Classroom

for classwide competitions, using learning apps for homework and independent practice, and moving content to online learning management systems.

This increasing use of online and blended instruction is significantly shifting education. With it comes flexibility—chances for students to work at a self-directed pace, ways to access courses that may not be available in a physical building, solutions for medically fragile students, and different learning avenues for students who thrive in online environments. This shift also brings challenges for educators to solve together. A key challenge is how to create engagement and student ownership of learning when educators don’t see their students face-to-face each day. Teachers tend to be a relational bunch of people who take a holistic interest in students’ learning, personalities, hobbies, and social-emotional health. Building these relationships in online and blended spaces looks a little different than it does in a face-to-face context.

However, our research on connected classrooms repeatedly points to values that transfer across instructional spaces. These begin with practices that place student voices at the center of learning. Throughout this book, we make references to people-centered practices for teaching and learning in these spaces. People-centered practitioners recognize young people as the nucleus of learning and community in the classroom. The stories, lived experiences, and strengths each student brings to the classroom matter. People-centered practices include the following. • Starting with story sharing and relationships to build a connected community • Continuing to center these stories and relationships to further education • Committing to strengths-based approaches by asking, “What can you (and we) do well, and how can we build from there?” • Focusing on growth mindset to celebrate process, embrace challenges, and learn from experiences and successes (Growth mindset is further defined in chapter 2, page 43.) • Supporting students with strategies and resources rooted in equity and a deep understanding of context and experiences • Pushing past “the way we’ve always done it” to explore new possibilities for supporting this unique group of young people as they grow as scholars and community members

This book encourages educators to develop these practices in any teaching space. What does this look like specifically in online and blended contexts? In one situation, Kathryn introduced herself to a new group of online students with this

norm: “We will start each class together with a social-emotional check-in.” This check-in might look like a question in the chat such as, “What are you celebrating this week?” or “What’s the last show you binged on Netflix?” And then later, when the students have established trust with one another, the teacher might start with the question, “What challenge are you facing right now?” or invite students to share their “roses and thorns” (in this conversation prompt game, the rose is something wonderful that is blossoming in a student’s life, and the thorn is something difficult that may be holding a student back from reaching a goal). An educator we know asks students to display the emoji that best represents their mood at the moment (with fun screenshots to follow). A two-minute scavenger hunt to locate and share an artifact that connects to the lesson is also a popular way to get students up and moving and invite their voices into the online space.

How can people-centered practices help educators teach beyond classroom walls? Relationships are the heart of great teaching. This is a universal truth in classrooms across geographic areas, cultures, and contexts. Solving the grand challenges of learning access and equity requires new ideas, innovations, and the steady constant of relationships. Together, we will consider the global landscape of education and the potential of blended approaches to teaching and learning.

The narratives and strategies in this book point to a key takeaway that the world is small and deeply connected. Some strategies in this book, like people-centered practices, are essential whether in face-to-face classrooms, in blended classrooms, or in online classrooms. Others are most suited to particular spaces. Throughout each chapter, we’ve included intentional strategies for considering which learning activities should happen in person and which may be better suited online. Consider with us how to adapt and translate connected teaching strategies across many instructional spaces.

We Open With Heart

This book is the result of learning with approximately thirty educators from across multiple contexts, geographic areas, and specialties. The strategies and best practices included here call all teachers to center humanity in their work in the classroom. These practices rest on a belief in radical hope (Fishman-Weaver, 2017). They celebrate this noble profession, holding both students and educators to high expectations.

While we are proud to share these strategies and we believe in this framework for connected teaching, we also want to acknowledge that this is lofty and difficult work. It is heart heavy and head heavy.

As you build a connected classroom, you will assure your students that learning takes time and they all are works in progress. You will tell them that it is OK to make mistakes—that mistakes are part of the learning process. You’ll encourage your students to take moments to reflect on what they do well and what their next goals are. You’ll remind them that they are not alone and that they have a school community that roots for them and supports them.

All these messages apply to you as well. Teaching is a complex and beautiful effort. You, too, are a work in progress. Give yourself a break when you can’t implement every strategy for connection every day; you’ll have hundreds of casual conversations with your students and hundreds of intentional moments tied to lesson plans that strengthen connection over time. You will make mistakes, and that’s OK. You will grow in confidence and expertise each day and each year. And, dear reader, you are not alone. You are part of a bigger school community that is rooting for you and can offer encouragement, camaraderie, and support as you follow this teaching journey.

We hope the following research, narratives, and strategies in this book will stir you to cultivate connected classrooms.

Connection With Intention

We live in an era of online communication. Means of communication with others are ubiquitous; email, social media websites, and Wi-Fi messaging apps are just some connecting tools. However, remotely connecting with others has its challenges, as it compresses multidimensional communication to very onedimensional black-and-white text (perhaps sprinkled with emojis). These one-dimensional approaches to communication (as in one-way, short, direct, and closed) can lead to miscommunication or disconnection. The notorious, authoritative red pen marking mistakes across a paper is an example. So, too, is simply saying or writing, “Good job!” (which is a comment that sounds peppy but doesn’t give the student anywhere to grow).

When people interact with others via online communication, they cannot read facial expressions or pick up on body language cues. People cannot hear tones of voice or vocal inflections that might indicate sarcasm, humor, or anger. Instead, they must rely on words as they are written and trust that they can decipher others’ intent.

Miscommunication is detrimental in any sort of relationship, whether it happens between a parent and child, between partners, or between friends. Such miscommunication is particularly detrimental in a teacher-student relationship. An analysis of forty-six studies finds strong teacher-student relationships are

associated with higher student academic engagement, better attendance, stronger grades, fewer disruptive behaviors and suspensions, and lower school dropout rates (Sparks, 2019). Those effects persist “even after controlling for differences in students’ individual, family, and school backgrounds” (Sparks, 2019).

While in-person learning has its own challenges, it has the advantage of faceto-face interactions with students. Students can gather around the teacher’s desk to chat. Teachers can observe students’ body language and monitor their participation in class. In an online learning environment, even with the interactions provided by video interfaces such as Zoom and Google Classroom, these observations have limits. The strategies in this book encourage connection within a framework that requires more text-directed instruction.

People-Centered Practices

The concept of people-centered practice originated in health care, where practitioners put people, patients, and communities at the center of their care. This includes actively listening to patients when they report on their health and seeking additional community or family input as needed where people can participate in “trusted health systems that respond to their needs and preferences in humane and holistic ways” (World Health Organization, n.d.). This approach is also relevant to education, and particularly to this book on connected teaching. The strategies and stories shared herein point to humane and holistic possibilities where educators center students and their communities in the education process. An experience Kathryn had with the move to student-led individualized education program (IEP) meetings illuminates this practice. In these meetings, the students who are receiving special education services selfreport on their strengths, challenges, goals, and frustrations. The voice of the young person being served becomes the lead voice in the meeting—a dramatic flip from an educator or administrator reporting on behalf of what they think a student is feeling or capable of.

Health care and education have many important parallels, including that both are fundamental human rights. According to the World Health Organization (n.d.), people-centered health is the practice of “putting people and communities, not diseases, at the center of health systems, and empowering people to take charge of their own health rather than being passive recipients of services.” This book aligns with the approach of putting people right at the center of their own learning—aiming for engagement over passive reception. Health and educational practitioners can learn a lot from each other. In much the same way telehealth