Summer is upon us and for many this summer is going to feel radically different. Whether you’re taking a much needed break from the classroom or sticking around to hone your skills, check out these resources to envision the best school year ever.
Virtual Learning Resources
- The NACA Inspired school network has recently created a hub of Native literature and lesson plans to utilize in Indigenous communities. Check out the Resources here.
- Secondary Humanities teachers, check out The Financial Times, a newspaper focused on business, the economy, and current events. The paper offers free online subscriptions to students aged 16-19, their teachers, and schools around the world. More info about how to enroll is here.
- All K-8 math teachers: Check out this great resource on developing effective fractions instruction.
- Canva is providing Teach for America teachers a free Canva Pro account. The subscription gives you access to 420,000+ templates, 75 million+ premium stock photos, videos and graphics for presentations, classroom decorations, worksheets, lesson plans and more. Claim your account today, and check out some of the pre-made templates curated by Canva.
- Communicating with family is vital to building a community of trust and support. That is why commonsense.org has curated a list of apps and websites for improving Parent-Teacher communication.
- Remote Learning will continue to be a part of our 21st century education system. We've put together a short guide with 5 strong strategies to lead classrooms in this new 21st century reality.
- The Mark Cuban Foundation works with local businesses to host A.I. bootcamps with high school students across the country. Thes in-person workshops take place in 10 different TFA regions. Check out this one-pager and encourage your students to apply by August 20th.
- Calling all teachers! 3M’s new Science at Home program features free experiments for ages 6-12 that reinforce NGSS-aligned STEM concepts from any learning environment. Check out the website and take the survey to get everything you need for free!
- STEM and CS Teachers: check out IBM’s Open P-Tech digital resources, a free suite of resources that include videos, gamified assessments, and industry-recognized digital badges on topics like artificial intelligence, data science, design thinking, blockchain, and more.
- Discover free, action-oriented strategies to implement blended and personalized learning from The Learning Accelerator. Whether you’re a teacher or school leader you will find targeted resources and insights from schools implementing various blended learning models across the country.
- Ian Cohen (Metro Atlanta ’12) from the organization TARA is offering TFA alum and corps members a free ebook with 60 student engagement strategies. Use discount code TARAPARTNER at checkout.
- StoryCorps DIY is a collection of multimedia resources for educators, libraries, and nonprofit organizations who want to embed StoryCorps practices into their classrooms and communities.
- Listen to podcasts from High Tech High to learn about “how good ideas can improve schools."
- Check out inclusivity best practices collected around the globe from Teach For All that can help in your distance learning environment.
- TEDEd has a student TED Student Talks Program that supports students as they discover, explore, and present their big ideas. You can also check out the TEDEd blog that includes resources to help support online and in-person learning.
- New Leaders has created a Virtual Classroom Toolkit promoting equity in your virtual classroom. There are also resources on building community, partnering with families, organizing your classroom, planning for effective virtual instruction, and many more.
- The National Board has opened up a variety of critical topic webinars to all educators. These topics include self-care for you and your students, building a strong new school year, building a growth mindset, and more. Recent “replays” of webinars in case you missed a topic. You can also find supports if you are curious about National Board Certification.
- Need help teaching reading online? Check out the University of Florida’s Literacy Institute webinar series
- TFA Alum Elena Aguilar’s (Bay Area 1995) new podcast, Bright Morning, features a coaching episode with a teacher seeking to fulfill his vision for a virtual classroom where students feel loved and accepted.
- Explore High-Quality Remote Instruction curated pedagogy strategies from Transcend.
- The Adobe Distance Learning Resources on the Adobe Education Exchange provide learning opportunities and resources for educators who are engaging with remote student learning.
- Learn with and from fellow teachers at TeachersConnect (sign up for a free account).
- Want to earn extra cash? Become a content creator for fellow teachers for TeachersConnect!
- Check out the new teacher-created courses.
- Discover online educator courses in virtual learning through the Global Online Academy.
- Find research about equitable virtual education frameworks, designs, and lessons learned in this piece: Special issue free access: A Response to Emergency Transitions to Remote Online Education
- Explore resources on remote teaching from Success Academies
- SeeSaw is a free virtual learning platform that can integrate with Google Classroom and comes with an activity library teachers can use to assign activities to their class as well as the opportunity to create your own. It allows students the choices in what media they use to respond or engage with problems and assignments and has home-communication built in.
- Check out this Family Guide to Distance Learning (Family Guide in Spanish) created in partnership between the Center for Public Research and Leadership with Columbia University.
- A few resources from our teachers from around the globe:
Leadership Acceleration Resources
Our partners at the We Are All Human Foundation have put together a tool-kit to help you elevate Hispanic Heritage Month (HHM). The tool-kit includes data, social media tools, and campaign tools to help bring a bolder HHM in your school, district, and/or community.
