BC EDUCATION
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

** Schools have been getting ready for this: a thread **

In many ways, I don't blame folks who tweet things like this. The media coverage of the schools situation in Covid-19 rarely talks about the quiet, day-in-day-out work that schools have been doing these past 9 months. 1/

 Instead, the coverage focused on the dramatic, last minute policy announcements by the government, or of dramatic stories of school closures, often accompanied by photos of socially distanced classrooms that those of us in schools this past term know are from a fantasy land. 2/
If that's all you see & hear, it's no wonder that you may not know what has actually been happening in schools to meet the challenges. So, if you'd like a glimpse behind the curtain, then read on. For this is something of what teachers & schools leaders have been up to. 3/
It started last March with trying to meet the challenges of lockdown, being thrown into the deep end, with only a few days' notice, to try to learn to teach remotely during the first lockdown. 4/

https://t.co/S39EWuap3b
I wrote a policy document for our staff the weekend before our training as we anticipated what was to come, a document I shared freely & widely as the education community across the land started to reach out to one another for ideas and support. 5/
https://t.co/m1QsxlPaV4
And so, through the months that followed, all whilst managing our own families at home, we engaged in the most widespread upskilling not just in tech use, but in the fundamental pedagogies of how to support all of our pupils in these challenging times. 6/ https://t.co/YBXvYtfBat
Yes, some schools struggled more than others, and the personal experiences of some parents were far from ideal. Understandably, in their frustration, and given the lack of coverage from the media on what was going on, they asked questions about what teachers were doing. 7/
Throw in more than a little teacher bashing headlines and articles from certain newspapers, and the Lazy Teacher Trope™ was given a whole new lease of life.

It is misleading and it took its toll on morale within the profession.

But the trope is spectacularly wrong.

8/
What follows here is merely a snapshot of the past 9 months, the merest flavour of the incredible work teachers and school leaders have been doing. Here we go!

A group of teachers in NI just simply got on with teachers supporting teachers, setting up @BlendEd_NI

9/
A series of webinars in June 2020 were followed by a two day conference in early August which had over 3000 session sign ups by teachers from NI & beyond, hungry for CPD to learn from each other and prepare best for the new term. 10/

https://t.co/TkzGdlxPm3
As part of that, and for the benefit of the teachers in my own school, I started to plan for return in mid August 2020, thinking not only how we might help our pupils transition back into schools, but how we might prepare for further disruption. 11/

https://t.co/fXcDh2kKtf
Meanwhile, more & more ad hoc sharing was going on between teachers, on a scale I have never seen before. Quite simply, my colleagues all over the country (for that is how I view them now) stepped up to the challenge, spending hours discussing strategies. It was inspiring. 12/
And, as we started back to school in mid August, I took the learning from all this interaction & shared it with our staff, thinking ahead about how best we could prepare for what lay ahead. 13/

https://t.co/mQhTTSWMJA
But that training included not only sharing between staff in @lurgancollege, but also drew in some of the results from interactions across NI. Teachers from other schools made videos to help train teachers in NI. 14/
https://t.co/KqYDsu85eW
It became very clear to me that, whatever things looked like in August 2020, it was unlikely they would look like that as the term progressed. Covid would take its toll. Hence my most overused of analogies with our staff: we must turn into the wave. 15/
But how? How do we look ahead & anticipate what might happen better to ready ourselves for it?

The inspiration came from me from a definition on resilience I hadn't heard before. And so the concept of resilient teaching was born. 16/
Resilient teaching for blended learning: how we can use strategies in class now than seamlessly transition into supporting our pupils' learning, whether they are in school or learning from home.

And it didn't take long for those strategies to be put to the test. 17/
The moment all schools faced in September: the moment when the first positive cases occurred and/or pupils had to self isolate for an extended period.

But we were ready for the wave. And it all kicked into place.

And it worked. 18/

https://t.co/1LuMquH2WJ
As the term progressed, more and more pupils had to self-isolate for longer and longer periods. We simply got on with the business of teaching the pupils in class & at home, doing our best to ensure continuity of learning. And it continued to work. 19/

https://t.co/0BwFzIFJli
And what if teachers needed to self-isolate? No problem - our system was able to cope!
https://t.co/hi6KHrpmzn
20/
We even had the NI Education Minister himself come and visit our school to hear from me and some of my colleagues about the work that we have been doing. 21/

https://t.co/eG0iqk59no
But sharing wasn't confined to just those in NI. I was invited to present at the @rEDSurrey2020 event in October 2020, sharing our ideas with teachers all across the UK. In fact, you can view the presentation here, if you like. https://t.co/CPRsxtmvRk 22/
I also shared - along with my @BlendEd_NI colleagues - at a TeachMeet organised by BBC NI, again allowing us to share our ideas widely with others and to advance to conversation. 23/

https://t.co/NEtGt38PQa
This is just a taste of my journey these past 9 months, and some of the amazing teachers I have interacted with who have been coming up with incredible, innovative and inspiring ideas, and sharing widely. It is an honour to call them my colleagues. 24/
And why are we doing this? Because - Lazy =Teacher Trope™ notwithstanding - we passionately care about our jobs and the young people we are charged with teaching. We do it for them.

