With the 2021-22 school year now in the rear view, many of us are breathing a collective sigh of relief. It’s time to reflect on the year that was and get a fresh take on the strategies and teaching practices you want to incorporate for the school year ahead.
Nonetheless, I know many of you are still going strong and are in the midst of teaching summer school and looking for fun summer activities to engage your students right away! Unless you’re like my friend Miranda, a high school math teacher, who, when asked whether she was teaching summer school, answered with a resounding “NO!” Summer is her time to sleep past 5 a.m. and get some well-deserved time for self-care.
Regardless of what you have planned for the months ahead, Share My Lesson’s Summer of Learning is filled with refreshing and inspiring content for summertime.
We know our members—and our educational content partners—enjoy and look forward to SML’s ever popular, free, for-credit professional development webinars. The new Summer of Learning series is no exception. Running from July 25 to Aug. 5, this expanded offering includes cross-curricular topics that span preschool through higher education.
Here’s a snapshot of what’s to come on the issues that matter to you most:
Building Community
The classroom should be a welcoming environment where adults, adolescents and children all feel socially and emotionally safe. Learn how to create a learning environment that fosters community and engagement with these professional development sessions:
- Addressing Bullying Behavior In Your Classroom: Informing and Enhancing Your Practice with WE Schools/WE Teachers
- How to Support Adolescents' Social Emotional Growth in Middle School with Peekapak
- Take Your Classroom Back: Starting the New Year with the Authority of Care with Amber Chandler
Differentiated Learning
If you ask 10 different people what they see when looking at a certain piece of abstract art, you will probably get 10 different answers. We all come to the table with different backgrounds, skills and unique ideas that influence how we view and interact in the world. Similarly, students enter school with different factors that influence how they learn and interact with others, so we must be open to responding and meeting the differentiated needs of our students. Improve your skills on meeting students’ individual needs with these professional development sessions:
- Managing the Differentiated Classroom with Barbara Blackburn
- Understanding Learner Variability within Culturally Responsive Practices with Digital Promise
- When ESL and Content Teachers Collaborate for ELLs: A Discussion Group with Colorín Colorado
Civics, Social Studies and Current Events
With 2022 midterms just around the corner, it’s a good idea to be prepared to guide civil discussions with students about the upcoming elections. Learn how to navigate teaching students about finding common ground, being active citizens, understanding current events and political issues, and how to identify solutions going forward. Use the tools and strategies in these webinars to prepare:
- E Pluribus Unum: Discussing Partisanship and Common Ground in the Classroom with the Constitutional Rights Foundation
- Developing Active Citizens: A View from the Classroom with the Center on Congress at Indiana University
- Missing Migration Narratives in American History with Re-imagining Migration
- Podcast-Inspired, Solutions-Driven Climate Education with MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative
- The Underrepresented Voices of 9/11: Elevating Courage, Compassion and Commitment with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum
Developing Literacy Skills
Interested in fresh ways to help students develop their literacy prowess? Strong literacy skills allow children and young adults to better grasp complex topics and take part in constructive conversations with others. These invaluable literacy skills can be honed when working with others in small groups and by incorporating learning about social issues into literacy lessons. Register for these professional development sessions to learn how:
- Rethinking Small Group Work: Unlocking Language to Accelerate Students' Literacy with Connie Jacquays, part of AFT’s Reading Opens the World initiative
- Teaching Social Justice and Equity in the ELA Classroom: The Quad Text Set Approach with the University of Delaware Partnership for Public Education
We hope to see you online soon, and we hope you have a wonderful summer ahead.
Megan Ortmeyer is an SML Team Member and has worked in the AFT Educational Issues Department since fall 2018. She received her M.A. in education policy studies in May 2020 from the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at the George Washington University. Prior to working at the AFT,... See More
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