Bringing visitors into your classroom to speak to students can be a powerful vehicle for learning. And though New York may have the highest number of experts per capita, a remote visit allows you to hear from people around the country and the world. 

Fostering a respectful environment and establishing predictable classroom routines goes a long way toward helping students thrive. But for new and experienced teachers alike, this school year presents fresh challenges to traditional classroom conduct.

Incorporating popular culture in the classroom is a way to make what I am trying to teach immediately more relevant and engaging for my students. In my classroom, “texts” can be lyrics, music videos, films, comics, TV shows, graphic novels or even YouTube videos.

Podcasts can be used as a novel way to introduce or reinforce subject matter with our students. For those of us concerned about screen time, podcasts are an antidote, and they help sharpen listening skills, too.

As early as March 2020, headlines warned of the “learning loss” that students would experience as a result of disrupted and remote schooling. But that phrase misclassifies the real issue and obscures how teachers can best support their students.

Rather than just seeing them for what their scores say or what we unconsciously believe about them, we need to make sure that we as teachers are centering student voices and experiences in our curriculum and instruction.