Pamela Livingston Gaudet's Blog

Links from the book

If you have purchased my book, thank you!

Paperback readers will be helped by this PDF which contains all the URL’s from the book. You’ll need the book to follow along chapter-by-chapter. These links were live as of the publish date of the book.

 

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What a year 2020 has been. A friend opens her door at the end of every year just before midnight and she, her husband and son bang a drum, ring chimes and make as much noise as possible. This year she’s thinking of adding an air horn to get the bad chi away quickly.

I was interviewed by Vicky Davis for her excellent 10 Minute Teacher Podcast series. My session will appear next month.

Vicky asked several thought-provoking questions. One was what surprised me from the interviews with school tech leaders. While not exactly a surprise, overwhelmingly interviewees said teachers stepped up to rethinking instruction. Having spent years trying to persuade teachers to enhance learning with technology, I felt this was an excellent result from a tough time. Teachers had to learn new tools, change their instructional methodology, and find ways to engage students without being in the same room with them. They did what teachers do best – take students from where they are, to a better place through teaching and learning. One of my interviewees, Darryl Loy, said his instructional tech staff were “giddy” with the possibilities of having teachers embrace technology.

Another major finding was the importance of relationships. Teachers who had relationships established with students found the most success when schools closed suddenly. But teachers who hadn’t been able to establish relationships were challenged. The same students who were unengaged during class time in physical buildings, ghosted when learning went online.

There are good things from this time. One is the world of work. More jobs have gone remote than ever before, and organizations are rethinking work in general. Educators can prepare students for remote work by modeling and teaching the best practices for remote learning and teamwork. 

This is a unique moment in time with a major shift in education and work visible to everyone. Educators can model and teach best practices for online learning and teamwork and prepare students for school, college and eventual careers. Embracing this time with effective teaching and learning will provide the foundation all students need for now and the future.

 

 

My new book Like No Other School Year: 2020, COVID-19 and the Growth of Online Learning is live. It’s written for school leaders wanting to make sense of the end of the 2019-20 school year and to plan thoughtfully for the 2020-21 school year.

When in our lifetimes has an event impacted everyone in the entire world at the same time to the extent that COVID has? 

When have schools all over the globe simultaneously sent teachers and students home without a clear idea of when they would return?

It’s been a school year, and a shift in schools, like no other.

Often major shifts to education happen without everyone knowing the impact. Or they happen gradually over months or years. 

My previous book “1-to-1 Learning: Laptop Programs That Work” was about a gradual shift to 1-to-1 programs in schools. Gradually, over months and years, schools and school districts began purchasing computing devices for students. Now that progress has “tipped” to 59% of schools providing laptops for children per EdWeek. That’s up several percentage points because schools distributed computing devices to students when they closed for COVID-19.

Now schools are looking at a shift to online learning as an important instructional methodology. 

Online learning isn’t new, it just hadn’t been embraced widely in schools before. According to a survey from Daniel Cruz and Megan Storey Hallam, who contributed to my book in Chapter 7, in April 2020 only 88% of the 1145 teachers they surveyed had any experience with online teaching. Yet 81% of those same teachers were expected to teach online during school closures.

Now the challenge is to implement online learning in an effective way with students. Lindy Hockenbary has a lot to say about this as the author of Chapter 7; she conducts online teaching PD all around the country and globally. 

The jury is still out on how successful online learning will be this school year, but the shift is happening everywhere, and the potential is enormous.

If you read my book, please let me know! I’d love to hear from you – pamelagaudet@productvaluesolutions.com – thank you!

I’m in the middle of writing my new book “Like No Other School Year: 2020, Covid-19 and the growth of online learning.”

I’m at the chapter where the finding from interviewees was “Parents gained new respect for teachers.” 

It’s based on many glowing stories of how parents understood, maybe for the first time, that teaching is a complex endeavor that takes many skills and talents. Teachers work with individual students, groups of students and whole classrooms. They help children grow, learn and master concepts and curriculum. They instill respect for learning. There is nothing so valuable to a child’s education as a good teacher. And I believe most teachers are very good teachers.

Since March, 2020 many parents know how good their children’s teachers really are. Parents may have sat next to their child while they learned. Parents might have seen the teacher on their computer screen encouraging and engaging with their children. 

Good teaching feels like magic. When I was a tech director and a teacher, I knew who the really excellent teachers were. And to a person they would allow me to sit in the back of the classroom and watch what happened. It is amazing to see. (I know it’s not magic, I know it’s hard work of course.)

But now I am disheartened to hear disparaging words against teachers. Teachers who are worried about returning to school to teach in communities where restaurants, movie theatres, and gyms are closed because of the danger of the corona virus. 

Somehow the thinking is that even though it’s not safe to go to the movies, it’s safe to send your child to school. And thinking as though the adults in the building aren’t at risk.

Please, stop dumping on teachers. Please show the same appreciation so many of you had when you saw the magic of teaching your child. 

