Seeing how many higher ed educators have responded to this shift in direction by overloading their students with work + little/no instructional supports has been so jarring. Part of good teaching (from, y’know, the years I’ve had being immersed in teacher ed) means scaffolding. https://twitter.com/emarbelo_/status/1247545903482839042

Scaffolding is a teaching approach used to gradually build up skills/ knowledge over time. Think of it like a hand to hold while learning to walk — it’s the ways in which a teacher gives support to help students get from point A to point B. Example below: https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/sca/cresource/q1/p01/#content-mobile

This is a challenge when you’re not physically in the classroom with your students, and I GET THAT! It’s been a barrier I’ve been trying to deal with with student teaching. However, that does not mean throwing hands in the air and giving up.

Now more than ever, we need strength.

Find ways to show your students that you care about them. This situation means being flexible like never before. Show empathy as many students have been left to try and teach themselves with no help during a FREAKIN PANDEMIC.

Show kindness. Teach them transferable study skills.

Take this time to actually show your strength as an educator, which means being much more than just an expert of your content. How can you encourage others to learn even a little bit of your content area in impossible times? How do you set up your digital classroom for them?

This is hard, and this is uncharted territory for many. But I’ve seen teachers who feared technology and didn’t know how to instruct in a digital setting step up and learn so much themselves, because that’s what you do for students. We’re all constantly growing and learning!

If this thread is reaching scared educators: there are resources out there to help you with digital learning & scaffolding independent learning. Don’t try to push out quantities of work in fear of offering students too little, because it’s actually hindering them. Be responsive.

If this thread is reaching overwhelmed students: I feel you. I see you. I am you. You don’t have to be at peak productivity right now, but try to take some time to learn something new bit by bit or develop study/organizational habits to ease your mind a bit.

If anyone has any resources to help out educators or students, feel free to share some links below! This thread isn’t meant to bash anyone as much as address a problem that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. We can make a change if we work through this TOGETHER. Sending you