August 9, 2022 8:00 am

Sparking Connection with Online Students

Stephanie Reilly, the Teachers’ Lounge educator of the month, shares practical tips for creating a positive rapport with students in an asynchronous, fully online classroom.

I’ve been in my role as online learning coordinator for the Fox Chapel Area School District, located in suburban Pittsburgh, for three years and wanted to share some things that have worked for us. Our online students are either fully online or have a flex schedule, where they are in school for most classes and take an online class or two. The flex schedule allows the student to come into school late or leave early. Many students take advantage of this flexible schedule for sports, jobs, or just the amazing ability to sleep in and arrive at school two hours later.

High schooler studies on their bed with headphones

“Teddy Roosevelt had it right when he said people don’t care what you know until they know you care. Showing these fully online students that we care about them is the key.”

Stephanie Reilly

Each group of students has their unique challenges. The fully online students can be really challenging to reach. How can you connect with a student you only communicate with via email, especially since some students avoid email when they fall behind? Teddy Roosevelt had it right when he said people don’t care what you know until they know you care. Showing these fully online students that we care about them is the key.

Give “caught being good” notes

Catching kids doing something positive and emailing them or (even better) mailing home a note about it shows that we are watching their progress and we are on their side.

Send snail mail

Snail-mailing school resources and information home so the students know what’s going on at school and still feel part of our school community is helpful.

Invite them to campus

Inviting the fully online students to come in and join a club or attend a school meeting and facilitating that happening can encourage the student to get out of their house and get involved.

Respond to their schedule

Responding to their needs on their time schedule as an asynchronous student can go a long way to showing the student that this isn’t school as usual. If I can quickly log on and help move a student along who is stuck at night, I am glad to do it, and that student can keep working and making progress. Some students are really struggling with various issues, so removing obstacles helps show them that we want to help.

Make feedback meaningful

Providing meaningful feedback to their written submissions, even if it’s feedback about plagiarism, shows the student that it’s not just them and the computer, but there is a real live teacher at our school who’s reading their work and available for help.

Create a warm, optional workspace

We also encourage students who are struggling online to come into school and work in my room. My room isn’t a typical classroom, it’s a relaxed environment complete with a Keurig, snacks, beautiful view of landscaping, plants, seating choices, etc. working here helps the student remember that they are indeed still a full-time student and allows me and other teachers to get to know the student, their work habits, and their struggles, and to start to build the relationship. Once we get that relationship growing, the student will respond to my emails and will even initiate emails to me and other teachers when they need help. The power of a conversation over a cup of tea cannot be underestimated.

I’d love to hear from other teachers and administrators about how they reach fully online, asynchronous students. It’s a journey! Let’s talk about it in the Teachers’ Lounge.

About the Author — Stephanie Reilly

Stephanie is the online learning coordinator and online teacher at Fox Chapel Area High School. She currently teaches online physics, earth & space, and SAT prep.

Stephanie’s first career was as a mechanical engineer. She worked in the nuclear power and telecommunications fields for 12 years, then stayed home with her children for about 10 years. She then went back to school for her teaching certificate. She taught math, physics, and computer science for about seven years before moving into her current position.

August 8, 2022 8:00 am

Multilingual Learners: Designing for Meaningful Interaction

Empower language learners to participate in classroom discussions with opportunities for observation and an environment that welcomes mistakes.

My teaching assignment in my first year was primarily English language learners from newcomer to almost reclassified in both EL-specific and ELA classes. As an idealistic new teacher having just read all the books and soaked up all that my student teaching had to offer, I thought that if I supplied them with the words, via labels and sentence frames, my students would have what they needed to participate in the lively classroom discussions I envisioned. I quickly learned that was not the case.

The first time I asked my students an open-ended question, I was met with a silence so enduring that the touted “7-second pause” wasn’t nearly enough. Rewording my question didn’t change the response either. Perplexed and frustrated, I continued with our beginning-of-the-year activities. It wasn’t until later, when I had more success with eliciting answers, that I realized my students didn’t feel safe speaking up yet. That’s because research shows “if English language learners (ELLs) are going to productively engage in classroom discourse and express their thinking related to content learning goals, teachers must create a trusting classroom culture in which students feel that whatever level of language they can produce, their contributions will be valued by their teacher and peers and will never be subject to ridicule, sanctions, or negative comparisons.” While this research (and my experience) speaks to English language learners specifically, we can also apply the recommendations to dual language programs — where every student is a language learner.

