GOES VIRTUAL
LANDMARK’S V I R T U A L SIX TEACHING PRINCIP By Rob Kahn
Can you imagine Chad Drake in a Google Meet? Even Landmark’s founder’s
visionary prowess probably wasn’t up to predicting a “link” in the cloud where students and teachers could meet for school. On the other hand, if he had been faced with a global pandemic that rendered inperson interaction impermissible, Chad would have found a way to reach his students. Nearly two generations later, his pedagogical descendants at Landmark have confronted that challenge: How to transfer Landmark’s Six Teaching Principlestm onto remote platforms for distance learning? At both campuses the core principles live on. They have been transformed, modified, and adapted, but teachers agree that the online world has actually pushed some principles to the forefront in new ways.
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PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR OUR STUDENTS TO EXPERIENCE SUCCESS At the High School and Elementary•Middle School, successoriented routines and structures have proven even more key to online learning. Many teachers cited the technology hurdles of remote learning as a way for students to experience success and build both resiliency and self-advocacy. Digital strategies instantly available for positive reinforcement have translated seamlessly into online classes, in some cases with more immediacy and less pre-planning than they would have required on campus. EMS teacher Cecilia Mullings even found a set of virtual stickers that can be copied and placed on student work to give a virtual “Hooray!”
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The Lantern
SPRING/SUMMER 2020