And, really, would you want it any other way?
25/
https://t.co/nMPIQ1st7r
So, if all you're seeing is the dramatic news coverage, or perhaps your personal experience last March was less than you would have liked, take heart - teachers have been working harder than ever. We are ready for this. We have got our pupils' backs. We won't let them down.

Fin/

More from Education

Dominik Mertz
Dominik Mertz
@DocDominik
Time for some thoughts on schools given the revised SickKids document and the fact that ON decided to leave most schools closed. ON is not the only jurisdiction to do so, but important to note that many jurisdictions would not have done so -even with higher incidence rates.


As outlined in the tweet by @NishaOttawa yesterday, the situation is complex, and not a simple right or wrong https://t.co/DO0v3j9wzr. And no one needs to list all the potential risks and downsides of prolonged school closures.


On the other hand: while school closures do not directly protect our most vulnerable in long-term care at all, one cannot deny that any factor potentially increasing community transmission may have an indirect effect on the risk to these institutions, and on healthcare.

The question is: to what extend do schools contribute to transmission, and how to balance this against the risk of prolonged school closures. The leaked data from yesterday shows a mixed picture -schools are neither unicorns (ie COVID free) nor infernos.

Assuming this data is largely correct -while waiting for an official publication of the data, it shows first and foremost the known high case numbers at Thorncliff, while other schools had been doing very well -are safe- reiterating the impact of socioeconomics on the COVID risk.
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Colin Wright
Colin Wright
@SwipeWright
1) 🚨BREAKING: Parents file lawsuit against Villa Duchesne High School for "intentional racial discrimination" against white students, and using "coercion, intimidation, and threats" to indoctrinate students into Critical Race Theory.


2) Students were told that all white people are racist because they're white, and that black students should "be free from discipline regardless of their behavior."


3) Plaintiff's daughter was subjected to "verbal attacks, and physical threats, social ostracism, false imprisonment, permanent damage to her reputation, and severe and continuing emotional and psychiatric injury."


4) In October a student claimed that the Plaintiff's daughter had stood up in class, pointed to a black student and said "Black Lives Do NOT Matter!"

However, the class where this vent allegedly took place was videotaped, and upon review no such event had occurred.


5) Following the accusations, the plaintiff's daughter was "subject to enormous social ridicule and threats of personal violence."

During a meeting, the principal and a faculty member allowed a black student to aggressively verbally berate the daughter, without intervention.
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Rob Sansom
Rob Sansom
@Sansom_Rob
Many of us are about to begin a new semester of online teaching. The learning curve for moving my lecture units last semester was STEEP, so I compiled some sort of hand over notes to people approaching this for the first time. I hope it's useful for someone somewhere.

Reduction in the amount of content was important. What used to be 2 x 1 hr in-person lectures/week had to be condensed down into 6 x 10 minute prerecorded videos (aka aynchronounous content) with 1 x hr live zoom session (synchronous). Even that was too much.

For the sake of yourself and your students, SLASH. Slash your content down. This doesn't mean having to lose important stuff, but keeping it short and sweet.

10 minute video chunks was just about short enough to hold attention. Have you tried watching an online lecture? It is HARD to maintain focus. The shorter the better.

Importantly, each 10 minute video had an explicit Intended Learning Objective given at the end and in the associated text, so that everyone knew what the point was (and how this might relate to assessment later).
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Todd Campbell
Todd Campbell
@dtcampbe
The #NGSS propose diff experiences 4 Ss n sci classrooms, a ‘practice turn’. Recognizing this, we (Hyunju Lee @LonghurstMax @tjscience Dan Coster @LisaLundgren21 ) sensed a need 4 a survey 4 Ss 2 report their experiencs. Here’s a thread👇abt it 1/n

So what’s a ‘practice turn’? Forman (2018) shared how the practice turn is a move toward emphasizing the professional activities that scientists undertake 2 refine & critique explanations about events that happen in the world #NGSS 2/n

We started from National Academies of Science’s Taking Sci 2 School (2007)/Ready Set Science (2008) 4 Strands of Sci Learning mapped 2 3-D learning in the Frameworks 4 K-12 Sci Ed 2 as features of science classroom experiences we wanted 2 ask Ss abt 3/n