“If English language learners (ELLs) are going to productively engage in classroom discourse and express their thinking related to content learning goals, teachers must create a trusting classroom culture in which students feel that whatever level of language they can produce, their contributions will be valued by their teacher and peers and will never be subject to ridicule, sanctions, or negative comparisons.”

Aída Walqui & Margaret Heritage

I hadn’t yet proven to them that our classroom met these criteria. It took many cheesy icebreakers, games, and showing time and time again that mistakes were a welcome part of learning to establish our room as a safe space. But despite the comfort we felt together and what I believed were thought-provoking questions, the room was still mostly silent (or off topic) during small-group academic discussions. What was I missing?

I decided to go back to the basics because it seemed logical that before they’re comfortable participating in academic discussions, students need to feel confident in basic communication in the classroom. I decided to try a few things.

Labeling the room

As a high school teacher, this felt a little weird to me. But I grabbed a permanent marker and index cards and labeled everything I could think of around the classroom. Whiteboard, computer, pencil sharpener – you name it, it got a label. At first, my students thought it was strange too, but then it just became part of our classroom.

The students who didn’t need them didn’t really pay attention to them after the initial wonderment, but I soon noticed students referencing the labels when asking me a question or talking to classmates. While primarily useful linguistically for my EL students, the mere existence of the labels continued my work of normalizing the various language acquisition levels within our class and maintaining an environment where anyone could get the help they needed without feeling embarrassed.

Supplying sentence frames – or “formulaic expressions”

The next level up from labeling the room, I started including what I called sentence frames with my discussion questions. Walqui and Heritage call these “formulaic expressions” because they “help start or link ideas and can be used in many situations,” whereas sentence frames are more specific and often lead to a single correct answer.

Where the labels around the room were used almost exclusively by ELs, I quickly noticed that most (if not all) of my students used the formulaic expressions. Academic discourse doesn’t come naturally, native English speaker or not, so having the language to frame their ideas helped students feel more confident. They could then use these phrases, like “One example from the text is…” or “I agree with what ____ said about…” in other classes or sometimes even their writing.

Turning on the closed captions

This might be controversial, but I think movies can be legitimate language-learning tools. Before I lose all ethos as you picture me popping on a movie for my students every day in the name of “learning,” this statement comes with two caveats: first, we watch movies sparingly (and not all in one sitting); second, the closed captions must be on – in English (or whichever language students are learning).

My newcomer students hated that last bit, but I never gave in to their pleas to change the language to Spanish (the majority native language in my class). While watching a movie in English was pretty far out of their comfort zones, being able to both hear and read the words not only improved their comprehension of the movie but helped supply them with real-life examples of conversation.

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At this point I felt like I had established a safe learning environment and provided my students with the language scaffolds they needed. So why were we still struggling with academic discussions? What was still missing?

Low-stakes opportunities for discussion

Even though we had a classroom culture where mistakes were welcomed and I reiterated that academic discussions should still feel like regular conversations, students naturally became nervous and stiff when it came time to discuss. EL students in particular would be noticeably more reserved.

Knowing that “by some estimates, ELLs spend less than 2 percent of their school day in oral interaction,” I was determined to get my students speaking. That’s when I started doing something almost painfully simple. After our daily independent reading time, I would say, “turn to your partner and tell them what’s happening in your book right now.” These casual conversations didn’t feel academic to students and got them speaking – to the point where I usually had to cut them off.

a group of students sitting around a table listening to the teacher

Modeling (fishbowl discussion)

To bring the level of comfort they showed when talking about their books to the more “high stakes” types of conversations, I turned to a tried-and-true method: modeling. I found, especially for language learners, that seeing and hearing a model almost always resulted in more plentiful and confident interactions. In fact, if I didn’t provide an example for an activity, they always asked for one.

So, to model a discussion, I wrote two scripts – one not-so-fruitful discussion and one more substantive. Student volunteers sat in the middle of the room and acted out each discussion, leaving time in between and afterwards to talk about the differences between the two. I was amazed at how observant the students were. Together, we listed what could improve in the first conversation and the qualities that made the second more effective.

