With medical experts anticipating a second wave of COVID-19, and with no vaccine yet available, schools are planning to deliver a hybrid / blended learning experience when they return in September (in the northern hemisphere).

The summer vacation is an opportunity to support teachers as they adjust to steep learning curves and become more familiar with hybrid learning models. Professional development can help teachers improve their online instructional design

Here’s a list of options for teachers. I am grateful for the many suggestions supplied by CS&A.

Virtual Workshops, Camps, and Other Opportunities

• Global Online Academy — is offering four workshops for educators in online teaching and learning, each with two dates this summer. All the workshops free for members. The “Design for Online Learning” is free for nonmembers as well.

• The Chartered College’s two education technology-focused courses on FutureLearn include research articles, videos and case studies around using technology to support evidence-informed teaching practice

• One Schoolhouse — is offering online workshops, “Academic Leadership for Hybrid Learning Design” and “Designing, Building, and Teaching for Hybrid Learning.” As of this writing, the programs are full. But the former program has a wait list, and One Schoolhouse is looking to open up more space or additional dates. One Schoolhouse also runs a series of weekly webinars related to distance learning, many of which are recorded for asynchronous viewing.
• The Conscious Teaching website — is offering an asynchronous, 90-minute training program for K-12 educators on “Distance Learning Done Better.”
• Fairy Dust Teaching — is offering a five-day boot-camp on “Teaching Young Children Virtually.” This is an asynchronous program covering everything from course design to tech training to student engagement and management.
• The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) — is offering a free virtual institute this summer, running from June 1 to mid-July. It also offers some recently recorded webinars related to distance learning.
• EdCamp Foundation — is offering a series of virtual EdCamps this summer. These events are free and open to all. Participants collaboratively determine the session topics. As with all EdCamp events, the goal is to find sessions that meet your needs to maximize learning.
• The World Leadership School — is offering a number of distance learning workshops this summer. As of this writing, some are sold out, but others still have space, including its “Foundational Course: Intermediate Strategies for Online Project-Based Learning.”
• ASCD — is offering numerous resources related to distance learning and the challenges of education during this pandemic. Offerings include a Distance Learning Video Series.
• New Tech High’s Center for Excellence — is offering an online project-based learning course, design for distance learning.

Useful Summer Reading

• Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning offers a number of useful Distance Learning Resources, including its “Elementary EdTech Guide” and “Rethinking How We Think About Teaching and Learning with Technology.”
• The Better Lesson website offers a “Distance Learning” starter guide, built around eight key questions educators need to address.
• NAIS’s Independent Ideas Blog recently posted “Seeking Critical Connections: SEL Considerations in Remote Schooling” — an important issue in distance learning, especially with younger students. Parents surveyed by one school noted that the SEL dimension of learning was among their main concerns.
• Digital Promise’s blog offers a number of articles on distance learning, including “Authentic Distance Learning in Science” and “Engaging Students with Authentic Learning at Home.”
• Grant Lichtman, author of “Thrive: How Will Schools Win the Education Revolution,” has weighed in a number of times on teaching during this pandemic. They are all useful in helping educators clarify their own thinking about how to approach distance learning.
• Education Rickshaw, a blog by two international educators, includes an excellent piece on “The Unproductive Debate of Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Learning” and other related topics.