13. One Teacher’s Story of Navigating 2020

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Hey Designers,

Today we are talking to Dr. Cherylann Schmidt, an 8th grade ELA teacher in New Jersey.  She also teaches Research Methods and Capstone Writing in the  Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Cherylann shares how she has  been navigating teaching since the beginning of the COVID Crisis.  Cherylann gives each of us something to think about in terms of increasing engagement through promoting student agency and voice and gives us permission to share our failures.

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Read the transcript for this episode below. The transcript was created with AI, so there may be errors.

Michele Schmidt Moore 0:00

Welcome to design lessons, the podcast where we design our teaching days to be fulfilling for us and irresistible to our students. I'm Dr. Michele Schmidt, Moore, and instructional design is my superpower. Each episode we will take actionable steps to create great teaching days will focus on mindset, real world opportunities, and critical and creative thinking for us and our students. So whether you're on your commute to school, walking your dog or doing the dishes, let's start designing.

Hey, designers, today we are talking to Dr. Cheryl Ann Schmidt, who is an eighth grade English language arts teacher in New Jersey. She also teaches research methods and Capstone writing in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, Cheryl and shares how she has been navigating teaching since the beginning of the COVID crisis. And she gives us something to think about in terms of increasing engagement through promoting student agency and voice. And you know what she gives us some permission to share our failures. But before we get started, I am so excited to plan Season Two of design lessons helped me shape it just for you take 10 seconds to take a two question survey, sharing your number one challenges with teaching right now. And as a thank you for listening to the podcast in for taking the survey, you will be entered into a giveaway for a Starbucks gift card.

Michele Schmidt Moore 1:42

Cherylann welcome to design lessons. I'm so glad that you're here. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about yourself. Hi, Michelle, it's so great to be here. So I have been teaching for middle school, mostly eighth grade, but his smattering of seventh grade here and there. For the last 28 years I teach in New Jersey, I teach LA, I've taught in both urban and suburban districts in the state, I went through a very traditional teacher ed program at one of our state colleges that was and still is very much known for its teacher ed program. That's how it got started, you know, 150 years ago or whatever, it was a normal school.

Cherylann Schmidt 2:31

So it turns out a lot of us and i a lot of my colleagues are alum as well. And, um, I actually what was really interesting with my journey to college, Neither of my parents went to college.

And, you know, I kind of had that idea. They were all for me going to college at all. I mean, from when I was very little their idea was like, Yes, you will go to college. But it was also that mindset of like, you need to come out being able to do something. And I wasn't so much until like nursing, and math was not my strong suit. So accounting was out. And, um, you know, I, I really wanted to study English. So I was like, Oh, well, and I like kids I had worked at in the children's room at my public library. And I babysat for tons of years author of middle school and high school, I'm like, okay, I you know, I can be a teacher, I can do this. And then of course, you know, you, you get your first practicum in the classroom and you're like, oh my god.

I don't know if I can do this.

Real right. Yeah, it's it's no longer all textbooks and, and just like, I'm gonna read this book, and these kids are instantly going to fall in love with it. It just, you know, doesn't happen.

But I was part of a program that Governor Kaine implemented in the 80s. He did a lot for public education in New Jersey, and, and not to be overly political, but he really he was somebody who was about bringing a living wage to our public school teachers. He was all about investing in our public schools. And he had a program that was called the governor's teacher scholars. And I actually ended up with a full scholarship to college for four years that reward books, everything. And all I had to do was teach in New Jersey, for anywhere between either for years if I went with really a really, really rural community or an urban community, or six years if I went suburban. And then when I came out, of course, no one needed teachers. We were in another recession and nobody, nobody was retiring andthey had changed all the certification. It was a really, really bad time to come out of college. So I feel for everybody who's graduating right now, this year clearly is different for everyone.

Michele Schmidt Moore 5:00

I'm sort of curious how you've gone about, well, sort of what situation like how are you teaching?

Cherylann Schmidt 5:07

In terms of like, what is the model look like in your district? So we've had to diff Well, really three different models since last March. Um, you know, I think like everyone we left school on, and I remember this, it was a very dear friend's birthday, and it happened to be Friday the 13th. So we left school on Friday the 13th. And that was it. We didn't reenter school again until October 5. So it was a little crazy. We really like, like, so many schools, were kind of crisis teaching, I hate that term. I think we did a really good job. I work with amazing people. And we literally turned it around in a day. So our superintendent had a day off for the students on that Monday, which I think was a 16th of March. And it was a professional emergency professional development day for faculty. And we literally finalized all of our plans to get ready to go on zoom that Tuesday had never taught on zoom. Before, I had never done any remote teaching before, we were just heading off on to zoom. And our requirements were that we had to have office hours every morning.

