Have questions about how to help your child with online learning? Ed Lab has you covered
Know someone who also cares about these important education issues?
Forward this newsletter to a friend or colleague - and they can sign up here.
• • •
Hello education readers,
As public schools up and down California extend closures for the rest of the academic year, the message from education leaders has been clear - the state’s six million-plus students won’t return to campuses, but school is not out.
Online instruction. Distance learning. Homeschooling.
While teachers scramble to move lessons online and administrators figure out how students will graduate and promote, parents are taking on an even more significant role educating their children.
No doubt, we all have questions and concerns as we try to navigate this new way of managing our lives and education from home.
With that in mind, The Fresno Ed Lab hosted a Facebook live Q&A Friday with Educational Consultant and Curriculum Developer Tracy Edmunds.
Tracy’s content experience is diverse and extensive, ranging from authoring teacher resource books on pre-K mathematics to developing an online K-12 environmental education curriculum. She has edited professional books on arts integration and educational technology and written and edited lessons and teacher guides on using comics in the classroom.
The Ed Lab’s Isabel Sophia Dieppa and Monica Velez moderated questions about best practices for kids learning and help share tips for parents on how to manage at home school curriculum.
It’s the first of what we hope will be many helpful online community engagement sessions in the coming weeks and months with experts, teachers, parents and students.
Ask the Ed lab
Do you have an education question you’d like us to answer? Let us know! Contact the Ed Lab edlab@fresnobee.com.
This week in the Ed Lab
The coronavirus has us all social-distancing and sheltering in place.
Schools across the state, including Fresno and Central Unified, have already shuttered campuses for the rest of the academic year, while Clovis officials are holding out hope to reopen in May, but acknowledging that may not be possible.
As we adjust to our new lives in solitude, teachers are looking to find ways to engage with students through online learning.
But, equity issues which existed before the coronavirus pandemic - technology tools, Internet access, and language accessibility - have come to light during these trying time.
Isabel Sophia Dieppa learned that Fresno Unified approved 2.8 million dollars for eLearning tablets in 2018, raising questions about why every student doesn’t have a device two years later.
In a story published this week, the Ed Lab’s Monica Velez spoke with parents, students, teachers and administrators, learning how distance learning is working.
In short, she found, there are no standardized plans from federal or state education officials guiding online classroom efforts. Local schools have essentially been told by the federal Education Department to figure it out for themselves.
The virus has changed all of our lives and futures. To make higher education accessible due to the disruption of coronavirus, The University of California this week chose temporarily to eliminate SAT/ACT testing requirements and letter grades for 2021 applicants, the Ed Lab’s Ashleigh Panoo reported.
The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab on here.
This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 7:14 AM.