When Opportunity Meets Preparedness: Digital Age Pedagogy Website Houses Emergency Remote Learning Resources

ried on. The district also provided each graduate with a set of alumni recognition pins, a new tradition that Miller hopes will continue on for many years to come.

“What this class has endured, we hope this will lead to a sense of closure for these kids and, hopefully, will make our alumni stronger in the future,” said Miller, who still hopes to honor graduates in a physical ceremony down the road.

For two months, Widdifield has seen staff members across the board step up to keep district operations moving in the right direction, and that was no different when it came to graduation.

“It was our goal to recreate our graduation program the best that we could in a virtual sense,” the second-year superintendent said. “The only thing we couldn’t recreate very well was the choir and the 1200 people who would be sitting in the gym for the ceremony, but I think everything else we were able to do a really good job with.”

Part Five: Keep on Keeping On

“We’re going to give it our best to provide our kids with the best possible education and experiences in whatever format we’re allowed to have in the future.”

Teachers, Widdifield feels, are inherently creative people, problem-solvers and innovators in a time where everybody in education is being asked to, well, solve problems and innovate.

“For us, I think we did get it right,” he said. “Our teachers have a knack for coming up with some amazing ideas that have kept the kids engaged in learning and moving forward.”

The new norm, though it changes by the day, is one of isolation, where most connections are made digitally. For school districts, it’s been worlds away from ideal, though there have been moments that are nothing short of remarkable. Triumphs and achievements, worthy of celebrations, and the ordinary musings of confinement, worthy of a laugh.

“When it’s time for PE, my elementary students (at home), make a lot of noise in the living room with their karate moves and running-in-place and sit-ups and calisthenics,” said Dr. Miller, the father. “I’ve heard my kids playing their trombones or singing from their bedrooms while they’re doing their music classes. We’re trying to continue to provide opportunities academically and in the exploratory classes as well.”

Bayard students put their skills on display during a virtual talent show and the district continued with its yearly tradition of

In Bayard, the school district went to great lengths to make sure the Class of 2020 had a special graduation experience. The district worked with several community partners in holding a weeklong celebration honoring its graduates, who each had a banner on display in the town.

holding a community clean-up day. What school is going to look like in the fall is still a relative mystery, but that doesn’t mean districts are allowing themselves to be stuck in neutral. School doors are closed, for now, but schools themselves were never closed.

“While we don’t know what school will look like in the fall, I have full faith and confidence in the students, in our community and in our teachers that we’re going to give it our best to provide our kids with the best possible education and experiences in whatever format we’re allowed to provide,” said Miller.

Widdifield is planning on welcoming students back to Minden Public Schools on August 13 until he is told otherwise. And even then, the district has contingencies in place to keep on keeping on.

“We have to keep moving,” he said. “I’m not waiting for this thing to decide what it’s going to do, because as soon as you do that you’re already behind. We’re not waiting.”

The pandemic has brought with it many challenges, said Myles, the most prominent being a sudden reliance on remote learning. He feels his staff was successful in implementing an effective model with very little time to prepare. Still, there’s no substitute for the real thing, and school districts eagerly await the return of their students.

“No matter what we do and how creative our instructors are, there is no confusion on anyone’s part that this modality is as good as face-to-face learning,” Myles said. “We have schools for a reason.” ■

When Opportunity Meets Preparedness: Digital Age Pedagogy Website Houses Emergency Remote Learning Resources By TYLER DAHLGREN, NCSA Communications Specialist

Born out of a BlendEd pilot program established by a committee comprised of the Educational Service Unit Coordinating Council (ESUCC), professionals from select ESUs and the Nebraska Council of School Administrators (NCSA), the Digital Age Pedagogy site initially existed as a hub for resources illustrating best practices in blending online and offline instruction to enhance teaching and learning. The ESU-NCSA BlendEd Pilot project approached best practices in blended learning from a systems level, focusing on administrators, technology coordinators and educators.

“We’re trying to promote differentiation during direct instruction, so that students get the instruction they need at the level that they need it,” said Dr. Nicholas Ziegler, Technology Integration Specialist and World Language Coordinator at ESU 5. “We’re also trying to promote some degree of student control over how they practice that Dr. Nicholas Ziegler content and how they are showing what they know. We’re promoting self-regulated learning, or student autonomy, through things like self-assessment.”

To this day, more than a dozen of the original 27 Nebraska school districts that made up the first cohort are still promoting and expanding their use of best blended learning practices.

“That’s extremely exciting,” said Ziegler. “They’ve done extremely good work.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic altered the course of education like nothing has before and forced every school in Nebraska to close their doors to students, the Digital Age Pedagogy website became, in an extremely short amount of time, an integral resource in itself for school leaders and educators searching for short-notice guidance on Emergency Remote Learning.

“We’re in an unprecedented moment in time, and the real goal is to help educators think through manageable expectations and towards manageable chunks of information that they can engage students with over the span of a week.” said Ziegler.

The site is easy to navigate and directs instruction towards the two options provided by the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) in its recently-issued Continuity of Learning Plans guidance document; Educational opportunities and enrichment opportunities.

Educational opportunities are defined as teacher-led learning experiences that incorporate research-based practices and direct instruction. The website houses weekly plan templates for student learning, designed to ensure students are grasping objectives and meeting learning goals. Enrichment opportunities, meanwhile, allow students to progress at their own pace on their own path, with less emphasis on instruction in mastery-based approach.

“Our recommendation to educators is to really consider that student-learning experience,” Ziegler explained. “If we’re thinking through enrichment opportunities, let’s engage kids in those gamified, independent learning platforms, which are highly-engaging. Kids will have fun while solidifying their understanding of those core concepts, those core skills, inside of that continuum or continuation of learning in a grade level or across grade levels.”

While it remains unclear when life, inside and outside of the educational realm, will return to normal, Ziegler believes that when we do reach that point, experiences shared over the next several months are going to ultimately prove beneficial.

“If we can get educators on board with creating these student learning plans and manageable expectations, then once we get moving forward, whenever that may be, we are going to be in a good spot to then push people even further into diving into those resources around blended-learning practices,” he said.

The website was created through a collaborative effort. Ziegler can’t stress that fact enough. As many as six ESUs and the ESUCC were represented on the leadership team