A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we know that many educators are continuing to teach partially or fully online, even as more schools in the United States are slowly shifting towards in-person learning. Hybrid and remote teaching requires educators to navigate new ways to connect with students during an immensely challenging and uncertain time in our communities, when students’ (and teachers’ own) social-emotional needs are just as critical as academic goals. We have adapted a collection of teaching strategies to support online learning, with a focus on sustaining community, supporting students, and creating engaging, meaningful learning experiences.

During Universal Human Rights Month this December and every month, optimizing classroom activities to foster learning and caring about global human rights is a crucial task of modern educators. For all of the vital information that is available about histories of struggles for human rights and coverage of ongoing struggles, teaching this material demands parallel attention to deepening our capacities for empathy and perspective taking. Based on a bedrock of social-emotional learning (SEL) methodology, Facing History offers these 5 remote-friendly teaching strategies to aid thoughtful teaching in remote and mixed learning environments:

In three parallel interviews, I had the opportunity to speak with three Facing History educators from public and private schools about their institution’s move to remote instruction this fall. Their roles encompass teacher and school leadership functions, and all are now exploring what the coming months will look like in the virtual classroom. Plans to implement remote instruction have been provoking challenging questions, concerns, and bold visions for the future of education beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn how each of these educators is navigating the return to school below:

In three parallel interviews, I had the opportunity to speak with three Facing History educators from middle and high schools located on the East Coast of the United States. They range in experience level from new to veteran and work in schools large and small. Each is planning to return to work this fall in a hybrid format in which they will deliver some instruction remotely and the rest in person in a classroom. Plans to implement hybrid modes of instruction have been provoking immense questions, concerns, and even expansive visions for the future of education beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn how each of these educators is navigating the return to school below:

The public health crisis posed by the COVID-19 outbreak has many schools rapidly shifting to online and distance learning. In these schools, educators are navigating new technologies and ways of teaching during an immensely challenging and uncertain time in our communities, when students’ (and teachers’ own) social-emotional needs are just as critical as academic goals. The resources below are designed to help teachers approach online learning with a focus on sustaining community, supporting students, and creating engaging, meaningful learning experiences. 

From Charlottesville to the announcement on DACA, there’s already a lot to talk about at the start of the school year. To create a safe and inclusive learning environment, you need to feel supported as a teacher. We’re offering a full slate of webinars that can help you feel prepared and ready to tackle challenging current events and difficult histories like the Holocaust. Check out these six webinars that will do just that for you.

There’s a lot of technology out there. Much of that technology makes its way into the classroom, helping teachers bring their lessons to life and helping students learn in ways they couldn’t before. Tomorrow is Digital Learning Day, a nationwide celebration that started as a way to actively spread innovative practices and ensure that all youth have access to high-quality digital learning opportunities no matter where they live. But it’s also about how educators can learn with each other through technology.

Here are four ways you can celebrate Digital Learning Day and the role technology plays in your life.

Summer schedules quickly fill up and before you know it, fall is here. Those workshops you planned on signing up for or those seminars you meant to attend in advance of the new school year - they might not have happened. But that's okay. Facing History and Ourselves is gearing up to offer some great professional development opportunities this fall to help educators add to their teaching toolbox, gain new perspectives, and connect with their peers about different teaching strategies. 

In the spring of 2015, I took the online course "Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird." It was the first time I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird with my 8th grade students and I was looking for support to help me teach such an important text. What I gained from the course was so much more than I could’ve imagined. I received access to primary sources to illustrate the realities of the Jim Crow South; I participated as a learner in activities that I later assigned to my students; and I  learned about virtual resources I could implement in multiple lessons and units.  

*This post was adapted from the Preface to the Second Edition of Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust.

When Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust was published in 2002, I expected that it would have a typical life span, generating some interest for a while and then tapering off. And then, something unexpected happened. Teachers, organizers of educators’ conferences, and Jewish community leaders who organized local Holocaust education wanted me to show teachers how to use Salvaged Pages in the classroom, and how it could complement instruction on Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. Salvaged Pages gradually developed into an educational tool over the next decade.