So we had an hour that we were, we were required to have beyond zoom that kids could pop in whenever they needed to ask questions, etc. And then all of our lessons were asynchronous. So even though we were one to one, our students all have Chromebooks. And and it wasn't a matter of sharing, having to share devices with family members and things like that. I think we weren't sure as a community, you know, access to internet, things like that access to quiet spaces in the home. And I don't think any of us expected to be home as long as we were home, quite honestly. Right. I think people were at when we all left in March, I think people were mostly thinking, Oh, we'll be gone for a couple of weeks. And then a couple of weeks turned into a month, which then turned into the rest of the school year. Exactly. Which is a, which is a large change. I mean, online learning has been around coolly for four decades, honestly, however, that's not the mode and the model that most of us were were trained in. Um, and so I think to go, like you said, from a Friday, I think you and I might have gone out on the same day for Friday, to coming back and starting the schools a teaching school in a different way that following. For me, it was the following, I think, Wednesday with kids and Tuesday to get a little bit of understanding of the situation.

Michele Schmidt Moore 8:08

And I think that situation married across the country. Right. Um, I think that I think in general, teachers did a good job of, like you said, depending turning on a pin, and adapting in a very short period of time, and then districts have had the challenge of over the summer, you know, coming up with plans not really trying to really meet, meet a moving target, not knowing sort of how this crisis is going is evolving, and we're still going to meet that.

Cherylann Schmidt 8:42

Yeah. And I think that was one of the things like I was just playing with, with tools. I mean, we had the whole Google suite, but it was like, Okay, how, how am I really meeting my students needs, I was missing them. They were missing each other. You know, I was having students email me saying I need You know, there used to be book talking every day and, you know, conferring when I'm in a bounce balance literacy program, so if nothing for me to like, pull up next to a student and have a deep in depth conversation about, you know, their reading their writing, or both. And all of a sudden, that was gone. So I did a lot of polling the students, you know, how is this working for you? How is that working for you trying different tools, not inundating them with new things all at once, but trying one new platform, letting them get used to it and then asking them like, how's this working for you? And what we ultimately found was that paradox, they liked paradox the best at that point in time, so I was obviously able to put all my Google Slides together, I was able to put in video clips, I was able to put in passages of text all everything in one spot so they didn't find it really quick. cumbersome. And then I was able to record any of my many lessons and speak to them. And it was interesting because the students would say to me, you know, in my Google surveys, yeah, how's everything going? They would say, I really like paradox, because I can rewind and hear you explain whatever I was missing. And I can pause it. And I, you know, they felt that connection, I guess, even the, you know, the disembodied voice, you know, even if I wasn't there with them, there was more of me with them. auditorily versus just reading?

Michele Schmidt Moore 10:38

Oh, sorry. No, I was just going to point out a couple of things that I sort of noticed that you said that were interesting. And I think sort of strategies that people can apply. And it's, it's something I think that we all know, but you know, sometimes hearing it underlined, one thing that you did was you asked students, how's this going for you? You know, sort of making them part of that conversation of, Okay, we're all trying out something new. You know, how is this going for you I know, for me, we just got we use Google meets, and the breakout rooms finally are now in and happening. And so we tried them this past week. And you and I had them working in small groups and being able to talk to each other. And when we got back, I'm like, Alright, so how's this going for you? And I think that that's kind of a key thing is, you know, since we are sort of building this with students, and we're building community with them, asking them how it's going for them makes such a difference in I think their ownership even of what you're doing and the conversations that we're that we're having. Exactly.

