How will I create a sense of community with new students and being remote?" "How do I use group work when we're socially distanced?" "How do I teach remote students and in-person students at the same time?" All of these questions have answers and thankfully, the solutions have the ability to be implemented. They may not be simple or quick, but solutions exist.

This first blog in the series designed to help you prepare for the first day of teaching an online class, focuses on getting to know your students and building relationships when you are not able to see them every day.

In light of the chaos that ended the Spring 2020 semester/2019-20 school year, many educators were forced to rethink comfortable habits of instruction and ways of interaction with students. Policies and structures that had been in place for years were suddenly called into question as the best practices for student success and equity.

Teachers, here are some action items to help you prepare for teaching this fall including free distance learning resources for the coming school year. Use today and gain confidence for fall, regardless of where your classroom is.

As math and science teachers, we are on the front line of educating about data and teaching math of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are responsible for preparing the students of today into the people of tomorrow who will use data to ask and answer the questions that will impact our lives. So how can we, as teachers, do this?

Many colleges have made decisions for fall related to being remote or at least hybrid, so faculty are planning. But K-12 is a different situation altogether. It's an incredibly complex structure with so many people and norms that our society functions with, more than most of us ever realized until the pandemic. Even if someone doesn't have children, whether schools open or not affects nearly everyone. So many wait to see what will August bring. The good news there are things that can be done this month regardless of what is decided next month.

The growing consensus with the current spikes in COVID cases is that we don't know what things will look like in 6 weeks so we must prepare for everything. It's a logistical nightmare for everyone involved. Both administrators and teachers are feeling intense stress trying to do right by their constituents along with their own families plus deal with economic pressures.

None of us are going to get it all right this fall. And that's ok. I tell myself this every day as a business owner but it's true for all educators as well. We're going to build this plane as we fly it this fall and mistakes will be a part of that process. Accepting that and determining the minimum needs that must be met, like engagement and learning, allows us to breathe a bit. And if nothing else, everyone you work with is in the same boat. We're not going through this chaos alone.

There are implicit biases that individuals may not be aware of having that can then lead to behaviors that harm others. With awareness of implicit bias that can affect students comes the desire to make schools a place of equality for all.

The power of PhET simulations is that they are fully interactive and designed to engage students from elementary to college in learning how various phenomena work. Since its founding in 2002, the types of simulations have grown to encompass all branches of science as well as math.