Opportunities to evaluate (discussion tracking)

While the fishbowl model demonstrated that my students could identify the ideal characteristics of an academic discussion, it still had only minor effects on their own. That’s when I decided to turn their small-group discussions into mini fishbowls.

I created a small checklist of the effective discussion “moves” that we identified in our whole-group fishbowl activity – asking a question, incorporating evidence, etc.— plus formulaic expressions they might use. Everyone got a checklist, but only half the students were speaking participants in the discussions that day. The other half were sitting on the outside of the group, listening to one specific person and keeping track of their participation.

Having the opportunity to observe a real discussion before participating was equal parts eye-opening and comforting for my EL students. Then, they were able to follow along on the checklist with sentence starters when it was their turn to participate. Our classroom culture where students felt safe making mistakes was key as they were able to hold each other accountable for the checklist without judgment.

It certainly wasn’t perfect. At one point I even incorporated a whole-class fishbowl version of the discussion tracking so that we could go over the dos and don’ts of each role. But academic discussions, and ensuring everyone benefited from them, became another aspect of our classroom dynamic that was always a work in progress. Ultimately, increasing the amount of time ELs spend interacting in the classroom is not just about giving them a seat at the table with the tools they might need, but about ensuring that they know their voice is valued in the room. That is truly the key that unlocks all the other strategies because students must feel safe to take the necessary risks that open the door to learning.

About the Author – Ally Jones

Ally Jones is a California credentialed educator who specialized in teaching English language learners at the secondary level. Outside of education, she is passionate about fitness, literature, and taking care of the planet for her son’s generation.

August 5, 2022 8:00 am

How Admins Can Care for Teachers

Teachers face heavier workloads and low morale due to shortages and peers leaving, so we’ve compiled strategies for administrators challenged with caring for staff who have remained in the classroom.

We’ve all had that coworker who makes a tough job easier — a ‘foxhole buddy,’ if you will. You know that no matter what the day throws at you, at least they’ll understand. When they move on to other opportunities, you’re often left feeling abandoned and searching for new methods for getting through hard days.

With so many educators opting out these days, the remaining teachers face that awful ‘left behind’ feeling. Peer relationships are a big part of the educator experience, and when that social fabric is torn, individual and community morale takes a big hit. Leigh McLean, an assistant research professor at the Center for Research in Education & Social Policy at the University of Delaware, has found that having colleagues whom teachers can turn to for help boosts mental health, so it follows that when teammates depart (especially when due to burnout), it can weaken the wellness of those who are left.

Administrators are already tasked with filling vacancies and addressing staff-to-student ratios. While that’s essential to serving students, caring for their teachers’ frames of mind is also at the top of the ‘must’ list. So, what are some strategies for meeting this challenge?

Time Well Spent

I asked a retired principal who also taught for many years what she thought administrators could do to support the teachers who have stayed on the job. She considered for a moment, then said, “They should spend time with them, one-on-one if possible or in small groups by grade.”

While it may sound overly simple, she stressed that with administrators being pulled in so many directions, giving someone your time is a significant indicator of their value to you. Further, by spending time with individuals or small groups of teachers, administrators will gain better insight into their mindsets and struggles than they would in an all-staff meeting environment. “They’ll open up more,” she said, “it’s easier to be honest when you know someone is focused on you.”

One assistant principal explained that their success with supporting teachers came “not because we imposed what we imagined would serve them, but because we listened when they told us what they needed.” A healthy rapport and more clarity about teachers’ challenges will better position administrators to offer the necessary support.

“If teachers and students have access to counseling and other mental health support, that’s a heavy burden taken off their principals’ backs.”

Madeline Will and Denisa R. Superville

Time Well Spent

In an EdWeek special report, researchers found that despite stress being a major cause of educator exodus, “only a third of district and school leaders said they have made counselors or mental health services available to staff since the start of the pandemic or added to the mental health services already offered.”