Cherylann Schmidt 11:41

In my doctoral dissertation, the work I did, I was in the reading writing and literacy program at U Penn. And I did my dissertation looking at it in its in its simplest form, it was looking at multi genre writing and how that influences students identities as writers as learners. But what I really found, as I was looking at this year's worth of data was that there's so much about agency that I found myself building into the classroom, and that just really became a focal point of what I started doing. In my teaching moving forward, after I you know, analyzed what was happening after really that practitioner inquiry after I was analyzing my my teaching, and writing up the dissertation, it really became How am I giving students not just choice, but how am I honoring their voice in my classroom, and letting them know that they they're valued in that space? And, you know, really asking them and then saying, Hey, I heard you found parodic to be really helpful. Let me give you more of that. I heard you didn't like this. So guess what, we're not going to do that anymore. Like I get where you're coming from. It's It's annoying and cumbersome. Oh, you guys are split with how you feel about, you know, whatever this other platform is, hey, guess what, you're gonna have a choice. You can do a fleet. They didn't really like flipgrid. Too much. Some of the mids some of them didn't, okay, well, guess what, you can do a flipgrid. For me, you can do this for me, or you can do that for me. And, you know, giving them a choice of what their product was in a time that was really stressful for all of us, I think helped everybody.

Michele Schmidt Moore 13:37

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that the idea of maybe using choice Ford's but I like what you said about voice because I think often we say that phrase choice and voice. And I think a lot of us definitely give choice for like, Oh, you've got these three possibilities, choose the one you know, the modality that is best for you. But I think when we talk about voice, a lot of times we miss truly hearing a student's voice and really, that you've given me something to think about because I really want to kind of think more about what are ways that I can make sure my students voices are heard in the classroom. And one of them obviously, is asking them how they're how they're feeling about what we're doing. And then acting on it, you know, as based on what they say. But yes, you've got me thinking about that. And I think that's something I'd love some more conversation on, you know, in general, like so, you know, people who are listening as you're thinking about that, what are ways that you're using giving your students voice in your classroom?

Cherylann Schmidt 14:38

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as a teacher right now, that's what I feel is missing, where we're, you know, we might have a choice of how we do different things. But when we're expressing a need, we're not always being heard. And I find myself gravitating towards those People who are less who are hearing me, you know, I, they may not have an answer for me every time or I may not get my way every time. But when I feel heard, those are the people that are not only willing to really like really willing to work with and what to work with. But those are also when it comes to leadership that on I will follow you anywhere. If I feel heard and validated. I'll follow you right into the fire, you know, whatever you want, because I know I matter.

Michele Schmidt Moore 15:35

Yes, that gets back to the you matter that?

Cherylann Schmidt 15:39

Yeah, absolutely.

Michele Schmidt Moore 15:40

Nicole, it all comes down to you matter. matter. Exactly. Um,

Cherylann Schmidt 15:45

and then, you know, that was the spring. So that was like this very asynchronous weird thing in the spring. And then we started this school year, all 100% remote, but we were expected to do synchronous teaching remotely, which we all felt better about. And I spent a lot of time this summer, figuring out how to do that. And again, what you know, figuring out what tools were going to work for students and and things like that you weren't going to ask question. Yeah, I

Michele Schmidt Moore 16:20

was gonna ask you, because I think people are curious or, and I'm curious, satisfy my curiosity, a typical period, or block sort of look like so if you're doing synchronous teaching, and I assume you're teaching first block, then second block? And third and fourth? How do you block out your time for your kids? And how does it you know, clear your teaching? As you said, a balanced literacy. How's it work?

Cherylann Schmidt 16:47

Sure. So it doesn't, what happened, what has happened in the last five weeks or so in school is now we're we're face to face with students, but we also have some students who are remote. So my teaching has changed slightly this school year. But it's all it's all pretty much the same whether on remote with my students, or whether I'm face to face with my students, we have them we're on a half day schedule with them. So we only have them for an hour, a normal block is 83 minutes.

