Covid 19 was a disruption. It showed us how everything can change overnight but it also showed us how we are resilient and creative. We live in a VUCA world – if you haven’t heard that term it is used to describe our world today… Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. That is our world and the world we are preparing our students.

If covid taught us one thing, it is to be prepared to teach in different modalities. I want to remind you of some spaces both virtual and in class that you might want to prepare and use daily. Here are some questions that you should be able to answer for your classroom:

COLLABORATION

• How are you preparing for collaboration?
• How are students collaborating both in person and online?
• What accommodations do you need to meet?
• How will your students use these collaboration stations daily?
• In what ways are you teaching students behaviors and attitudes that teach collaboration and teamwork norms?

DEMONSTRATION

• Do you have a space in class for you to have demonstrations?
• Are all students able to view demonstrations?
• Do you have an ability to record or prerecord demonstrations for playback?

DISCUSSION

• How are you promoting discussion in your classroom?
• How are you teaching norms for example conversation skills?

EXPERIENTIAL

• Do you have a place where students can make, explore and investigate?

EXPLICIT

• Where can students go for expert advice and information?

FEEDBACK & REFLECTION

• Are you using rubrics?
• Are students creating a portfolio?
• Are you giving back feedback in multitude of ways?

GUIDED

• Do you have a system where students can learn WITH an expert?

INDEPENDENT

• Do you have a system where students can learn or relearn independently?

These questions are good to think about when planning the school year. The technology that many of us have access to support student learning in so many ways.

Have you designed your class to make it work for your students?