These 4 strands of science learning include 1) Reflecting on Scientific Knowledge 2) Generating Scientific Evidence 3) Participating Productive n Science & 4) Understanding Scientific Explanations 4/n

Next we developed questions 4 our survey w several questions about the 4 strands of learning (see example of questions some of these strands) - trying 2 use language from NAS documents as possible/appropriat 5/n
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Otto Orondaam
Otto Orondaam
@Otto_Orondaam
Today is the International Day of Education, & an urgent question to ask is;
Are our universities becoming better?
Will technology disrupt their existence? And
Will they become obsolete very soon?

Here are some reasons why I believe they will, if we fail to redesign them.

>>>

1. Many universities are wasting the time of young people. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is here & it is demand specific. The world needs specializations & universities aren't providing that which is why more companies like Google, IBM, Apple don't prioritize a college degree.

Why do we import foreign medicines & even vaccines produced by other countries when we have hundreds of universities? Why do over 70% of our microbiologists or biochemists never practice upon graduation but choose to become fashion designer, bankers or makeup artists ?

Why will a roadside mechanic be better at fixing a knocked engine than a mechanical engineering graduate? Why can't computer science graduates build apps or diagnose computer languages? This is because our education curriculum is outdated & irrelevant to today's world.

2. Vocational & technical workers can earn more from a non-degree education than a four-year degree.
With the fast growing economy which requires more “technicians, artisans & vocational professionals”. These professions should also be given equal respect and dignity.
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@V_Shuddhi
The first ever world map was sketched thousands of years ago by Indian saint
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In Mahabharat,it is described how 'Maharishi Ved Vyasa' gave away his divine vision to Sanjay


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This is how he described the face of the world:

सुदर्शनं प्रवक्ष्यामि द्वीपं तु कुरुनन्दन। परिमण्डलो महाराज द्वीपोऽसौ चक्रसंस्थितः॥
यथा हि पुरुषः पश्येदादर्शे मुखमात्मनः। एवं सुदर्शनद्वीपो दृश्यते चन्द्रमण्डले॥ द्विरंशे पिप्पलस्तत्र द्विरंशे च शशो महान्।

—वेद व्यास, भीष्म पर्व, महाभारत


Meaning:-

हे कुरुनन्दन ! सुदर्शन नामक यह द्वीप चक्र की भाँति गोलाकार स्थित है, जैसे पुरुष दर्पण में अपना मुख देखता है, उसी प्रकार यह द्वीप चन्द्रमण्डल में दिखायी देता है। इसके दो अंशो मे पीपल और दो अंशो मे विशाल शश (खरगोश) दिखायी देता है।


Meaning: "Just like a man sees his face in the mirror, so does the Earth appears in the Universe. In the first part you see leaves of the Peepal Tree, and in the next part you see a Rabbit."

Based on this shloka, Saint Ramanujacharya sketched out the map, but the world laughed
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raina douris
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HELLO: If you pee and every time you finish, your urine looks like this picture, you may have a serious medical illness.

Foamy urine especially if it is persistent and noticeable over time may mean you have a serious kidney problem.

Let’s talk about this today...
RT for others.


What are the features of a normal urine?

A normal urine should have a light yellow colour, painless, odourless (or faint smell), steady stream and should ideally not foam when you pee.

When there’s something wrong, then you see changes in all the above normal features of urine.

For instance if urine becomes very deep yellow, it may mean you are dehydrated;

If urine becomes painful or smells really really bad, it may mean you have an infection;

If urine has a poor stream, especially in a man, it may mean a prostate problem like cancer.

Do you get me?

So today let’s talk about Foamy Urine.

What are the things that can cause urine to suddenly be foamy. As I said in the first tweet, it MAY mean a serious medical illness like a serious kidney problem.

First things first- it does NOT always mean a problem but it may as well.

Now what are the causes of Foamy Urine:

1. SPEED-
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On Sunday 21st June, 14 year old Noah Donohoe left his home to meet his friends at Cave Hill Belfast to study for school. #RememberMyNoah💙


He was on his black Apollo mountain bike, fully dressed, wearing a helmet and carrying a backpack containing his laptop and 2 books with his name on them. He also had his mobile phone with him.

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"Noah's body was found by specially trained police officers between two drain access points within a section of the tunnel running under the Translink access road," said Mr McCrisken."

Noah's bike was also found near a house, behind a car, in the same area. It had been there for more than 24 hours before a member of public who lived in the street said she read reports of a missing child and checked the bike and phoned the police.
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