Virtual Learning Curriculum Resources
Educational resources for students in PreK-12th grade
- Atlanta Speech School: Online Preschool. Eight weeks of video and activity lessons recreating critical parts of a preschool day: morning songs, story read alouds, and enrichment activities. Each activity is designed to support development in empathy, language, and literacy.
- Erikson Institute: Big Ideas in Early Math Find lessons and activities that build students’ concepts of the nine foundational big ideas in early math.
- Boston Public Schools: Learning At Home Packets. (No tech required) Three weeks of packets to guide learning from home. Includes opportunities to leverage BPS’s resources for Storytelling and Story Acting, launched by the work of Vivian Gussin Paley.
- Additional Resources Browse additional resources for homeschooling, math, literacy, social-emotional, and physical wellness.
- Teaching Matters: Weekly Curriculum. Teachers can adapt and/or adapt these lessons for their Google Classroom for grades K-8. Helpful 9-minute video on the main site with directions on how to use.
- Core Knowledge provides open access to content-rich curriculum materials for preschool through grade 8.
- EL Education Flex Curriculum Resources developed for grades K-8 Language Arts Curriculum for the 2020-2021 school year and designed to support students whether they are experiencing remote learning, a hybrid approach, or are full-time in the classroom.
- Zearn - offers a comprehensive learning recovery approach to K-5 math instruction. It includes fluency activities, independent digital resources useful for hybrid learning, and content pedagogical PD. A useful Hybrid Learning Checklist provides a process for setting students up for success and incorporating the critical role of parents.
- Nell Duke/University of Michigan Remote Learning Resources: Walk through and modeled YouTube guidance for small group literacy instruction for young children using a video conferencing platform.
- Additional Resources Browse additional resources for homeschooling, math, literacy, social-emotional, and physical wellness.
- Teaching Matters: Weekly Curriculum. Teachers can adapt and/or adapt these lessons for their Google Classroom for grades K-8. Helpful 9-minute video on the main site with directions on how to use it.
- Core Knowledge provides open access to content-rich curriculum materials for preschool through grade 8.
- EL Education Flex Curriculum Resources developed for grades K-8 Language Arts Curriculum for the 2020-2021 school year and designed to support students whether they are experiencing remote learning, a hybrid approach, or are full-time in the classroom.
- Zearn - offers a comprehensive learning recovery approach to k-5 math instruction. It includes fluency activities, independent digital resources useful for hybrid learning, content pedagogical PDA useful Hybrid Learning Checklist provides a process for setting students up for success and incorporating the critical role of parents.
- Additional Resources Browse additional resources for homeschooling, math, literacy, social-emotional, and physical wellness.
- CommonLit More than 2,000 high-quality reading passages for grades 3-12, some of which feature read-aloud options or are translated into different languages. Texts can be integrated into Google Classroom or can be printed and used in packets.
- Teaching Tolerance: Library of Short Texts A searchable library of short texts that offers a diverse mix of stories and perspectives. Multigenre, multimedia collection aligns with the Common Core recommendations for text complexity and the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards.
- Additional Resources Browse additional resources for virtual learning curricula, resources, and materials.
- The Immigrant History Initiative, recently produced two new lesson plans. One for teaching the COVID moment in the classroom using historical case studies. The other second is on teaching immigration history. These lessons are designed for grades 6-12, meets many common core standards, and comes with ready-made powerpoint of the content, three activities, and a complete set of handouts for students.
- CommonLit More than 2,000 high-quality reading passages for grades 3-12, some of which feature read-aloud options or are translated into different languages. Texts can be integrated into Google Classroom or can be printed and used in packets.
- New Visions for Public Schools: Remote Lessons New Visions open resource curricula have all had their first units revised to support teachers and students participate in remote and blended learning.
- Mikva Challenge Facebook Group shares lessons and resources for action civics from teachers using the Mikva Action Civics curriculum.
- Additional Resources: Browse additional resources for virtual learning curricula, resources, and materials.
- The STEM Ed Innovators Fall 2021 Fellowship helps teachers collaboratively construct democratic STEM classrooms - in physical and virtual spaces - where students express their voice, co-create rigorous, standards-aligned learning experiences, and use STEM literacy to address structural inequalities in the real world.
- The IF/THEN Collection is a STEM website created by Lyda Hill Philanthropies, a partner of Teach For America. It’s a compilation of resources designed to increase access to authentic, relatable, and diverse representations of women in STEM and it features thousands of assets – videos, images, and additional resources – from 125 female STEM ambassadors. This guide contains information on how to use the Collection, how it aligns to learning standards, and ideas on how to leverage it to support both in-person and virtual learning.
- New Visions for Public Schools: Remote Lessons New Visions open resource curricula have all had their first units revised to support teachers and students participate in remote and blended learning.
