Leaders Channel – Resources for school leaders designed to be inspirational and empowering
Discovery Education will continue adding new resources to the Summer of Learning in the coming weeks.
“Since our initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Discovery Education has sought to keep students and teachers connected to the resources and professional learning they need to maintain the continuity of learning,” said Scott Kinney, Discovery Education’s President of K-12 Education. “Our new Summer of Learning initiative continues this effort by providing students and teachers the digital resources they need to prepare for success in the coming school year and beyond.”
For more information about Discovery Education’s digital resources and professional learning services, visit www.discoveryeducation.com.
The current surge in distance learning will have long-term effects on education worldwide as districts implement and manage more digital transformation in school administration and curriculum.
Because of technology’s influence on careers of the future, 21st century education requires powerful and flexible solutions of blended learning. This means combining digital materials and online interactions with traditional classroom teaching methods. The current environment of temporary, widespread school closings has accelerated unprecedented demand in digital schooling. The remote learning solutions that are being implemented this year have the potential for lasting, positive impact on student learning.
We’re seeing that schools that are using the tools they already had—some were already having regular “digital days”— are adapting well, but many schools and students are in difficulty with a lack of connectivity, devices, and experience.
Here are some tips for all remote teaching situations: Setting Expectations There is nothing more important in a remote teaching and learning environment than ongoing communication with both students and their parents. Teachers should clearly outline the volume of work, any important deadlines, how students can get tech help and what role parents should play in the virtual classroom.
Lesson Planning When lesson planning, it’s best to keep it simple for online learning, providing compelling content and experiences instead of large volumes of work. For younger students, it’s important to use repeated formats and solid routines, as well as provide video tutorials as necessary.
Implementation Teachers have already established a learning community with their students and this is just a virtual continuation of that community. To keep students engaged, consider posting weekly challenges to keep their attention and to encourage them to interact with their classmates with this new format. These challenges can be in the form of Show and Tell or discussions of what they might be finding most challenging about remote learning.
Resources for Multilingual Learners From simple-to-use online auto-translators to state-of-the-art virtual reality (VR) technology, there is an array of tools for English Language Learners (ELLs). VR offers a lot of potential to help ELLs learn to speak English, especially since it is proving so engaging. I’ve found that with my kids one of the big disappointments during this crisis has been missing out on field trips, but we’ve been really impressed with the VR field trips we’ve done. The immersive experience and opportunity to explore other cultures have great potential for ELLs. Teachers value the unbounded possibilities VR experiences bring to students when it is to easy-to-use and fully supported. Whether it’s taking a virtual field trip inside DNA strands to teach a unit on genetic engineering, or a guided tour of the Colosseum in Ancient Rome in history class, VR can offer a seamless journey for educators and students.
Rich Henderson is director of Global Education Solutions at Lenovo. Along with their partners LanSchool, Microsoft, and Google, Lenovo is sharing a Distance Collaboration and Learning Toolkit with the goal to make remote learning as seamless and engaging as possible for educators and students alike.
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