That those services prevent burnout is reason enough to include them in a school community’s system, but the benefits extend beyond teachers: “Having structural supports for teacher mental health will ultimately benefit everyone in the school building, including school leaders. If teachers and students have access to counseling and other mental health support, that’s a heavy burden taken off their principals’ backs,” writes EdWeek’s Madeline Will and Denisa R. Superville

One tactic to implement such services is to use some of the school or district’s federal COVID-19 relief funds to establish programs for educators’ mental health. If professional counselors are hard to come by, administrators can take stock of the resources they have, improve systems to make employees aware of them, and ensure they’re available.

Peer-support programs can also help when professional counseling isn’t available. David Shapiro, the program manager for Health Links at CHWE, says educators can learn “how to be an ally or ‘askable’ adult for their colleague to get the support they need.” Turning to peer support when the problem is an exodus of peers may seem uncreative, but it can be a powerful response to peoples’ instinct to withdraw in times of stress.

A Little Flexibility Goes a Long Way

Here are a few more tactics for demonstrating support for teachers:

Look closely at traditional seasonal events and limit the obligation of the teachers — be prepared to get creative or to cut what isn’t contributing to the school community’s well-being. Just because something is a tradition doesn’t mean it’s effective.
Reallocate support staff to data collection tasks to better free up teachers for the more enjoyable aspects of teaching
Beware the temptation to overtry — don’t keep throwing new practices and theories at already stretched-thin teachers

No matter what, be patient with yourself and your colleagues. Everyone is adjusting to changes and challenges, and no single solution will be a cure-all. With time and intentional relationship-building, you can develop a system that inspires a sustainable love of learning for students and educators alike.

About the Author — Kallie Markle

Kallie Markle lives in Northern California with her family of humans, house plants, and dogs. The humans take up the least amount of space. Before joining the education world, she wrote her way through national parks, concerts, tourism, and brewing.

April 12, 2022 9:30 am

Beyond the Screen

In an increasingly virtual world, online instructors find ways to establish deep connections with students as they support them in reaching their goals.

A first grader tells the class about a tooth that she not only lost but swallowed; a fifth grader blossoms when she’s encouraged to incorporate her artwork in her assignments; with some extra help, a second grader progresses from reading below to reading at grade level — all with the support of a teacher whom they’ve never met in person. Online instruction might sound impersonal, but Imagine Learning Instructional Services’ virtual instructors create connections through special moments just like a teacher would in a physical classroom. As Tracy Regula, an elementary instructional supervisor, puts it, “the bonds [between teacher and student] go beyond the screen.”

“I am motivated to be a person that is… a safe place and a loving place where they feel comfortable and confident… exploring, learning new things, and trying things that are hard.”

Erin Schwab, Virtual Instructor

These special bonds are what keep our virtual teachers logging in day after day. “Not all days are easy… and all teachers know that, whether you’re brick and mortar or virtual,” but K–5 teacher, Erin Schwab is motivated to “be a person that is… a safe place and a loving place where they feel comfortable and confident… exploring, learning new things, and trying things that are hard.” Fellow K–5 teacher, Diamond Singh loves watching her students learn and is energized by the “ah-ha” moments when she can visibly see “the moment when they get it.”

Lightbulb moments like these are part of multiple-subject teacher, Kathryn DeGioia’s “why” — the reason she became an educator. She also acknowledges the impact her own teachers had on her and wants to “pay it forward” by getting her students excited about learning. Being inspired by teachers seems to be a common thread among current educators, as secondary Spanish teacher, Debra Allison comments, “I want to empower my students. I want to give them all those great feels that I received when I was a student.”

While a lot of teachers are inspired by educators from their past, there are also plenty of less traditional routes to the career. Tracy struggled in school, but it was watching her daughter experience similar difficulties that inspired her to look for a way to help “students learn to their fullest ability.” Secondary science teacher, Dr. Kettyah Chhak had maybe an even less traditional path, starting as a scientific researcher. She responded to a need for math and science teachers, thinking it would be nice to try something different for a couple years. But after a year of teaching, she was “hooked.”

This variety of backgrounds is so valuable, especially because of the varied reasons why students pursue an education online. From student-athletes to those who have a medical need to those who need to make up credits for graduation, virtual instruction allows students to achieve all their goals. “Our students just have such a wide variety of backgrounds and reasons why they’re doing online,” remarks Kettyah, “so I try not to make any assumptions ever… I find I learn so much more about my students that way.”

