Distance Learning ft. Jenna Adler

Jenna Adler

Meet our guest

Our guest this week is dear to us—we were co-teachers in Junior Kindergarten a few years ago! Jenna taught us how to seamlessly incorporate technology into our everyday learning with children; through our emergent curriculum, as a management tool, and also as a form of observation and assessment. She’s our go-to with technology and distance learning tips and tricks!

Jenna has spent 10 years teaching in both an Early Childhood and primary school setting and is passionate about her philosophy of empowering young children as learners. She is certified in English Language Learning and has served as a Technology Leader for grades 1-4. Jenna views technology as a tool to imagine new possibilities, join conversations, make a difference, and discover questions worth answering. 

To connect with Jenna’s on social media, follow @jwein89 on Twitter.

““Be OK with things not going according to plan and be sensitive to what’s going on at home.” ”

— Jenna Alder

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Teacher Takeaways

Distance Learning…

1. Be OK with fauilure and open to trying new things!

   • We expect our children to learn new things; learn with them!

   • Experiment with all the features that the platform of your choice has to offer.

2. Pick one platform that you’re comfortable with and stick with it.

3. Connection:

   1. Daily morning meeting

      • Offers consistency and sets the tone.

      • Follow the same flow that you’d offer in your classroom.

   2. Offer small group and one-on-one time.

      • This allows for more children to have time to connect with eachother, the teacher and time to share out.

4. Consistency:

   1. Offerings should be daily and at same time, if possible,

   2. Make offerings/lessons/group-times predictable and fun.

5. Content:

   1. Use the children’s home environment as part of the learning!

      • Pictures and videos of thier home, surrondings, and items within enhances the learning.

   2. Name your lessons and get the children excited for the content:

      • Mystery Mondays: Give children a prompt to take a picture of.

        • Example) Children take a picture of an item or a group of one item and the class estimates how many of that item thier are. It’s math and fun!

      • Lunch and Learn, offered once a week at the same time, for parents that have questions or need support.

   3. Take virtual filed trips with the kids.

6. Be proactive: If in-person now, offer a “Zoom PJ Party” to get the kids comfortable with Zoom— just in case!

7. Revise things daily: distance learning requires a lot of reflection.

8. Be senstive to what’s going on at home. Allow eveyone to show up in a way that’s the most comfortable to them.

   1. This can mean: camera on or off, quiet room for working, room for using chat functions only and room for talking while working. Allowing for all of these offerings appeals to different learning styles and different moods; very responsive!

Resources

Referenced in the Interview

For Theresa Wills templates, PD Recordings, Math Routines and more, click HERE.

Sign up for Seesaw (for free)!

Seesaw is a wonderful resource for both in-person learning and at-home learning as well. We use it in our classroom as well and LOVE it. Feel free to reach out to us with any questions!

Canva

Canva is a graphic design platform, very user-friendly with so many templates to choose from!

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