Conversations on Corona Virus Impact and How to Support Self Care

Yesterday, I was able to hop on a virtual meeting with other coaches from around the US.  We talked about ways instructional coaches can support teachers.

I know self-care is critical at this time.  There are feelings of stress, pressure and sadness as we witness the warpath of the virus and how it's wrestling people for their lives.  It's tough to take.

Teachers are holding their own learning, doing and trying to stay positive for families and students.  I witnessed a tearful moment today as I watched my daughter's school teachers drive through the neighborhood beeping horns and showing signs that said, "we love you" and "we miss you".  Well, we love you and miss you too...my heart was in my throat! I choked back the tears but they came anyway.

I worry about teachers.  I want to help but how?  What's the best way?  Dr. Brad Johnson shared a wonderful meme earlier in the week.

 

I thought about how I could help teachers with a focus on self-care.  So, I created a self care bingo board.  I wanted to add this cheerful message:

 

and create a video to introduce the self care board along with incentives for completion without it feeling like one more thing to do.

Here is the board I created:

header created using Canva

I hope it's seen as a way to support teachers.  What do you think?  Helpful or harmful?

Living in the Time of Corona Virus-Pioneers Blazing the Virtual Learning Trail

I can't believe the way of the world...

A Pandemic...

A Super-spreader virus...

I never thought...

None the less, the journey's begun.  We are living in quarantine and have been for the almost three weeks.  It feels like an endless Saturday or Groundhog day where it's become cycle, rinse, repeat.

It's all over the place.  Our governor and the state director of health have shut it down.  Thank goodness because many more people would be infected if it weren't for them sounding the alarm about how we can fight the virus through the use of "social distance" planning.  We're doing it. 

Now, school has become a  virtual learning experience too.  I am experiencing it as a teacher, a coach, and a parent.  It's not easy.  I worry about the equity of it all.  Many families don't have internet access but students are suppose to learn "online".  This is likely how it will be through the end of the school year.

Yet, every day I am a witness to absolute dedication and living out of the habits of promise by our teachers and students.  I see the smiles on their faces, the digital determination alive in our tiny humans.  I have joined in our promise circles to hear the dear things our kiddos are saying.  I am so proud of their commitment to learning as they share their thinking with their classmates.

So here we are crossing the bridge together to blaze a trail on the other side where no one has gone before.  We are virtual learning pioneers.  And-we've got this!

How Breathe, 2020 OLW, Found Me!

One of the blessings of this winter break has been the time to work on projects around the house without interruption.  There are so many of these projects just waiting for me to embrace them.  I love that they are calling out to me to try and get my attention! "Pick me!"  "No, pick me!"  "Choose me!"  "I need your attention!"

It just so happens that the one most inspiring project has been the cleaning and keeping of my crafting room.  It's become a "catch all" over the last ten years.  Around the house when no one knew what to do with something, its new home became the crafting room.  One of the things that landed in there was my dad's bag of coloring books which got passed back and forth between him and my mom as they were in separate nursing homes the last two years of their lives as they both had extreme health issues that were incompatible with cohabitation.  My dad passed in 2017 and my mom passed a year ago on New Years Eve.  Touching the coloring books felt off limits.  I just couldn't look.  I couldn't handle thinking about how much time they spent in the last moments of their lives with the books and colored pencils.  It calmed them, passed their time when we couldn't be there.

Finally a few days ago, I was  clearing the crafting room, going through the stack of books (one by one)-this is how my one little word for 2020 found me.  I opened the book to this page as it was marked by two pencils left in the book.  My dad colored the picture a few months before he died.  My mom got the books from him but her dementia didn't allow for remembering that he had passed.  She wrote him a note on the back of the page...she loved him and missed him so much.

Just Breathe

Steve Senior, Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be.   Good job!

After reading the adoring message she wrote to him, I flipped back to the colored design and seeing it, burst into tears...ironically, not being able to breathe is what brought my dad's life to an end.

After my tears subsided, I reflected and felt like my parents were angels just then, talking to me, whispering a reminder to take things slowly, calmly.  Then, consider things but remember to breathe, just breathe...embracing opportunities when they appear!

So that is how my #OLW2020 found me and I chose Breathe...

Shout Out! Scattering Summer Kindness

A few days ago, I saw this tweet and thought about playing Summer Twitter Bingo...