“It awakened me as a person, [thinking] ‘Who are these students and why are they using this platform? And how can I help them?’ All of that is just so invigorating.’”

Debra Allison, Virtual Instructor

Debra sees the diversity as a welcome challenge: “I mean, yes, I teach Spanish, [but] I can really be teaching anything — I’m really teaching the students… Here at Imagine Learning our students are so varied. It awakened me as a person, [thinking] ‘Who are these students and why are they using this platform? And how can I help them?’ All of that is just so invigorating.

Heterogeneity is definitely not exclusive to the virtual classroom, nor are the tasks that make up a virtual instructor’s daily to-do list: responding to emails, meeting with students, grading, grading, and more grading. What is unique to the virtual classroom is the flexibility for both student and teacher. The varied reasons for choosing to learn virtually often come down to a need for school to adapt to their schedule, not the other way around. While this adaptability is convenient for students, it becomes powerful for teachers, as they have the ability to rearrange their day to focus on the students who need extra support at that moment. Debra finds that she is able to be the best teacher for each of her students because she can focus her time “where it really matters most.”

The ability to focus on the individual student is why, though it might seem unlikely, the student-teacher relationship can still flourish in a virtual environment. Tracy said that this was one of her worries when transitioning to teaching virtually, if she would be able to create the same type of bonds with her students that she did face to face. What she found, actually, is that it is possible and “those bonds might even be a little bit stronger” than when she was teaching in person. She credits this to the focus she can give to individuals. While she was able to meet with students one-on-one when teaching in person, Tracy remarks that she was always keeping one eye on the rest of her class. But “you don’t have to do that in the virtual world. And so, you’re really able to give them all of you, instead of part of you.”

Meet the Educators

Dr. Kettyah Chhak

Kathryn DeGioia

Tracy Regula

Diamond Singh

One of the tell-tale signs of a meaningful teacher-student connection is when former students drop by to visit their past teachers. These visits reinforce the bond and also let teachers see the fruits of their labor as they learn how their student is continuing to thrive as they move through school and life. These drop-ins may seem impossible in the virtual classroom, but Kathryn says that’s not actually the case. She has a student who is no longer in her class who “periodically emails [her saying], ‘How are you?’ and ‘I miss you’ and ‘Thank you so much for all your help, last year. I don’t think I would have passed fourth grade last year if you hadn’t helped me.’ and it’s just sweet. In a brick-and-mortar school, these would be the students who stopped in your classroom.”

In both the physical and virtual worlds, it is all about our connections with others. The bond a student feels with their teacher can be the difference that inspires them to succeed — and for our virtual teachers, these bonds extend far beyond the computer screen.

Nine Tips for Success with Virtual Learning

Whether you are new to the virtual classroom or an experienced online teacher, here are a few tips for success with virtual learning.

Read Now

January 1, 2022 8:00 am

Share Your Imagine Learning Breakthrough

Let’s celebrate students’ aha moments! Enter to win #ImagineLearningBreakthrough Moment of the Month and a $50 prize. Whether it’s a big discovery in class or small assignment at home — every achievement counts.

Imagine Learning is a leading provider of K–12 learning solutions, bringing together our adaptive and core programs, assessment tools, credit recovery, and more to provide opportunities that ignite learning breakthroughs in every student’s journey. Everything we do is deeply rooted in our relationships with educators: We can support and achieve greater learning by working together.

That’s why we want to hear about students’ “aha” moments! Whether it was a notable discovery in the classroom or while working through an assignment at home, every achievement counts! It could be as simple as:

Solving for X in a math equation
Understanding a passage in a story
Speaking a new language
Grasping a complex topic

three girls sitting on a log holding their raised hands

Imagine Learning Breakthrough Moment of the Month

Enter to win a $50 e-gift card

Educators, students, and families can post a short video on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter demonstrating a moment of discovery. Use #imaginelearningbreakthrough in your post, and your video could be named the Imagine Learning Breakthrough Moment of the Month.

Each month, ten videos will be awarded a $50 e-gift card for sharing their “aha” moment! We can’t wait to see how you ignite learning in your schools!

View official contest flyer and contest details.

Enter to win.

Post on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and use #imaginelearningbreakthrough to share your story.

