Who would have known almost a year ago that we would all have experienced such a monumental change in our lives that showed us just how important and effective having students in the classroom with us is for student engagement.  Who would’ve known?

Somewhere in the middle of my second year of teaching, I vividly remember a moment when I realized, it’s got to get better quickly - meaning, I’ve got to stop engaging more and working harder than my students when it comes to understanding the content.  I’m not the one taking the test and I care a whole lot more than they do.  Side bar - of you course you do, you’re the teacher in the room, but feeling exhausted at the end of the day because of all your hard work just to have black screens or non-engaged students is not what’s going to keep you going in this career field.  

No matter how long you’ve been teaching, this year and your experiences with distance learning have...

"I don't learn this way," a student said in the second week or so of the new school year.  At that point students had taken notes from about two videos in our first unit of the course, and this was her (as it was for most students) first flipped classroom experience.

"I just don't learn this way, you know, from a video," she repeated. 

In an attempt to be patient and empathetic I tried reiterate what I was hearing her say, and then to be honest with her in a respectful manner.  So I said, "I hear you saying that taking notes from a video is new for you, and that you're used to taking notes from a teacher standing at the front of the room, is that right?  Well, let me ask you this... when you want to learn something new that you see someone do on social media, for instance you LOVE someone's new look and how she put on eyeliner.  What do you do to learn how to do it the exact same way?"

"I look it up on Youtube. [long pause]  O, I get it."

She understood...