Distance Learning at Region 10

Our annual compliance courses will be live July 1st for the 2021-2022 school year. Be ready to go by making sure you know what courses your school requires of you. The courses offered this year include:

• Anaphylaxis and Severe Allergic Reaction
• Bloodborne Pathogens
• Bullying Prevention
• Child Abuse, Sexual Abuse, and Other Maltreatment of Children
• Concussions
• Cybersecurity
• Diabetes Overview
• FERPA
• Illegal Steroid Use
• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
• Sexual Harassment
• Substance Abuse
• Suicide Prevention
• Teen Dating Violence Prevention
• Texas Educator's Code of Ethics
• Understanding Copyright Law

We will also offer the following courses in Spanish:

• Diabetes Overview
• Bloodborne Pathogens
• Bullying
• FERPA
• Sexual Harassment

Have you checked out Discovery's SOS (Spotlight on Strategies) Instructional Resources yet? Spotlight on Strategies are research-based strategies for integrating Discovery Education digital curriculum resources in meaningful, effective, and practical ways. There are over 100 teacher led and designed strategies for you to use in your classroom TODAY! Here are some of our favorites:

This strategy allows visual learners to represent concepts by drawing or capturing photos and creating captions that they can use to explain their images. They can do this by either writing a comment or using hashtags to make connections. Introduce this strategy to your learners by asking an essential question about your topic that will prompt learners to respond visually. Have the students brainstorm what information they have learned so far about this topic, then continue with their learning throughout your class.

Scaffold analysis of an image with the Eye Spy SOS Instructional Strategy. Students get the opportunity to analyze images and texts multiple times with specific objectives and things to look for. This analysis always leads to a great discussion at the end! Skills used in this strategy: citing evidence, comparing and contrasting, identifying key ideas & details, inferring & predicting, and summarizing.

When designing content online, it's important the content is accessible to every learner. One way to make sure your content is accessible, is to make sure all of your activities are able to be accessed via a keyboard.

Not every learner is able to utilize a mouse to click around the screen, and some learners use screen readers where they navigate the material with keyboard. If you have an activity that can't be viewed and/or seen without the use of a mouse, then your content is not accessible to every learner.

Unplug your mouse and navigate the site/worksheet/activity you are assigning your students. Can you access it all with the tab and enter keys? Are there special keyboard shortcuts? Do all of those work?

If so, then great! You have another lesson that is more accessible for you learners.

If it doesn't work, then no worries! Make sure you provide an equal opportunity for learners without access to a mouse. For example, a drag and drop activity is not accessible, but the same activity using drop down menus would work!

This month's tip is to add a little storytelling to your lesson. Stories are a great way to teach and give the learner real-world comparisons to drive home a point. Use story design for your remote learners to help guide them through their own learning process.

Story design can be as simple as giving your learners a character they follow through a lesson. For example, "Meet Sam, he just found out he has a report due on the first World War at the end of the week. Help him identify the key points of the first World War."

Story design can also be as complex as turning your entire lesson into one big story, one with twists and turns, emotional responses, and a big reveal of information at the end.

There is so much information on story design out there, we encourage you to do a little research and find out what method works best for you. In the meantime, check out this blog by Rance Greene packed full of information on story design.

Feel free to reach any of us below by using the following email format:

firstname.lastname@region10.org