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Classroom Habits of Reflective Practitioners

This is your first reflective practice exercise. Use these prompts to think through what you envision you will accomplish and how it aligns with your set intentions and goals. • Examine lesson plans for what’s working well and what you want to change.

• Consider relationships with students. • Note what engages your students and what they respond well to. (What topics and activities light them up?)

• Examine your instructional balance (lectures, interactives, teacher-directed work, student-directed work, independent and group work, and more).

• Look for patterns in student responses and understanding. • Align the content you teach with students’ core purposes.

© 2022 by Solution Tree Press

PART I Reimagining the Online Classroom

In my (Kathryn’s) early ambivalence toward online education, I worried that online instruction was distant and dehumanizing. My prior experiences teaching and learning in online classes helped form this belief. While I saw the appeal for flexibility and acceleration, as a newer teacher, I viewed the online setting as more of a static textbook.

Through our experiences teaching and leading in online, blended, and global contexts, Stephanie and I have seen the possibilities that open up when teachers believe that magic and connection aren’t bound to in-person places. We have also seen the ways intentional design can help us reimagine curriculum as a dynamic site for learning and connecting. In part I of this book, we invite you to reimagine the online classroom with us. In chapter 1, career educators will share how the vast technological shifts they have seen over the decades have expanded the ways they connect with students. In chapter 2, you will learn how to assess the unique strengths and setbacks of each student so you can tailor their learning to their needs. Building especially on Stephanie Walter’s work around feedbacking, chapter 3 offers specific strategies for cultivating better communication and connection with students in online, blended, or in-person classrooms.

While sitting together in a shared space in real time absolutely has value, our experiences have taught us that connection is not place bound. Wherever you and your students are is the right place for magic, learning, and relationships. The following chapters offer examples, strategies, and stories that will expand educators’ understanding of school from a static building to a global community project.

© 2022 by Solution Tree Press

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