Michele Schmidt Moore 17:21

Okay. So

Cherylann Schmidt 17:24

I don't feel that I get as much time for conferencing with my students. But I do believe in making sure we're reading and writing every day. So first, our first unit with our students is an exploration of character. So they're doing the bulk of their day, we're looking at reading strategies, and we're looking at literature and their readings. So I start the block with an opening writing activity every day. So, um, when we were 100% remote, that meant that my Oh, wha was just on a Google slide. And it was, I mean, it literally could be anything. And it's, it's our chance for notebooking really is what it boils down to. And it was any type of prompt, it was a quote, it could be a picture, it could be this week, we're working on quatrains. And, and I would give them just a word to kind of spark whatever they wanted their quatrain to be about. So today's word was community. And they write for about 10 minutes or so. And then they have the option to share their writing, they can share all or part or their process. Like if it's something new, like working on quatrains feels really uncomfortable for them because it's new. And you know, we all have those voices that tell us our writing isn't very good. So I, I've told them, you know, you can share your process, let's talk about what we do as writers, you don't have to share what you've written, but you can share your process. So we do have a little bit of celebration. So that's usually the first 15 minutes or so of class by the time we write and we share. And now because we are face to face, and the students remain in their pod all day, the teachers move from room to room. So I have those same slides just already set up in Google Classroom so they can just log on I don't have to worry about having it written in on the board and every in every room and so I'll say to them my your your hopefully in a perfect world that Oh, who is already on Google Classroom when I walk into the room, but sometimes that doesn't always happen. But your your IWA is your the prompt or the right invitation to writing that you're giving actually it's our opening writing activity and I I stole that idea from Jen Levine and teach rates I think she did that with I took a course with her maybe three summers ago. And we started that way. And I just kind of grab that idea and have been doing that in my classroom for a couple of years, and what I found is that even when we went went last year, especially, I had students say to me, you know, when we pivoted, and when we went home, they would say to me, you know, Dr. Schmidt, Can I Can you put some, some wi prompts up on on Google, like, I need to write I want to write, and I find I found students were using their notebooks as a way to kind of get themselves through the pandemic and and the isolation for some of them. Yeah, so. So we start, because we're reading right now we start with writing if our next unit is going to be lit analysis. So we'll start with reading, we'll do some independent reading, and then the bulk of the block will be writing, so I just kind of flip it that way. But I do want them, you know, just like I wouldn't want my students not reading because we know what happened, right? When we don't read. I feel the same way about their writing. Know It, when we don't write, we lose some of our technique?

Michele Schmidt Moore 21:27

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I was I was thinking about their whole reading piece. My second language is is German. And my book club was reading. Gosh, I think of the name of the it's Thunderhead, but the safe side by German. And this is an adult book club. And so the only version that was available to me from the library was in German, it was the audio book. And another person who's in my book club is an English language learner teacher. And I said to her, when I first started listening to it, and I liked reading in German, because it reminds me of what it feels like to be a struggling reader. And when I first started reading, I really just had to, I had to let and I was listening to this audiobook, I had to like, really listen, you know, and, and, and but as I got going into the book, it became just like reading English, you know, very comfortable. And I talked to her about that. And she said, that's very normal. She's like, it's almost like the analogy of hearing when kids go home for the summer, and they lose a little bit. And then they come back in this in September, and they just have to catch up, right? And it just helps remind me of one way it feels like to be a struggling reader or to you know, yes, for reading not to be, you know, like water. And it reminded me that sometimes it takes time, if you haven't been doing something for a little while to get back up to that skill level. And I imagine that's true for sports as well, if you're looking for another analogy,

Cherylann Schmidt 23:01

yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I, you know, I never thought about that. have, you know, what's been? Yeah, I left high school many years ago. And that was probably the last time I had any exposure to another language. So it's, you know, it's lost. Yeah, I didn't keep it up. And I think that's, you know, that's what I don't want to happen to my students. I don't want them to lose their, their voice in their on paper. You know, that's the other piece of honoring their voice in the classroom. I also want to honor their voice on paper. I want them to have that creative outlet. I don't want every piece of writing they do to be something that's graded.

Michele Schmidt Moore 23:46

Yes.

Cherylann Schmidt 23:48

Because I think that's really I think that's tough. I think that's when we start to lose our the magic and the joy of writing, if every time we put pen to paper, somebody's judging us. And then, God, no, I

Michele Schmidt Moore 24:03

was just gonna ask you, um, so you were talking about your schedule, and you're saying how you began you begin your classes with and basically an invitation to write or to read, depending on which type of view you're in. Then I assume you have some sort of mini lesson and then independent practice. Yep. for them. And I was curious about different ways that you're sort of holding that community together for your students. How are you building community for your students?