It may be different parents and it may be people who aren’t parents, I don’t know.

But please parents who saw the magic, speak up. Let your voices be louder than those disparaging teachers.

Grace. Compassion. Empathy. Love. 

What a tough year 2020 has been.

I am so sorry for those who lost lives, loved ones and jobs because of COVID-19. Lately many have lost homes and lives due to the fires on the West Coast. Racism has been claiming lives and livelihoods for hundreds of years, including in 2020. People are taking their frustration to the streets.

At the height of COVID-19 school closings, I interviewed thirty-two educator/leaders from public, independent, international and Catholic schools while they steered their schools through emergency remote learning. They described having March 2020 move from spring break time to quickly-planned professional development, triage teaching, and social-emotional health programs on the fly.

These educators described the issues they faced around food emergency for students, social-emotional health, communication, relationships, leadership, communication, cybersecurity and privacy, and how to implement online learning quickly. 

All reported teachers stepped up to online learning, a methodology only some had used. 

Experts contributed to the book including:

Michelle Back shared stories of her life as a parent supporting home learning for two young children
Daniel Cruz and Megan Storey Hallam described a survey they did of nearly 1200 teachers
Mike Daugherty wrote about communication during COVID-19 and other crises
Susan Davis and Christine Lewellen provided insight on cybersecurity and privacy issues schools faced
Ethan Delavan authored a chapter on social-emotional health and learning
Lindy Hockenbary wrote about online learning
Scott McLeod authored the leadership chapter, and shared research from his Coronavirus Chronicles podcasts and a course he taught on leading through crises
Adrian Segar shared approaches and tips on Zoom

Other chapters were written by me.

Like No Other School Year: 2020, COVID-19 and the Growth of Online Learning is written now and off to be graphically formatted. It will be published in October, 2020. 

Please let me know if you’d like to know more – pamelagaudet@productvaluesolutions.com 

There’s one word that came up twice during my interviews with thirty-four educators and gave me shivers: Grace. 

These thirty-four educator/administrators described running their schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most were directors of technology, some were CIOs, CTOs and a few had other titles. They were from public, independent and international schools. Every one had the heart of an educator.

And two of them talked about grace. How we need to show grace to one another, how we need to be compassionate now, how stressful and difficult this time is. Things aren’t perfect, mistakes are made, deadlines can be missed. What do we have to offer one another? Grace. Grace for students, grace for teachers, grace for parents.

Today I tried to offer someone grace and I hope the effort took a little weight off his shoulders. 

Hoping you are giving and receiving grace during this uncertain time.

Even though I haven’t worked in schools for a while, I still get a frisson every fall. This is the time when there’s less daylight, stores are packed with school supplies right near the door, summer flowers are fading, and people join camps of pro- or anti-pumpkin spice.

This time always gets to me. 

I was a teacher/technology director for schools and spent each summer with my team preparing technology for the school start. There was a clear deadline to meet: the first day of school.

But this year is completely different.

The start of the school year might mean students going to physical school, but maybe not.

The first day of school could be spent in a classroom with a teacher and other students, but it might not be so.

Instead, the first day of school could involve teachers emailing or messaging their students one-by-one with an initial introduction and lesson. 

On the first day, there might be students trying out their IDs and passwords for the school LMS.

Some parents might have shifted their work and home lives to support having their children learn from home. They’d been exposed to remote emergency learning in March under the worst of situations – a pandemic that closed schools everywhere. 

It will be such a different first day of school.

But what if we thought of this school year as a recalibration. What if we faced this unusual time with a spirit of change and innovation. What if students and parents alike accepted this time as completely extraordinary – and rife with possibilities.

Many teachers are rejuvenating their instruction through synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Many school leaders and teachers are exploring mastery-based assessment, project-based learning, and experiential learning.

It’s like the start of no other school year. 

(My book “Like No Other School Year: 2020, COVID-19 and the Growth of Online Learning” will be published this fall.)

This week I attended a Webinar and asked two tough questions:

1. We have 38 million unemployed in the U.S., along with a system of K-12 funding relying on property taxes and/or state taxes.Unemployed people may not be able to pay taxes. How will schools and districts put students first if their revenue stream from taxes is diminished?

2. Blended learning means that students are going to be home on a rotating basis, e.g., half time physically in school for traditional classroom education and half time staying home for online work. How will parents returning to work be able to pay for part time child care when their kids are home? 

Question 1. remained unanswered. Question 2. was punted with “we will involve the parents.”

I do not blame the speakers or the organizers of the webinar. These are tough questions. 

But how are we thinking differently about the ecosystem of education?

Funding streams for schools, which come from taxes, need to support programs. 
Continued unemployment will lead to defaults on property and state taxes which fund schools. 
Parents returning to work will need to pay for childcare for the new K-12 blended learning model. 

It’s a complex and precarious ecosystem. We have to start tackling the tough questions soon and thinking of all the components. It’s not time to punt.

