Filling Those Little Pockets of Time with Meaningful Learning + Free, Virtual PD
A preview of the February issue of the newsletter!
In conversations with teachers in lots of different teaching contexts across the country, I’m finding that lots of us are looking for flexible, moveable small — but meaningful — activities that we can easily mix + match across the week.
The big units of learning are one thing to plan for, but, without reinventing the wheel every day, how to we account for the vagaries of hybrid learning, seeing different groups of students for uneven amounts of time, or providing just-one-more activity for our remote learners?
For instance, community member Erin Palazzo sees half of her students on Monday/ Tuesday face to face and the other half virtually … but only for 15 minutes. On Thursday/Friday, they switch.
Does this insanity sound familiar?
What to do with those 15 minutes?
The February issue of the newsletter is going look a little bit different. Instead of wading into a few different learning topics, I’m going to focus on giving you TONS of meaningful learning activities to fill those smaller pockets of time that are popping up for so many of us. Things like notebook time writing prompts like the Grant Snider illustration above. Or a new kind of language field guide work that will help students learn Greek + Latin roots but only takes about 20-30 minutes spread out across your week.
I’ll also share a planning matrix so that you only have to DECIDE ONCE — drastically reducing your planning time + decision fatigue this winter.
Free, Virtual PD
I am so excited to join Eastern Illinois University and the Eastern Illinois Writing Project for a free, virtual PD event entitled Moving Writers: Finding + Amplifying Student Voice!
It’s an asynchronous event that runs from February 12 - March 31. Register for this FREE event and you will receive hours + hours of professional development, including 2 two-hour sessions with me plus breakouts from oodles of other super-smart teachers!
You can find out more about the event here and register (for free! Can you believe it!) here.