Summer Twitter Bingo starts on Monday! Who’s ready to scatter kindness in this world?

Snap a photo completing one of the kind acts listed on our board and include the hashtags #passionforkindness and #hcpspln. How many ways can you get a #KindnessBingo?#tlap #edchat pic.twitter.com/JCiiuqhAvo

— Tamara Letter (@tamaraletter) June 14, 2019

The first square I wanted to check off is "writing a note of appreciation to someone".  The someone I'd like to write an appreciation letter for is Eric Curts!  Eric is generously sharing ideas, links and learning and constantly inspiring me and others.  Here is my letter:

Dear Eric,
Thank you for always inspiring me and others with your ideas, links and learning.  You are so great about creating and sharing your ideas with the world.  The world has become a much brighter place because of the kindness and citizenship you exude on your blog Control Alt Achieve and on Twitter and other tech avenues.  I am so grateful that I met you through different conference venues in the Northeast Ohio area.  Thank you for being you.
Gratefully,

 

Amy Rudd

Who would you consider giving a shout out to?  Spread some seeds of kindness today...

I Promise School Year 1-Lights Out

I heard it over and over:  “I can’t believe it’s the last day!” “I don’t want it to end.” and “I don’t want to go home.”

I saw tears streaming from children’s eyes as they said goodbye when the buses rolled down the lane toward the street.  They were hanging out the windows waving.  The buses were honking...we were waving back, choking back the tears...

Many smiled, some sobbed few were hysterical...it was a beautiful summer send off-one I’ll always remember as we ended our inaugural year at the I Promise School.

I feel so blessed to be a part of this opportunity to connect with pupils, people and partner organizations at our school.  There’s no place like home.  Our lights are now out for the summertime but we’ll be back home soon.

OETC 2019 Nuggets of Newness

OETC 2019 was an amazing experience.  I learned so much from colleagues, coworkers, and speakers during the event.  I loved reflecting and reviewing all of the nuggets of newness I mined during the conference.  There were so many amazing sessions as well as inviting vendors in the exhibit hall.  This year, I created a google doc to display all of the learning links that I wanted remember.  So, here, in no particular order, I have shared the most important information acquired during the conference.

To open links in the Google Doc, try right clicking on it and selecting, "Open in New Tab". 

A Byte about Pear Deck

Last Friday, I joined in being trained with other "inspearational" educators to become a Pear Deck Regional Coach!  I was overjoyed to be a part of the group and learn more about the "Peardagogy" from the Pear Deck trainers.  It's now official-I'm a regional coach and I'm happy to #sharethepear.  

During our training, we read articles to learn more detail about the philosophy of the company.  One of the articles I found inspirational included the details highlighted in the picture I shared here:

Source https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/opinion/sunday/are-college-lectures-unfair.html

Active learning is one of the key reasons I know using Pear Deck is valuable and can make an impact on the students with whom teachers work every day.

If you have not yet used Pear Deck, check out this sample deck I made to share.  Kids love how Pear Deck works and as a teacher, you will too!  Each time a teacher publishes a deck with the "Google Slides Add-on", a random 5 letter code will generate and allow students to join via a web enabled device.  The teacher can then use the dashboard feature to monitor student responses and give immediate feedback as students participate in the lesson.

The product allows for all students to have an active role in participating throughout the lesson.  After the lesson ends, teachers can give additional feedback to students via the "takeaways" that are published and stored in the student's google drive.  The takeaways serve as a digital note sheet that collected their answers from the lesson.  This could be used as a study guide for future assessments.

Are you excited to see this in action?  If you are interested in learning more about Pear Deck, click here.  

An Open Letter to LeBron and the LeBron James Family Foundation

Dear LeBron and The LeBron James Family Foundation,

(my 23rd post on this blog, ironically) Everyone across the world can agree, your Impact is beyond measure!  From the support hugs for Akron's students to trees in Topanga State Park, the amazing things you and your team do daily are inspiring people for life!  I am one of them.

I was first inspired by watching you grow up in Akron, hearing about your stories from the Central Hower High School office and watching highlights from St. VM.  Everyone knew you'd be great, but how great, no one knew for sure...

I then watched you grow as a player for the CAVS!  Our hometown team deserved to have a hometown hero like you-a kid from Akron.

