Mrs. Slaviero's Blog

Keeping virtual students connected is tougher than it seems. For a multitude of reasons it's an ongoing endeavor this year. While I will once again teach my LEGACY reflection this spring, my 8th Grade US colleague thought to connect LEGACY to George Washington's Farewell Address and, if today is any indication, it's now a powerful and authentic way to kick off this reflection. My students tend to communicate in breakout rooms better when we are in hybrid mode (when students are in class and some are virtual). I don't know why this is but it might have something to do with school feeling more "real" when some students are in school. Regardless, it's on me to encourage and motivate students to talk to one another in breakout rooms every time.  In a normal year communicating with peers in class happens fairly effortlessly, in breakout rooms it's so challenging. I continually move from breakout room to room, assigning leaders to introduce a topic (again, ...

Teaching Language Support-History has been so rewarding this year. This class has brought me back to being a first year teacher--the highs, lows, uncertainty, and the rewards of working with students learning English, Social Studies content, and American school at the same time. It's also been, as I've previously stated, a perfect mix of my two content area strengths: History and foreign language instruction, even though the foreign language is English, not German. (I do have a German student, though! It's been nice to practice my German when I have clarified concepts with her.) I've had one more professional bucket list want that I can finally check off of my list--I am part of a teaching team this year. Our Language Support students are together for English, Science, and Social Studies classes every day. The three of us teachers, along with our amazing Parapro, have gained so much momentum this year creating cross-curricular units for our students. The online l...