So, I missed getting my weekly post out. Definitely not like me, but I have my excuses; I mean reasons. Don’t we all? I actually just had my second foot surgery; no worries though. And of course, we have a pandemic. Which means that now we are pivoting to what it means to teach and learn outside of the classroom. I thought I’d share remote teaching tips this week.
We are all scrambling to do our best to meet the needs of our students. We are trying to figure out how to teach remotely while learning new tools. While anxiety and fear is not new to us educators, it is certainly ramped up right now. Where before we may have had a fear of failure and anxiety about a great deal of things in the classroom ~ not nailing the perfect lesson, worrying about how to best meet the needs of all of our students, letting down a parent or https://vr2ltch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/PK-Coding-Schedule-1.pngistrator; these emotions have transferred to other things.
This post is not to share more tools to help you teach online or more free things. I don’t know about you, but I am totally overwhelmed by all of that. Instead, seeing as how many of us (and I daresay pretty soon all of us) are teaching from home, I think it makes more sense to think about how to do that the absolute best way we can.
I am sure that your school and district have provided some guidelines of what this looks like. I am also sure those guidelines are more focused on what that looks like in terms of taking care of our families and students while meeting our contractual obligations. Let me be clear. There is nothing wrong with that. Teaching is what we do. Yet, it is also important to know how to teach from home successfully and take care of ourselves.
Like me, you probably know at least one person who works from home. My friends and family who do this had home childcare when their children were quite small, and have older children who were at school full time.
Teaching from home during a pandemic, when you probably have children of your own who need to engage in distance in learning or other family members at home who are also managing remote work, is slightly different. I know, because I have been a remote employee who worked both in my home and traveled during my child’s infancy.
Create a SCHEDULE for yourself that is as close to your typical school day as possible. Routine is crucial for our mental health. Within that, have a PLAN for what you will accomplish each day: videos to make, students & families to check-in with, what student work to review, etc.
Anyone who works from home will tell you to have a designated work space and make it as comfortable as possible. One of my friends and colleagues turned her spare room into a mini classroom. I saw another colleague transform her garage into a teaching space. I will be using my basement and deck on nice days.
Turn off notifications during your scheduled teaching & planning time. Keep opened tabs to a minimum; if needed have one browser open with planned work items only. Add into your schedule when you will check emails, students work, and engage with students and families otherwise you can get easily distracted.
Determine when you are the most productive. Personally, I am a wake up early and tackle the world kind of person. Also consider when you are most likely to have the least amount of human distractions in your home. When my child was an infant, that was during nap time. Now that he is a bit older and a smidge more independent, It is pretty much any time before 2 or 3 pm.
Working on a computer or device means that your eyes will be exposed to a lot of blue light. My newest prescription (gradual bifocals because I am *gasp* aging) has this built in. Other ways include applying a screen filter to your device and to employ the 20-20-20 rule of looking at something for 20 seconds 20 feet away every 20 minutes (www.bettervisionguide.com)
Continue your regular sleep schedule to stay as balanced as possible. It can be tempting to stay up late and sleep in, but altering your schedule like this can impact your immune system.
Also maintain your workout routine, and if possible increase it! Now that you don’t have to travel to work, build in quick 10 minute walks throughout the day to mimic the mobility you typically have throughout the school day.
It can be tempting to eat more or less while working from home. If you have better eating habits while working; having a schedule that mimics your typical work day will help with this. If you eat better while at home, then take advantage of this and build it into your schedule. Whatever you do, make sure you are eating and eating as many healthy foods as possible.
Dress to impress. Yourself. When you look good, you feel good. Put on some comfy but nice looking clothes and keep up your work hair and makeup look to feel good about yourself.
Be social. I really like what Olivia (aka LivBits) said about this. In reality, we are physical distancing, not social distance. We can still be social even if we are not physically near others. So, connect with your colleagues. My colleague and I are planning to connect each week and figuring out where we can team teach to our different schools. Connect with family. Isn’t this a great opportunity to have lunch with the people in your home? Make time in your day to check in with students & their families, but also your own friends and families!
I have mentioned this a bit above. Schedule time away from the screen.
Lastly, ENJOY THE FLEXIBILITY. While many of us are working a typical work day, we have some flexibility about how we spend that day. Keep that in mind as you develop your schedule.
In addition to that, while watching a FREE webinar this morning on www.leadingequitycenter.com that my friend shared, I was reminded of how we will not be dealing with discipline and transitions like we typically do during the school day. We can do an uninterrupted minute lesson. I found their estimate of how much time we actually spend on discipline and transitions to be astounding, but probably accurate. I have shared that webinar and other resources in this Wakelet.
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll share some virtual lessons that I’ll be doing with my own PreK – 5 students. That is, after I initially revisit our awesome resources that they can access. So stay tuned. If you haven’t signed up for notifications about new blog posts yet; be sure to subscribe by email to the right ➡️.
