by Kim Loomis | Oct 31, 2020 | Blended Learning, Online Learning, Personalized Learning, Professional Development
This past week Aurora Institute held its annual symposium, virtually of course. Typically, I look forward to this annual event to catch up with national peers, hear stories of personalized learning and competency-based education, but most importantly to increase my well-being by enjoying time with like-minded professionals. Speaking of well-being… Dealing with the pandemic, the uncertainty on the political front, and the rising call for social justice has all of us in a bit of a craze. COVID-19 started as a crisis (back in March 2020), but if we continue to manage the educational setting as if it is a crisis, we will exhaust ourselves. We must recognize a need for finding our rhythm. Our mental health is at risk should we continue to act in haphazard manners – exhausting ourselves, our students, and families. Even prior to the pandemic, in December 2019, the Texas Association of School Boards posted an article titled Teacher Stress and Burnout is Real, stating, “It’s no secret that teacher stress is at epidemic proportions, and it’s affecting students in the classroom more than ever.” That was before COVID-19 came into our lives! Add in the stress of the last seven months. In September 2020, Psychology Today, posted an article about the effect COVID-19 is having on teachers, stating “A new study shows decreases in teacher well-being during the pandemic.” Educators need to find a rhythm, get over the manic crisis mode, and focus on their well-being. Like the airline steward who reminds us to put on our own mask first, educators need to breathe. Jumping from deployment models (classroom, hybrid, online) is...
by Kim Loomis | Sep 17, 2020 | Blended Learning, Online Learning
Remote learning has been difficult for teachers, administrators, students, and parents. No one signed up to be an online or from a distance teacher or student. Parents did not expect to be ‘home schooling’ their children. Administrators had no desire to run a hybrid or fully virtual school. Yet, these are the times we live in with the COVID-19 pandemic. Today’s world is all about “adjust and adapt” baby. This is new for all stakeholders. It’s like starting all over. Think about a baby, first learning to walk. That’s us! We will stumble a lot. We will fall down often. We will teeter on the brink many times. Also like an infant, we must fail forward. Get up, get over it, and try again. What we are forgetting to do is celebrate the successes along the way. Recall, the infant learning to walk was surrounded by people coaxing, cheering, and celebrating all the failures along the way. Teachers, administrators, students, and parents also need praise in their efforts and understanding that it’s okay to “adjust and adapt.” Knowing that failure will be part of the process and that we can fail forward by getting up, getting over it, and moving on. The pandemic reminds us that we must focus on where our feet are today. Planted in remote learning. We cannot linger in the days of yesteryear, nor dream of a better future down the line. I like to say, keep a WIN attitude. WIN is an acronym for What’s Important Now. When I say now, I mean in the moment – within the moment of the lesson or...
by Kim Loomis | May 25, 2020 | Blended Learning, Personalized Learning
I once believed that the term blended learning, would slowly vanish, as it would just become the classroom norm – taking the best of online learning matched with the best of face-to-face instruction. That, in this new century, teachers would partner with digital curriculum, guide instruction based on the data available within their digital partner, and have the time to craft peer-to-peer active engagement and authentic assessment opportunities. In other words, embrace what I like to call the curriculum, instruction, and assessment, or the CIA of Blended Learning – digital curriculum, guided instruction, authentic assessment. This huge worldwide experiment of school closures and adopting remote learning has exposed the great truth. Blended learning is not the norm. And yet, had it been, the transition would have been much easier. Yes, there would still have been access issues, but instruction and pedagogy shifts would have been minor, as would have the learning losses. Had we embraced blended learning, school closures would have still allowed students to continue learning within digital partners with teacher guidance – focusing on the core business of schools: relationships and learning. Yet, too many were caught off guard, ill-prepared to continue with learning new concepts aligned to standards and benchmarks for the remainder of the school year, as learning losses got deeper and deeper. See the NWEA COVID-19 Slide report. As we look to the future, our education system should aim to recover but not replicate the past. We have an opportunity to “build back better.” Use the most effective crisis-recovery strategies as the basis for long-term improvements in areas like pedagogy, technology, assessment, financing, and...
by Kim Loomis | Apr 7, 2020 | Uncategorized
In these COVID-19 times, we are all learners. Teachers, students, and families are learning new skills, pedagogies, and technologies. While new learning and professional growth is exciting, it is also exhausting. Be kind to yourself, your students, and their families. Not only are teachers looking for new lesson planning ideas, technology options, and creating a digital presence, your students are also learning new skills, course content, and working with family members new to schooling at home, who themselves may have lost their job or are also trying to work from home. Repost from SoftChalk’s Innovator’s in Online Learning with a supporting webinar. Click here for playback. As the former Online & Blended Learning Director, in Nevada’s Clark County School District, I’m a huge fan of digital learning. Even today, I help others across the nation establish actively engaging learning environments so that students are empowered to take ownership in their learning as the founder of i3DigitalPD with numerous blogs on partnering with digital content and author of a book titled: Think Outside the Box, but I never expected a world quite like the one we have been pushed into today. Check out other continuous learning tips shared in my previous blog Teaching in COVID-19 Times. The seriousness of closing schools for COVID-19 will affect us all. Time away from ‘normal’ educational setting pulls students away from friends and social services once provided by schools (e.g., food). The emotions that students, families, and teachers will experience during a time like this will be stressful. Disappointments abound – missed friends, field trips, ceremonies, and family outings. As you plan lessons,...
by Kim Loomis | Mar 31, 2020 | Uncategorized
The coronavirus (COVID-19) has put us all in a world that we did not see coming. The rapid deployment of social distancing took many by surprise, and each state, school, and individual teacher will contend with their own unique challenges as they tackle this crisis. Yet, as educators, we must figure out how to continue the learning. In times like this, even our teachers will be learning – learning new skills and pedagogy. Repost from SoftChalk’s Innovator’s in Online Learning with a supporting webinar. Click here for playback. As the former Online & Blended Learning Director, in Nevada’s Clark County School District, I’m a huge fan of digital learning. Even today, I help others across the nation establish actively engaging learning environments so that students are empowered to take ownership in their learning as the founder of i3DigitalPD with numerous blogs on partnering with digital content and author of a book titled: Think Outside the Box, but I never expected a world quite like the one we have been pushed into today. Ideally, designing effective distance learning programs requires planning and targeted professional development. However, in our current state of emergency, educators are caught in triage mode and are not in a position to craft an ideal online learning program. The key is to maintain the indispensable human touch of teaching and learning during this period of social distancing. With school closures, our focus should not be online or distance learning, it’s about maintaining continuous learning. Technology will be a crucial tool for learning when physical classrooms and schools are closed. Yet, teaching and learning is not about the...
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