- Khan Academy Proposed learn-from-home daily agendas organized by grade levels.
- Teaching Matters: Weekly Curriculum. Teachers can adapt and/or adapt these lessons for their Google Classroom for grades K-8. Helpful 9-minute video on the main site with directions on how to use.
- Instructional Partners Grab and Go work Summer enrichment and weekly assignments & family resource packets along with family resource kits for grades K-9. The materials review key prior-grade content and skills, leveraging rigorous, grade-level content to ensure students feel prepared for the 2020–21 school year.
- OpenSciEd - Open resource middle school science (6-8) units aligned to NGSS and exciting simulations, phenomena based inquiry, and routines for navigation, supporting discourse, and problematizing.
- This resource will be a coherent arc of development that builds across units and grades once all units are complete in 2022.
- Science can be quite difficult to adapt to virtual learning. Here are adaptation resources for how to stay grounded in the learning while teaching remotely and for students who do not yet have internet access.
- Additional Resources: Browse additional resources for virtual learning curricula, resources, and materials.
- The STEM Ed Innovators Fall 2021 Fellowship helps teachers collaboratively construct democratic STEM classrooms - in physical and virtual spaces - where students express their voice, co-create rigorous, standards-aligned learning experiences, and use STEM literacy to address structural inequalities in the real world.
- The IF/THEN Collection is a STEM website created by Lyda Hill Philanthropies, a partner of Teach For America. It’s a compilation of resources designed to increase access to authentic, relatable, and diverse representations of women in STEM and it features thousands of assets – videos, images, and additional resources – from 125 female STEM ambassadors. This guide contains information on how to use the Collection, how it aligns to learning standards, and ideas on how to leverage it to support both in-person and virtual learning.
- Khan Academy Proposed learn-from-home daily agendas organized by grade levels.
- New Visions for Public Schools: Remote Lessons New Visions open resource curricula have all had their first units revised to support teachers and students participate in remote and blended learning.
- Teaching Matters: Weekly Curriculum. Teachers can adapt and/or adapt these lessons for their Google Classroom for grades K-8. Helpful 9-minute video on the main site with directions on how to use.
- Instructional Partners Grab and Go work Summer enrichment and weekly assignments & family resource packets along with family resource kits for grades K-9. The materials review key prior-grade content and skills, leveraging rigorous, grade-level content to ensure students feel prepared for the 2020–21 school year. These resources can be used for remediation.
- Additional Resources: Browse additional resources for virtual learning curricula, resources, and materials.
- Duolingo A free, popular, highly-gamified app for language learning.
- Maine’s Department of Education: World Language Resources Resources and guidance for World Language teachers designing lessons during school closures, creating Choice Boards at different levels (to be used for at-home packets, asynchronous remote virtual learning, or live-video virtual learning.)
- Additional Resources: Browse additional resources for virtual learning curricula, resources, and materials.
- Achieve the Core has compiled helpful resources for supporting our linguistically diverse students in a virtual environment.
- Colorín Colorado: Supporting ELLs Through COVID. A robust site for teachers and families of bilingual students and English language learners. Multiple resources on supporting linguistically diverse students through the pandemic, including resources for teaching ESL remotely.
- ESL Video Free quizzes, lessons, and online conversation classes for linguistically diverse students with a variety of topics sorted by English language development level.
- TalkingPoints: Multilingual Translation App. An app that allows you to reach all of your student’s families via text in different languages (free for teachers).
- Additional Resources: Browse additional virtual resources for supporting specific populations, including culturally & linguistically diverse students.
- Understood.org Back to School Resources 2020 A website with clear, accessible articles, resources, tips, and explainers for parents of students with disabilities and in the special education system. Includes useful articles and resources for teachers to create equitable classrooms and remote learning environments.
- New Visions for Public Schools: Universal Design for Learning in Online Formats UDL is essential for all students, including students with disabilities. This guide includes recommendations and tips for implementing UDL at different stages of online learning, including before, during, and after a learning experience--both synchronous and asynchronous experiences.
- Supporting Individuals with Autism Through Uncertain Times A guide for parents and teachers, complete with templates and examples of resources, especially useful for individuals (with or without autism) who rely on consistent schedules and struggle with uncertainty and change
- Additional Resources: Browse additional resources for supporting specific populations, including students with disabilities and resources relating to legal compliance, virtual instruction, and online accessibility tools.
The Teacher Resource Hub is created to support communities and teachers. Many of the resources are links to external resources created by external organizations or individuals. The resources linked within have not been fully vetted, and their inclusion is not meant as an endorsement from Teach For America, nor is it meant to replace or confuse any guidance teachers receive from their districts, administrators, or employers. Ultimately, Teach For America corps members, alumni, and partners must adhere to the policies and guidance from their placement schools.