I have had the opportunity to observe some incredible virtual teaching and learning this year. Last week, Agnor-Hurt fifth-grade teacher (and one of my wife Sheri’s former students) Layne Rickabaugh invited me to play King George III for his students as “colonists” as they took turns reading off a list of grievances against the School Superintendent (me), after which they declared independence from Albemarle County Public Schools.

Just yesterday, I visited Sue Zeanah’s kindergarten PE class via Zoom. Sue utilized so many best practices for engagement and deeper learning that it would take a page to list them all. My favorite activity was “Deal or No Deal.” With this, Mrs. Zeanah asked each student “Deal or no deal?” in deciding if the class will do a specified number of repetitions of an exercise, say push-ups. Of course, given the choice, a kindergartner almost always picks “no deal,” which leads to a game of rock, paper, scissors with Sue (a great fine motor skill developer). If Sue wins, the reps are doubled; if the student wins, they are halved. Mrs. Zeanah used this opportunity to teach multiplication and division as a form of addition and subtraction. And the students and Sue were moving the whole time. I only actually joined the class on camera when it was time to stretch.

Thank you Mr. Rickabaugh and Mrs. Zeanah for inviting me to class. You typify the empathy, creativity, and super-hard work all of our teachers are doing to make virtual learning work so well for our students. Thank you all!

Friday, October 16, 2020