This episode welcomes Larry Ferlazzo and Emily Frawley as guests. Ferlazzo is an award-winning English and Social Studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, CA, author of a number of books on student and parent engagement, and host of the popular Education Week blog Classroom Q&A, along with the corresponding BAM! Radio podcast of the same name. He joins to share his top strategies for supporting distance learning.
Frawley is a history and science teacher at The Windward School, a renowned school for students with dyslexia and language-based learning disabilities. In her segment, she discusses a successful project she had led to use 3D printers to create face masks and face shields for healthcare workers.
In the first segment (0:30), Ferlazzo takes a deeper dive into his strategies for families to support learners during the pandemic. He talks about some of the real, pressing challenges families are facing nationwide and sums it up by explaining, "the most important thing is love." Families are worried about their children and how it will impact their future, but there are actions they can take to make a difference, as well as things teachers can do to treat kids the way we'd like to be treated "if our worlds were coming apart." It all starts with a focus on social-emotional wellbeing, and we use academics as a tool to support overall growth.
Mind Rocket Media Group then speaks with Emily Frawley (18:49) about her project to create face shields and facemasks to support health professionals' needs during the pandemic. She discusses how she first got the idea for the project and learned how to create the masks, and how the initiative has led to the donation of 220 shields and masks to date. Frawley describes the support she got from The Windward School, stating that "within minutes" she got a response from Head of School Jamie Williamson agreeing that she could use the school's two MakerBot 3D printers and even take them home to carry out the project. She also talks about the lessons she plans to share with her students, based on what she learned through this initiative.
Hosted by Mind Rocket Media Group
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