To say that the sudden school shut downs across the world are uncharted territory is an understatement. We both have felt the effects of school closures, pandemic freak outs, and a lot of confused administrators trying to both quell fears and keep the education system afloat.

When Marie and I sat down to talk about our own students and the situation we are facing, one thing was clear: the students need our HELP with how to navigate LIFE. Yes, we want to keep their education on a forward path and flip our classrooms (to a reasonable extent), but we didn’t want to forget how difficult TIME MANAGEMENT would be for our students. Listen, even with a bell schedule and a “normal” school day, my students struggle with this. Now? Home with unstructured time for the foreseeable future? This is just one more crisis that we need to address.

WE HAVE A SOLUTION & WE’RE READY TO SHARE IT WITH YOU!

Here’s what we did. We made a slide deck, then we recorded a voice over in order to make it a video, and we created a template. This slide deck, video, and template are all designed to help students set themselves up for success in terms of time management and scheduling. We walk students through the different responsibilities that they are faced with on a daily basis and then offer practical, manageable ways for them to structure their days.

This will be our FIRST eLearning assignment: watch the video and create your own “work from home” schedule.

It’s simple, but we’re hoping that it’s powerful. We hope that having to sit down and sketch out a plan for the day will help students focus and will also help students realize how they will be needing our help. We’re expecting that this assignment will start important conversations with students — the actual schedule isn’t really what’s most important here. It’s all about the PROCESS.

We wish you health, comfort, a little bit of stay-at-home fun, and sanity during this crazy time. We can’t wait to see you on a regular basis when Brave New Teaching launches April 2nd! If you haven’t already checked it out, give a listen to our teaser trailer - this is going to be one crazy ride together!