Cherylann Schmidt 24:31

That's, that's been something that's been really tough. I started in, I think, starting remotely helped to build some community because student I found my students, if they were too shy, or not comfortable, some of them aren't shy. They're just not, you know, they don't know their peers. So they don't want to take that risk. Yes, and I don't blame them, I would say to them, you can, you know, I want you to share, you know, if we were sharing out, I might say choose a line, you're going to have to share one thing that you've written today, in chat, so choose choose your line. And then I would say you can share it with just me, or you know, my co teacher, or you can share it with the whole class, like I was giving them that permission of who they wanted to share with. And then I found I wasn't reading, obviously wasn't reading verbatim what was being shared with me or their names, but I would say, Oh, I'm seeing a lot of students writing about, you know, the leaves changing, or I'm seeing a lot of students writing about, you know, being excited for Halloween, or whatever it happens to be. And I think it validates for the students that idea that they're not alone, that other people are having those same ideas. And the last thing you want to do, as a middle schooler is be the one student who's standing out alone, not fitting in anywhere, right, I think know hard about Middle School is that you've sometimes feel like you don't fit in and need to fit in. So that's, you know, one of the things and I always share my writing as well, I share my my struggles, but I always share at the end, so I wait for them. And then I'll share and I'll even hold up my notebook. You know, the other day, we're working on quatrains. And I was really struggling with it. And my notebook was a mess. And I had a really terrible rhyme. And I left the rhyme there on purpose to say like, I know, this isn't great, but and you know, some of the kids were groaning about it. I'm like, no, it's bad. Like, I rhymes, belonging and wronging. Together. Kids were like, Oh, I don't like I know it needs work. And I'm gonna go back and work on it later. But that's what I came up with for right now. And they need to realize that things aren't perfect off the bat. And I think when I take a risk, or I show that I can be vulnerable, and helps them as well. Yes. So that's, that kind of became my go to for starting to build community in this space that we're in right now. Because even though we're back at school, you know, we our desks are all six feet apart. We're in rows, I can't pull up next to them.

Michele Schmidt Moore 27:30

Together, huddle or anything? Yeah, right.

Cherylann Schmidt 27:33

We can't sit in a circle and talk. Like, there's just things we aren't doing right now. So my normal space doesn't look very normal. So I think, you know, looking at those practices that I've used in the past for building community, the one thing that I can still can continue to do is, is show my own vulnerability, make transparent choices on making.

Michele Schmidt Moore 27:57

Yeah,

Cherylann Schmidt 27:58

I do. I did borrow this year from Michelle hassle times, you matter. And I do write a message on my website. I redesigned my website for school this year. And I have all of my book talks that I do on my website, I book talk something every day for the students. So book talks on the website as a way for them to remember what I've, what I've shared. I've created a an online writing gallery, which is close to everybody else, they have to have the school account and password to get into that site. You know, it's all Google protected. Yeah, so at least it's keeping them safe. But then everybody on the team can see it. I have the you matter messages that I write every day and and i don't know who's reading them and who's not reading them. And I found that honestly, it's really been a great way for me to start my day. Yeah,

Michele Schmidt Moore 28:59

I'm sorry. Start with the positivity. Yeah,

Cherylann Schmidt 29:01

exactly. Or even what I'm struggling, like, it's been really gray and rainy here. And, you know, it's like, ah, but you know, I know it's really hard this weather is really hard to get up and, you know, be motivated. And this is something I'm trying are here questions that are running through my head or, you know, whatever it happens to be and then I'll kind of give them a little bit of a, you know, hey, as you go through your day, think about, you know, x so I have that i have i redesigned the parent page as well, because I think it's really important that partnership between parents and and teachers, because that really benefits the child. So I I've set up some things on parent page as well. different videos and things that might help them with especially because there's their children are home from school for a week at a time, like every other week. They're home. All right. You Every boat, I want parents to have tools to help them.

Michele Schmidt Moore 30:02

What kinds of things do you put put out there for your parents? Because that that really can help the, like you said that parent, teacher, student, that whole community piece? What kinds of things do you put on that parent page.

