On my campus, while we are working hard to meet the academic needs of students remotely, we are also focused on ensuring that students still feel connected to their teacher and their classmates. In the same way, while I want to meet the work needs of my staff members, I also want to ensure that we stay connected as a staff and continue to grow and build our culture – even remotely. Teachers are planning weekly class Zoom meetings for team building and culture building. As a staff, we are hanging out in a virtual staff lounge on Zoom and also sharing memes, jokes, and ideas on a staff padlet wall. Staying connected during this difficult time is so important for our students’ and our own mental health! After the first few – “It’s so great to see you” Zoom class or staff meetings, it can be hard to come up with more ideas for bonding and having fun together from a distance. Here are some ideas I’ve found across the internet that I hope you’ll find useful! Continue reading
Gamification of learning is an exciting trend in education. I’ve heard of many different schools and districts that are using ideas started in the classroom to gamify Professional Development by offering learn-on-your-own modules that teachers can complete to earn points or badges. I have been interested in this idea and have even started developing ideas for setting up a choice menu and badges for a summer professional development offering for my staff (more details to come 😉 ), but this morning, after listening to a couple of episodes of the 
their own scratch off cards… too much work for me… until NOW! Have you seen 