Share My Moment

June 30, 2021 8:00 am

Engaging Families in Math Learning

Family members are important partners in student learning, but how do we best to engage them in the learning process? Imagine Learning undertook a two-year-long research study, and these are the results.

Educators know that parents and family members are important partners in student learning, but some may not be aware of how best to engage family members in the learning process.

To help answer this question, Imagine Learning undertook a two-year-long research study, specifically around middle-years mathematics learning with a focus on third-grade students and their families.

At the outset of this study, Imagine Learning positioned family engagement in math learning as a design challenge, not a social problem. Imagine Learning did not want to perpetuate the idea that family engagement with low-income, Black, and Latino families is a social problem, meaning the problem resides within families and needs to be solved. Instead, the work was framed with an asset-based lens, which acknowledges that family members want to and do support their children in learning mathematics.

To partner and collaborate with family members to increase student academic achievement, it is essential for educators to support families and, most importantly, know how to recognize, honor, and acknowledge all efforts made by family members throughout the learning process. This is particularly important with low-income, Black, and Latino families, whose efforts supporting their students have commonly been unacknowledged or leveraged in mathematics.

By redefining family engagement and partnership as a design challenge, a pivotal change happens, in which family members — specifically those from low-income, Black, and Latino families — are properly seen and recognized as a child’s greatest asset in the learning process.

Our recent white paper describes the lessons learned from this study, which educators everywhere can use to further engage families as collaborators and partners in all learning, but particularly in math learning.

Here, we’ll share the research study’s five key lessons — “Lessons to Design By” — that may help other educators develop or further enhance approaches for increasing family engagement in mathematics, building stronger community relations, and accelerating academic achievement for students.

parent congratulates child with a high-five

Key Lessons and Takeaways for Engaging Family Members as Partners and Collaborators

As a result of this study, Imagine Learning determined five key lessons related to the importance of communication, establishing trusting relationships between schools and families, and inviting families to be partners in supporting their child’s learning. These lessons should all be considered when working to engage families as partners and collaborators in learning.

Lesson 1: The Importance of Invitations to Families. Family members do not always feel that teachers and schools welcome their involvement as educational partners, and this can be a particular issue for low-income families and families of color, even though they reported wanting to be engaged in their child’s math learning. Helping families feel welcome and as equal partners in their child’s learning is an important contextual factor that needs to be considered.

Lesson 2: The Importance of Family–Teacher Trust. Family members trust teachers as the primary source of information regarding their child’s learning. For families to engage with online supports or other resources, messaging about their value and importance needs to come from the teacher. This trust goes both ways, so building relationships of trust in which family members can share concerns is an essential precondition to a successful design. Research finds that low-income families of color and families of varying linguistic backgrounds are often underrepresented in school-level decision-making and family involvement activities. This speaks to differing needs, values, and levels of trust rather than families’ lack of interest or unwillingness to get involved.

Lesson 3: The Importance of Family–Teacher Collaboration. In general, teachers are frequently only in touch with families when discipline issues arise. Hence, there is value in establishing collaborative relationships and proactively communicating with positive and learning-related news early and often. Families value invitations to discuss their child’s learning as an equal to educators. Family members demonstrated that they sometimes do not feel like equals in decision-making relative to their child’s education, which supports the notion of empowering parents as partners in supporting learning. Not all parents know where to look for help, and some may not come to the school for assistance when they are not sure how to help their child.

Lesson 4: Honoring Family Experience Over Theoretical Models. To fully engage in community work with restricted resources, challenges with poverty, public trust, and language barriers requires significant energy, attention, and nuance. This is particularly true in math, as this is a subject in which parents and families tend to have less confidence in their content knowledge and skills, and are therefore more reluctant to get involved in their child’s learning at home.

Lesson 5: Community-Based Work with Families is Resource-Intensive. Implementing this project was resource-intensive work and given that, Imagine Learning concluded that there is a need to identify additional strategies that are more cost-effective in building math efficacy. We know that there is a need to develop community-specific, family-responsive designs, and one potential solution could be to provide coaching and support to families at the community level instead of individual schools.

Imagine Learning continually seeks design solutions to support the relationship between teachers, families, children, and mathematics content, as we recognize that family members are the greatest asset in children’s learning and development. Learn more in our white paper about this research study and the effects COVID-19 also had on the body of work.

