Take advantage of CTA’s wealth of resources to learn or refresh your knowledge of best distance teaching practices.

After schools closed in March, CTA’s Instruction and Professional Development (IPD) Department began offering webinars on best practices in distance learning and other digital teaching topics (see below). We asked webinar participants about additional training needs and gathered similar information from chapter leaders during CTA’s Presidents Conference in July. With the results, IPD created four focus areas for a new distance learning initiative:

• Rich Content and Effective Pedagogy
• Culture, Engagement and Social-Emotional Learning
• Systems, Support and Improvement
• Equity, Access, Agency and Advocacy

Webinars centered on these focus areas launched in early August and addressed subjects such as “Organizing Your Virtual Classroom” and “Building Connection and Culture.” (Sessions offered separate tracks for elementary and secondary practitioners, as well as certificates of completion.) IPD is continuing to develop more essential trainings and resources throughout the fall — for the latest, go to cta.org/distancelearning.

More from CTA Instruction and Professional Development

Spring 2020 IPD webinars, most of them presented by experienced members, can be accessed at youtube.com/californiateachers; scroll down to the IPD playlist. Offerings include:

Distance Teaching and Learning

• Best Practices for Virtual Teaching, parts 1 and 2; presenter: Nicole Piper
• Elementary Classroom Management in a Virtual Setting; presenter: Anna Cordero
• Secondary Classroom Management in a Virtual Setting; presenter: Anna Cordero
• Teaching K-2 Virtually; presenter: Angela Bauer
• Virtual K-2 Lesson Planning; presenter: Angela Bauer
• Take Your K-2 Lessons and Move Them Online; presenters: Angela Bauer, Karen Taylor
• Online Math Assessments; presenter: Amy Graza
• 5-8 Middle School Math; presenter: Lydia Catagna
• Taking High School Math Online; presenter: Andy Barrow
• High School ELA Guerrilla Virtual Style; presenter: Ian Jackson
• K-8 Block Scheduling; presenter: Anna Cordero
• Teaching Reading Intervention Through Distance Learning; presenter: Nicole Piper
• Teaching Specialized Populations Virtually; presenter: Anna Cordero
• Teaching Students in a Mod/Severe Program — How To Set Up a Lesson; presenter: Erin Brumm
• Supporting SPED Students in General Ed; presenter: Vicki Nelson
• SEL in a Virtual Setting; presenter: Will Henson

 Additional Tools

• Communicating With Parents Virtually (secondary focus); presenter: Anna Cordero
• Communicating With Parents Virtually (elementary focus); presenter: Anna Cordero
• Transitioning From Brick & Mortar to Virtual Settings in the High School Special Education Programs; panel discussion
• Pear Deck 3 — ACT Math; presenter: Kristan Morales
• Using Nearpod (geared toward middle/high school); presenter: Sophia Coria
• Advice for Our New Normal: Using Zoom; presenter: Jake Anderson
• Remote Learning Easier With Google Classroom!; presenter: Danesa Menge
• Taking Care of Yourself in the COVID-19 Shutdown; presenters: Angela Su, Karen Taylor
• Video Tools (VideoNotes, pbslearningmedia.org and edpuzzle.com); presenter: Karen Taylor

Slide from “Supporting SPED in General Ed”

CTA’s Instructional Leadership Corps

ILC is a CTA partnership with the National Board Resource Center at Stanford University and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. Its work is rooted in “teachers teaching teachers,” where educators (many of them CTA members) create and provide professional learning experiences to other educators and students. ILC offers a trove of useful webinar trainings focused on distance teaching and learning, a few of which are below (for the full list, see bit.ly/ILC-Webinars).

• Meaningful Mathematics in the Primary Grades in a Time of Distance Learning; presenters: Claudine Phillips and Lita Rubio
• MATHome: Making Everyday Counts!; presenter: Ma Bernadette Andres-Salgarino
• Reengaging Students to Encourage Attendance in Distance Learning (grades 5-12); presenters: Myra Deister and Angela Stegall
• Express Yourself! (through writing skills and art; grades TK-6); presenters: Aba Ngissah and Tracy Doverspike
• Writing in History and ELA in a Time of Distance Learning (grades 7-12); presenters: Tanya Crawford and Mary Frances Spruce
• Empowering English Learners Through the Lens of Universal Design for Learning; presenters: Elizabeth Beltran and Brenda Nievas
• Getting Through This Pandemic in a Healthy Way: Emotionally, Physically, Psychologically, and Spiritually; presenters: Stephanie Guzman and Ed De La Vega

Slide from “SEL in a Virtual Setting”

Join us on Facebook!

Share your ideas on what professional practices work for you, or what your training needs are. Join our Facebook group “CTA Teaching, Learning and Life During COVID-19” to connect with colleagues now. (You can also email us at editor@cta.org.)