Cherylann Schmidt 30:15

And so I've linked to the county library for the parents as well, just to let them know, in our county library has really great programming, as well. So I wanted them to be aware, you know, there's, there's other than, you know, books, there's other stuff happening here. For for your children, I have a little blurb of like, this is what I'm reading right now. And it's not so much you know, the ya stuff that I'm reading for my classroom, which I'm reading all the time. But you know, what adult fiction, am I reading is a way for them to kind of maybe connect with me. I, obviously, all of my contact information, etc. But I also have videos about Google Classroom, because that was like the first thing that they were really struggling to navigate. And the fact that you know how, if you want the summary from the parent, Guardian summary from Google, how do you sign up for that? So just different little videos, as I start to see things that I'm like, oh, as a parent, this might be helpful. I'll just like pop it up on the on the parent page as just a resource for them. Yeah, I

Michele Schmidt Moore 31:31

think what is such a key piece of the puzzle is that I know that, you know, for teachers, I think we're adapting, I think things are new. Right, right. And sometimes we're going to be frustrated with things. And as I said, in another episode, just be solution minded and find the solution. But I think we also have to recognize for parents, this is really new. And I think all we can do to communicate with parents, is a help to them. I send out an email every Monday, that talks about, you know, what we're learning this week, and, you know, what are the key assignments and so forth. And usually I do a video to go along with it. And I think the response that I've had from parents is, and because I'm teaching virtually 100%, virtually, is that it's helping them help their kids be organized and do and do. There were I mean, my intention, and my initial attention is to help the students be organized, but I think they're saying, Oh, I'm adapting that schedule that you've given to them and using that for their other,

Cherylann Schmidt 32:34

you know, subject areas as well. Right. And that's, you know, one of the things that we've done as, as a team, because I am, our school is set up as, as teams, sometimes it's how, you know, they're called houses or whatever. So, we have our core subject areas together. And on our team web page, we have the weekly recap, where we do exactly that we encourage parents to we tell them by three o'clock on Friday, it'll be updated. It's everything that we've done that week, where we're headed the following week. And then any important news that they need to know always starts at at the top, it's it's almost like, you know, an elementary school where the notes would go home in the folders and kids folders in their backpacks. we've kind of gone back to that, because, you know, it's not something we we typically do in middle school, but it's a new space.

Michele Schmidt Moore 33:33

Wow. Yeah. And I actually, I think it's kind of a Yeah, there are certain things that could have have come out of this. It always when there's disruption, there are going to be parts that come out of it that are really helpful for, you know, the whole system and and a whole educational system, I guess, is where I'm where I'm going with that. Yeah, yeah, this Titans, parent communication, which I think is probably where we've all wanted to be, but I think situations have made it a necessity.

Cherylann Schmidt 34:07

Right. And, um, you know, and it's hard. I understand, you know, we look at, I think two I've talked to my students about changing the way we frame things, right, which really comes down to changing our mindset of, you know, instead of parents are so worried, especially last year, they were understandably upset because we were upset as well, we were we were sad for the students things they were missing out on. At the end of eighth grade. There's a lot of a lot of things that happen for our eighth graders as they leave us to go to high school and they they were missing that and we felt it and I know their parents felt it and instead of focusing on Oh, you didn't get this and you didn't get that, you know, that kind of deficit. It's okay. Well, let's look at what we do have, you know, and that's how I find even my Union. Our messages this year have been a lot about how are we framing things? No, I, I was listening to, and I don't remember what podcasts. It was. I wish I could remember, I wish I could remember the podcast that I was listening to the other day on the way to school. And it was either about knitting or reading, I can read the topic of it. Um, and it was this idea of the podcaster was talking about a teenager saying like, I'm not very good at this at Bo being home. I'm not, I'm not, I'm just not good at this, I thought I would be good at this. And I'm not good at this. And the response was, you don't have to be good at this. You don't have to be good at staying home, we just have to get through it. And it was such a shift of like, wow, because I think all of us are putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to suddenly be the perfect remote teacher, when we've never taught remotely before and and while I might walk into my room after 28 years of teaching, and it feels very comfortable in a normal year this year doesn't feel comfortable. And then I immediately my brain immediately goes to Oh, well then I'm failing and it's like, well, you're not failing what what are we doing? Well, how how do we know it?

Michele Schmidt Moore 36:23

Wow. So it's been really wonderful, you know, having conversation with you hearing about your, your students and your classroom and, and how you're navigating. This a bit of a crazy world that we're in right now, with a lot of grace for sure. If you would like to connect with cherylin You can find her on Twitter, at YA underscore reader and on Instagram, and why a underscore veeder 417 and you can also check out her blog of the same name. On the next episode of design lessons. We'll be talking to Erica Johnson, and she's going to share how she's been building relationships with students from six feet apart. If you haven't already taken the two question survey, take a few seconds to do that now. The link is at the top of the show notes and I am so excited to hear from you. Until next time designers

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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