June 9, 2021 4:01 pm

Combining Virtual Learning and Hands-On Experience

When Keith Marsh, Executive Director of Indiana Agriculture & Technology School, launched a charter school in 2018–2019, he was looking to combine virtual learning and hands-on experience.

“The key thing that makes it work is engagement,” said Keith Marsh, Executive Director of Indiana Agriculture & Technology School. “Every student here has an individual plan,” he said. “That’s why our kids do so well.”

When Marsh launched a charter school in 2018–2019, he was looking to develop a school that combined virtual learning and hands-on experience. Focused on agriculture and technology sciences, the school is designed to offer career pathways through partnerships with agribusiness and corporations, leading to promising career opportunities after graduation.

Indiana Agriculture utilizes Edgenuity Instructional Services as its core curriculum and pairs it with enrichment experiences on a local farm. Through carefully cultivated partnerships designed to prepare students for college and career, students can choose from a variety of specialized courses such as robotics and welding. Students also have the opportunity to earn certifications through the IATS Agriculture Pathways or Drone Certification Program offered at the school.

student does assignment on handheld device

“The key thing that makes our program work is student engagement. They’re not just online by themselves.”

Keith Marsh

Executive Director

Maximizing Distance Learning

Indiana Agriculture also got creative by integrating virtual learning and hands-on experience by livestreaming activities on the farm. This method proved successful throughout the pandemic, and they plan to continue to use video to scale up their capacity and build a curriculum archive.

For routine procedures like inoculating livestock, their teachers can record the video and make it available to students for review. Unique and often unpredictable teaching moments like the birth of an animal can also be recorded and incorporated into the curriculum, regardless of when a student takes the course.

“The goal was always to grow slowly and deliberately to ensure our students are getting the best experience possible,” said Marsh. And now, he and his team are realizing that a video archive gives them the scalability needed to provide consistent, engaging experiences to more students. This also opens up the possibilities of satellite campuses across the state, which could focus on other areas of agribusiness such as greenhouse production and goat farming.

Setting the Standard

“The key thing that makes our program work is student engagement. They’re not just online by themselves. They’re engaging with Edgenuity teachers, watching livestreams, attending Zoom classes with our teachers, and visiting the campus when appropriate,” said Marsh. “When people talk about kids losing learning because they’re on a virtual platform, it’s not because of the platform, it’s because the student is not engaged.”

He emphasized the importance of the teacher–student relationship and noted how their students have open communication with the teachers and each other.

Through its evolving partnership with Edgenuity, Indiana Agriculture has also amplified the resources available to students with special needs. “We don’t give up on kids,” said Marsh, who added that if a student is willing to put in the work, “we stick with them and give them the tools to succeed.”

“We want to set the standard for this type of program,” said Marsh. “Virtual learning is going to continue to grow across school communities, and students can be successful in this platform if we engage and support them appropriately.”

May 5, 2021 8:00 am

Teachers Deserve Our Appreciation — and So Much More

This Teacher Appreciation Week — and every week — it’s more important than ever to recognize the selfless and critical work that teachers do for students, families, and communities.

With all the stories this week about how teachers went above and beyond this year, it’s tempting to see teachers as superheroes. But it’s important to remember that they’re not superhuman. Teachers need acknowledgment, gratitude, and, most importantly, support every single week of the year, so they can continue to do their critical work for our students and our communities.

When Stephany Hume arrived at the hospital for emergency surgery in December, she wasn’t thinking about herself. She was thinking about her fifth-grade students, and the book they had yet to finish. “I thought ‘I can’t leave these poor kids hanging,’” she told reporters, after her 11-day stint teaching from a hospital bed caught the attention of the media and warmed the hearts of a pandemic-weary public.

Her story is inspiring — and unsurprising to anyone who knows teachers.

Teacher is assisting a student, both are wearing masks

If there’s one good thing to come out of this incredibly difficult year, it’s the renewed appreciation we have for the heroic work that our teachers do every day. As the often invisible frontline worker, teachers have persevered through unpredictable schedules, ever-changing guidelines, and unimaginable trauma to provide hope, stability, and support to their students.