I started hearing more about the foundation as Michelle spoke to our instructional coach group about learning from mistakes and growing up and going away...and coming home too.  I learned more about how you are #morethananathlete with all the philanthropy you and your team are making happen every. single. day.  I don't think there's an award big enough to give you all for the lives you've touched and impacted in special ways throughout your career.

As I started working on the curriculum team for the I Promise School, I learned even more through visits to the LJFF Suite-which is very sweet.  I became even more inspired by the work our team and your team would do to launch the I Promise School...

And that brings me to the staff and student promises.  Our staff and our students take these seriously.  One of  the parts I personally took serious is the message to take time and take care of myself.

I became inspired to focus on being more active.  I have been going to the rec center, meeting with a trainer and working out on a more regular basis.  As a result, I have worked on clean eating and setting goals on becoming more fit.  I think about pushing through the pain as I work out and have gained incredible respect for all the working out you must be doing to stay on top of your game.

I can't thank you enough for all of the support you and the family foundation have provided to me, our staff and most importantly, our students as we move through our first year at the I Promise School.  I am personally and professionally grateful to you in such a heartfelt way I am practically in tears as I write this post.  I truly feel blessed to be a member of the I Promise School Family.

I promise to keep running even when it seems like my tank might be empty.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going...

Gratefully,

Amy Rudd

I Promise School Year’s Eve

Tonight is School Year’s Eve.  The night before the first official day of school.  I originally wrote about School Year’s Eve in this post over at The Rudder.

I want badly to ignore the butterflies in my stomach and nod off to sleep like I do every night but this night feels different because tomorrow is different.

I am working with the most amazing team of people ever assembled.  And tomorrow we will change the path for 240 students who will be the first classes of students to enter the I Promise School. A school where joint ventures and partnerships are expected as with Akron Public Schools and the LeBron James Family Foundation.  A school that came from a dream of Lebron James, who’s more than an athlete.  He keeps promises to his kids and community and continues to give so much.

As LeBron shared via Twitter, earlier today, the opportunity before us as our students begin tomorrow is “to help them to find their passion, give back to our community and change the world!!”  He’s leading the charge along with his foundation, the Akron Public Schools and an army of partners and volunteers who’ve been quietly working behind the scenes to set the stage for success.

I keep thinking about resolutions for this new year...I think about the ones I wrote on six years ago with my first graders and I want these for our kiddos at the I Promise School too.  As the ball drops toward the launch of a monumental beginning, here are the resolutions I want to share:

Give Thanks and Build the community-Together
Read and Write every day-Together
Use tech to collaborate, critique, create and critically think-Together
Problem solve and Persevere through work-Together
Think and create with the most amazing teachers ever-Together.

I’m ready-except I have to wait...as Principal Davis says, “Let’s get it! Let’s go!”
And I’m ready to step off! #WeAreFamily

#Flipgrid Fever

Over the past few days, I've been diving in to work on all things technology as our district hosted a mini-tech conference #APS3T2018 Teach, Tech, Transform.  By all accounts, I would say that most participants agreed that our conference was a success.  We had around 300 participants join in the learning with us.  We were blessed to have Vicki Davis, @CoolCatTeacher, as our Keynote Speaker for Day 1 and @StephanieDonofe for Day 2.  They both shared inspiring stories that were woven through their keynote speeches which tugged at the heartstrings of all who listened.

The @CoolCatTeacher shared great advice with us-a reminder to pick three things and innovate like a turtle-slow and steady wins the race.  Stephanie's great advice was-keep moving forward no matter what.  I will heed the advice and move forward with three things I want to get better at...my first is here-#flipgrid.

The tech tool I'm most inspired by is FlipGrid.  An announcement made yesterday about Flipgrid was that it will now be free to all who use it.  I am sure that this will only be for a short time so get it while it's hot!  I attended a deeper dive session today on how to use Flipgrid in the classroom.  One of the ideas shared was to use it as a reflection tool for students, teachers and parents.  I also like the idea of using as a bucket filler-a way to show kindness to others.

I hope to use it as a way for students to review books that they unearth as they participate in our school-wide after school book club when we start back to school.  I am looking forward to hearing what they have to say as they review and recommend their books to a friend.  It's very exciting to know that we now have a tool that can visually capture students' thinking so they can participate in making their mark on the world.

Thanks to Kristi and Jen for hosting the session and allowing us time to explore the #flipgrid tool.  I know I now have flipgrid fever.  LOL!