This is a scratchboard I did at age 16, in high school. I was in a program that allowed art students, who submitted a portfolio and filled out forms,  to take art classes as a major. This piece won honorable mention at a local art show.

It’s imperfect. I can see it every time I look at it. The girl’s lip was not meant to be so white. The imperfection used to bother me continually. 

Now I still see the imperfection but also see the emotion in the work. I also see the 16-year-old me who went to pick up the piece, never having attended the show, and discovered the honorable mention ribbon.

How imperfect is all our work?

Today I submitted my imperfect draft book to five beta readers. I’d been over it multiple times, re-editing it, using Grammarly, adjusting according to comments from a good editor. 

There are parts that are perfect. The five chapters from contributors are stellar. The short pieces written by others are excellent. The words of the thirty-two interviewees are authentic and compelling.

It’s not done yet. The beta readers will see things I haven’t. Another editor will go over it again. I’ll return and edit again.

It will be less imperfect in the next few weeks. And it will join other work of mine with imperfections, but also with emotion.

My book “Like No Other School Year: 2020, COVID-19 and the Growth of Online Learning” will be available in Fall, 2020.

Those of us who have ever worked in schools know the start of the school year is an exciting albeit exhausting time. So much to get ready, so much to consider. Many meetings, plans and decisions to make.

If you’re a technology director (like I used to be) you would have spent the summer imaging computers, upgrading hardware, software and network products, maybe installing some brand-new products for the school or district. Plenty gets saved til the summer when teachers, administrators and students are either not in the building or there around specific schedules. Tech directors/CIOs/CTOs and tech support staff roll up their sleeves and Go!

Except this year.

It all changed in March. That’s when most locations everywhere in the world shut down because of COVID-19. Buildings closed. Teaching and learning went online or via packets. Food insecurity had to be addressed. Children who used to receive free or reduced lunch sometimes with breakfast suddenly did not have those meals. Digital equity/the homework gap became glaring when the workarounds for students without devices and the internet – including the school, public libraries, Starbucks,  McDonald’s were all closed. 

Teachers, administrators, tech directors and staff moved to triage learning. Triage learning is the phrase the educators I spoke with used. 

Everyone had to get a handle on priorities.

Here they were clear. First, were students okay?  Students needed food. Students needed digital devices and Internet access. What about students’ social emotional health?

To find out how students were doing, schools and districts needed current family contact information. In many cases, this was taken at the beginning of the school year. But by March, family contact information had changed. School and district staff worked hard to track down current information so they could contact families and students. 

Plans for triage learning were drafted and redrafted. Will new learning happen? For many schools and districts the answer was no, not now. Reinforcement only.

How would learning actually happen? 

What followed was the most widespread use of education technology in history.

For many schools and districts, it was through the LMS. Some schools and districts hadn’t mandated teacher use the LMS. So teachers had to receive professional development quickly, in a matter of days, on what the district LMS could and couldn’t do and how to use it to assign work and check on students.

Many schools and districts purchased video conferencing licenses for the first time and had to provide professional development for teachers to use the new product.

Teachers wanted to engage with their students. It was hard to use tools new to teachers and to students. 

The schedule didn’t help – no one wanted any child in 7 hours of video conferencing meetings. 

Parents were often either working from home or furloughed. This meant when the teacher used video conferencing with students, the adults in the family were near by.

Some students “ghosted.” Teachers couldn’t find them, they didn’t show up for live sessions, they didn’t respond to email or messages. Staff reached out to find them.

And then there were students without any access. Students didn’t have computing devices or the Internet. Some Internet providers stepped up with free access but it had to be set up family-by-family. New York City, which used my book on 1-to-1 Learning years back, decided they would provide devices to every child that needed one. That’s 300,000 students.Philadelphia distributed devices to 175,000 students who had none.

Teachers everywhere stepped up to this tough situation.

Some teachers’ social emotional health suffered as well. They could not use their existing classroom management tools and approaches. Some had their own children at home to support as parents. 

Tech department added parents to their help desk system and provided drop-in hours. They brought devices to students and helped parents with connectivity. 

It was triage all around.

So now it’s time to go “back to school.”

What does this mean?

For many schools, it means remote learning. Keeping up the learning from home but this time moving into new learning, not just reinforcement. Teachers will “meet” their many students for the first time using screens.

For some schools, it’s a hybrid approach. One or two days or weeks in person in classrooms completely changed to adhere to CDC guidelines. Masking wearing. Social distance. Frequent sanitizing.

For some schools, parents will make a choice between the possibilities.

For many teachers, the choices seem impossible. Some teachers near retirement have decided not to return. Sadly some teachers succumbed to COVID-19. Many teachers are afraid to return.

It’s like no other back-to-school ever. 

This unique time is what my book will be about. There will also be practical recommendations for how schools and districts can make remote or hybrid teaching and learning work.