This Teacher Appreciation Week, it’s more important than ever to recognize the selfless and critical work that teachers do for students, families, and communities. But appreciation is not enough—we must also listen to and learn from the teachers in our lives, and do everything we can to make the noblest profession as rewarding and empowering as possible.

“There is a very strong sense of social solidarity at the moment; people recognising how we all depend on each other.”

Professor Tony Gallagher

Queen’s University Belfast

Learn from teachers’ resilience

Teachers are the greatest driving force behind learning. And they have taught us all a lot this year.

As a digital learning company, we had a front-row seat to many of the ways teachers used technology to meet students where they are and embrace and celebrate their differences. From teaching tactile concepts in a digital environment to orienting children to COVID safety protocols in fun and age-appropriate ways, teachers were masters of innovation and resilience. They found new ways to engage students who learn at different speeds and struggled to adjust to unsettling circumstances and new environments. “Instead of being so focused on making sure all the kids get the same thing,” said Amanda Brooks, Virtual Support Specialist Counselor at AVA in Georgia, “Individual kids get what they need.”

A recent study by the University of Texas at Austin on Trauma, Teacher Stress, and COVID-19 found day-to-day student connections are a big part of why teachers teach. And when schools went remote last spring, they really missed that connection. But teachers adapted quickly, using technology to scale their time with students and offer safe, consistent, individual support. “Our teachers are always in beta mode. So they’re never done,” said Lesley Clifton, Director of Online Learning at Classical Academy in California. “They’re always learning, trying, growing.”

While educators are increasingly confident that we won’t have to return to an all-remote model, teachers have seen firsthand how different kinds of students shine in different environments—and they’re adjusting their approach accordingly. “We’re learning that some students just need to learn a little bit differently than everyone around them,” said Jamie Max, Director of District 308 in Illinois.

“When we talk about teachers and teaching, it’s not just the students they’re impacting, they’re engaging and impacting families and — by extension — whole communities.”

Kimberlin Rivers

Vice President, Imagine Learning

Uplift teachers as pillars of the community

While teachers are known for juggling increasingly difficult circumstances with magnificent grace, teaching is still undervalued.

An Ipsos/USA Today poll found that nearly three-quarters of Americans said that a teacher had a significant, positive impact on their life, and a majority believed teachers are not fairly compensated for their work. And their belief is borne out in the data, which shows that teachers in many parts of the country earn less than the family living wage. “The profession isn’t as respected as it used to be, when teachers were pillars of the community,” said Kimberlin Rivers, Vice President, Instruction at Weld North Education.

But the pandemic has introduced a shift in the public narrative around essential workers, and teachers are no exception. “During a crisis, assumptions start to fall apart a little bit and people start to question things they had previously accepted and taken for granted,” Queen’s University Belfast Professor Tony Gallagher, who tracked the shifting public perceptions of teachers during COVID, said. “There is a very strong sense of social solidarity at the moment; people recognising how we all depend on each other.”

We’ve always known that teachers have influence extending far beyond their stated role. The numerous roles teachers play for students and the community—mentor, coach, counselor, social worker—were brought into sharper focus this past year as the pandemic underscored many systemic issues in American education.

“When we talk about teachers and teaching, it’s not just the students they’re impacting,” Rivers said. “They’re engaging and impacting families and—by extension—whole communities.”

Advocate for a more supportive, flexible future for the profession

While professionals in other fields benefit from pandemic-induced workplace flexibility, teachers will likely return to a more rigid schedule as they head back into the classroom. But schools can and should learn from this experience and find ways to use technology to create efficiencies and flexibility for their teachers.

In a piece titled “Why Schools Should Embrace Flexibility and Innovation Beyond COVID-19,” the Urban Institute argued that making flexible school options permanent could benefit many students, including the significant portion of students who work while attending school.

The same argument could be made for teachers, who are already dealing with enormous amounts of stress and burnout. According to the 2019 PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, half of public-school teachers were considering quitting their jobs before COVID. And the stress of the pandemic has only intensified the crisis. Retirements are up, morale is down, and schools are scrambling to fill open positions as their teachers decide not to return to the classroom in the fall. If we want to keep teachers in the profession, we need to find ways to embrace flexibility and give teachers more, not fewer, options for when and how they connect with their students.