Decluttering Your Mind

It’s time to let go of the school year and take some time to relax and practice self-care.

The end of the year is a special time. Starting with November’s Thanksgiving celebrations, we begin to publicly acknowledge our gratitude for those who have inspired and challenged us. However, this year has been different, and much more stressful, than past years.

My district, like so many others, opted for a hybrid model this fall, combining in-person classes in the mornings with online classes in the afternoons. As you can imagine, I realized quickly that I had to rethink my methods, get creative, and be innovative.

We all know the challenges that we faced (and often overcame) with distance learning last spring. Our social media accounts are full of memes and articles about all of the problems and struggles that we had. But I have yet to read an article or blog celebrating some of the unexpected benefits that came along with distance learning!

As we all anxiously await our schools’ reopening plans, much remains unknown. A series of potential scenarios could take place with short notice. While our schools may adopt hybrid schedules that combine an in-person format with a virtual one, we should be ready to transition to full-time virtual teaching at any given moment.

Last semester’s transition to virtual teaching was abrupt and left many of us feeling like we were catching up to learn new technologies instead of focusing on communicating content to students. Now, as we look forward to next year, which appears to be an amorphous hybrid of virtual and limited face-to-face instruction, our worries turn to what students missed this past semester and how we can catch them up.

I am in awe at the work teachers do every day. I am especially amazed at all that teachers have done these past few months adjusting to remote learning. There has been so much newness and change that has happened during these unsettling times.

As a former comprehensible input (CI) German teacher, I’ve been thinking lately about how to provide adequate comprehensible input in an online environment. After 18 years of more or less traditional teaching, I switched to CI teaching for my last five years in the classroom before pursuing world language administrative positions.

In what seemed like a span of a few hours, teachers needed to frantically shift to virtual instruction. All schoolwide events and extracurricular activities were suddenly cancelled. Feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and disappointment slowly settled in and took charge.

These are crazy days indeed. Teachers all over the country (and world!) are being asked to switch from in-person teaching to some variety of online teaching and learning in a matter of weeks. The question that is on many teachers’ mind is How do I effectively plan instruction during these unique circumstances?

During this time of uncertainty and school closures, many teachers have had to jump into teaching remotely without a moment's notice. I have worked for several years as adjunct faculty at a local university, which has forced me to become familiar with teaching both synchronously online and asynchronously.

Just a little over a week ago I was saying goodbye to my students without knowing when I would see them again. This was a rather strange, and above all, sad experience, as I described it in a blog post. By now I have already met a couple of times online with each one of my classes and to be honest, it has been one of the longest weeks of my life.

With all of us inevitably turning over to online teaching, EntreCulturas offers an array of diverse activities. Now is the time to further explore the Learning Site and all of its capabilities.

We know that school closures are inevitable. As a way to support our teachers and students, we have created a tip sheet that describes how the Learning Site will aid in teaching and learning remotely.