Why are my students so silent and what can I do about it?!? How can we invite students to ask questions in ways that actually encourages them to think and inquire about topics they're curious about or need clarification on?

There is so much value in giving students the freedom to explore interesting questions and problems that they're passionate about. How do we do that during remote and hybrid instruction and how to we tamp down our own desires as teachers to have control of the situation. Plus, the value of getting outside and how students can learn while being outside in healthy environments.

Now that we've done it for a while, let's summarize the best practices we've learned about remote teaching.

We tend to glorify the concept of Rescue teaching or Hero teaching, influencing students through a sudden spectacular action, however learning and growth happen slowly and in small steps through prolonged effort and practice by the students and teacher. Biology and ELD teacher Adriana Lopez talks about the power of Incrementalism in teaching and how to constantly improve student learning by focusing on student improvement, especially during challenging pandemic conditions.

After 3 months of teaching remotely, what have we learned about what works and what doesn't? Physics and Chemistry teacher Rosa Herrera hops on again to talk about a few of the possible remote learning options and which elements work best for student engagement and learning. We also talk about how to balance in person and remote learning for a hybrid model (or pre-recorded/independent learning and videochat synchronous learning if we're stuck being all remote).

The Seed and Soil model has been used to explain why cancer spreads or doesn't in metastasis as well as why species are invasive or not in ecology. Adapting this model to education looks at how much students' internal characteristics (the seed) matters in relation to how much impact the educational system and teacher actions (the soil) have on student success. Physics and Chemistry Teacher Rosa Herrera discusses her own experience as a first generation student and teacher and how her personal characteristics have combined with systemic structures. We also talk about institutional racism and what we can do on an individual level to fight against it.

The term "Remote Learning" becomes suddenly relevant with first grade teacher Melissa Williams while we all practice social distancing, stay on quarantine, and try to avoid spreading coronavirus! Yikes! Let's make the best of this situation!

Biology Teacher Jen Carlomagno runs us through how to set up a lesson with consistency and structure and which classroom teaching strategies are best practice for building students' specific academic skills.

Health teacher and football coach Cory Boyd educates us on how health curriculum has been updated to meet students needs today and we debate whether football at the high school level is a good thing for kids.

How do we make Art relevant to real world applications and integrate it into other academic subjects? Art and Design teacher Eleni Katsaros discusses how to use art to complement other subjects and how she builds other academic skills into her art classes.

We open 2020 with an emphasis on student voice by talking with three students (Pricila, Mi'Zauni, and Ben) about what life's like today as a teenager. We get into both shallow and deep culture discussing music, tech and social media, memes and internet culture, language, fashion, vaping, issues that matter, and values that are important to our students and teenagers today. 

Science Teacher Virginia Vogl talks about teaching and assessing life skills in addition to content and how to help students develop the skills of Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, Work Ethic, Character, and Cultural Competence

Special Education Teacher Carrie Beth McCall explains the assessment and teaching system of Proficiency Based Education and how it benefits students by providing clear expectations and helps teachers to stop playing the "points game" and focus on student learning.

Chemistry teacher Virginia Vogl talks about using assessments to teach what matters and how to assess the things that you believe are most important and have your gradebook reflect that. This is part 1 of 3 of our Assessing What Matters series focusing on Content and content-oriented skills. Part 2 will be about Proficiency Based Education, and then part 3 will cover "soft" skills. 

Social Studies teacher Mike Spinrad details what professionalism looks like in the teaching profession and why it's so important. We then delve into how much politics is appropriate in the high school classroom and how to walk the fine line of encouraging student voice without inserting your own political opinions.

Physical Education teacher Ben Philpot advocates for his controversial opinion that PE is actually a real class where students should learn things and explains how PE has evolved to meet the needs of students.

Give Thanks with 1st grade teacher Melissa Williams for finding the balance between student socialization and academics. Melissa explains how redirection helps students make positive choices and how to give first graders ownership of their own science experiments.

Science Teacher Melissa Havel suggests ways to expand the classroom by getting outside with field studies and field trips, then we discuss how to maintain a healthy work/life balance and why interests outside of the classroom make you a better teacher. Finally, Melissa explains her year-long sabbatical cruising on a sailboat with her family.

Science teacher Virginia Vogl discusses the process of Project Based Learning and how to give students ownership of their own learning by solving real-world problems and implementing your solutions.

Assistant Principal Kathy Warren explains how school structures can support students and teachers and goes into detail on three school structures she’s implemented: Freshman Success Team, Learning Lounge, and Tutorial.