This post was inspired by a recent question in one of my teacher groups: “How are other 3rd grade teachers filling in the learning gaps for their students? We don’t have options for small group intervention or support programs.”

Learning gaps aren’t new. However the learning gap due to Covid is unique because of the extended school closures, the disparate access to remote instruction, and varying degrees of household supports. This gap resembles more of a chasm, for students of colour. In fact, a recent McKinsey study reports students remain behind in both math and reading, with chronically disadvantaged students being up to a grade level behind their peers.  

Where we are vs Where we should be?
Ensure you've a clear understanding of what your students' abilities are at this moment and where they'll need to be, by the end of the year. 

Diagnose
A diagnostic will highlight exactly where your learner has gaps. It can be a worksheet, a test, and even an oral assessment. If you're able to, offer a choice board for assessments. The objective is to gather as many details as possible. With Math assessments, stress the importance of showing all the work so that they're making their thinking visible. That way, you're able to see exactly where their process goes offline. Humming the chorus to "Step by Step" by NKOTB usually gets everyone's attention in my class (swiftly followed by pleas to stop). Reading comprehension? Try an oral approach for retelling and summarizing. Timelines and photo walls can test dates and key figures. 
Reassure students that this is just a snapshot, of their current knowledge base. Knowing that it doesn't count to their final grade will ease the stress.

Prioritize
What do they absolutely need to know, by the end of the year? What would be nice to have, it you can fit it in? Think of your material in terms of a decision matrix - need to know, need to know, can catch this up later, etc.

Concurrent teaching
Build in about 10-15 minutes for review and reteaching of old material, then move on to teach at grade level.  If they hit a bump during grade level teaching, ask them to make a note; encourage the observation so that they have a grasp on what they need to review.

Look for opportunities to collaborate and cross teach.
Think of your fellow teachers as part of your students' learning team and look for ways to work on concepts in other classes. Learning about The Crusades in Ancient History? Maybe you can assign reading comprehension to a Crusade themed passage, for example. 

Build in small wins. 
It's a great way to measure progress for you and them.

Book this film for professional development or watch online at www.vimeo.com/ondemand/greymatters.
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A recent survey cited "the pandemic and a greater focus on racial injustice as driving the rise in interest in social and emotional learning in their schools."

​Social Emotional learning is not new. At the heart of SEL, is an understanding that a stressed brain is not learning. If our students are coming into the classroom in a state of anxiety or fear or hunger or if they feel the classroom isn't an emotionally safe space for them, they will not learn. Their amygdala is hyper focused on keeping them safe. Learning about the distributive property or the Mexican-American war, or whatever your class is focused on, is not a top priority for that student.

Your teacher training toolbox has to include a few tools to take the emotional temperature of the your students and find ways to get it to a place where learning can take place.  Understanding the basics of how the brain processes emotions can help to move your students out of the stressed stage and into the learning stage. 

Here's a 5 minute strategy to get your students into the learning stage:
​1. High five each other for showing up.
2. Slow deep breathing to calm your nervous system
3. Find something you're grateful for today
4. Share something you're excited about
5. Remind students that most emotions last 90 seconds; it's the rumination that keeps us stuck in the feeling.

Watch Grey Matters on Vimeo today: www.vimeo.com/ondemand/Greymattersdocumentary

Here's a question I recently received: "How does Grey Matters, knowing how the brain learns,  and the Brain Targeted Teaching Model help me with struggling readers?"

While this documentary is not a "how to" guide or curriculum, here’s how it can help teachers or reading instructors, working with struggling readers:

1. Target 1 - Understanding the emotional climate.  You are working with children who have failed more than they have succeeded.  Most likely, your students are coming into the learning space (classroom or online) expecting to fail, as they have in the past.  Your first job is to really create a safe emotional learning space. Understanding this is key to gaining trust and engagement from your learners.  This is where you show them 
2. Target 3 - Learning design. The battle of whole word vs phonics continues to engender a great deal of debate.  Neuroscience research indicates the brain looks for patterns and when it comes to reading, the key is to ensure readers have a good grasp of their letters, how that relates to words, sentences, etc.  Vicky Krug, featured in the film, says, “Reading is not just a one-time process. I spend a lot of time talking about the actual reading process in the brain , the structure of writing and the structure of how words and phrases in paragraphs fit together to help students create patterns in their minds of language. How to follow a main idea with details; the role of a topic sentence. And I have them use vocabulary cartoons to really create visuals of what they’re reading.” 

It’s going to be hard for your struggling reader to conceive of anything beyond their present struggle with reading. This is where understanding the concept of neuroplasticity comes into play and letting your struggling reader know that it is possible to rewire your brain. Your brain can change. and the fact that we can change our brain, based on practice and more importantly, multi sensorial approaches to teaching, makes a huge difference.

Read this for a 3 minute overview on how to enhance your teaching practice to engage your students and help them connect the knowledge:  https://www.teachthought.com/learning/6-targets-teach-way-brain-learns/

Grey Matters was recently included in a teacher training on social emotional learning, in particular, how to work with stressed children.

Stress is a funny beast.  It’s kind of like chocolate - small amounts are fine, but it’s the larger quantities that can do you in.  Here’s what we know about stress - large and consistent exposure to stress shrinks the hippocampus, the region of your brain involved in memory, and neurons in the pre-frontal cortex, the area of your brain responsible for problem-solving.  Read the research here.  

So what does this mean for your classroom?

It’s simple - stressed brains aren’t learning.

If a kid shows up to your classroom, having started their day with stress or encountered stress along the way, they are going to be sitting in that stress.  A simple “shake it off” or “slip into a learning mindset” or “let’s leave our baggage at the door” isn’t going to shift their brain from the “protective fight or flight mode” into the “thinking thoughtful mode”.
Social-Emotional Learning offers teachers a basic understanding of emotions and the brain and equips teachers with tools and strategies to help students move out of the stress and their emotions, and into the learning day. 
In the film Grey Matters, we see the Peace Path used by Justin Holbrook in his Grade 4 classroom, offers students and teachers, a way acknowledge their emotions, communicate calmly and make a resolution for future behaviours.  Holbrook designated a space in the rear of his classroom for his Peace Path which offered students a way to vocalize what was troubling them.  Maybe someone had called them a mean name, or grabbed something from them.  “My kids know that they can go to the Peace Path at anytime, even if I’m teaching.  I’ve had kids ask me to go the Peace Path and I’ve asked kids to go to the Peace Path,” Holbrook explains.  

One of the biggest things teachers talk about is how to handle external situations that result in stressed students. From home life to peer relationships - there are a lot of things that teachers can’t control.  Yet, those outside the classroom situations, often spill over to the classroom.  

Do you deal with it? Or ignore it, in hopes it’ll sort it self out? 

Turns out neither of those.  

A 2007 research study suggests acknowledging the emotion and redirecting the student (barring a life-threatening issue) may be the most effective approach.  In action, that could look like, “Did you want to chat after class or do you want to have lunch with me?”, effectively creating some distance between the student and the emotion.

But what if you can’t tell when a student is upset?   

Here’s what one teacher did and this piece is excerpted from “The Brain Targeted Teaching Model for the 21st Century School” by Dr. Hardiman, “She designed a simple emotional temperature form with a row of emotions and corresponding adjectives (e.g. good, bad). Students circled how they felt that day and wrote a word or sentence or drew a picture to express his or her emotion. They would take the form, complete it, and return it to a basket, before beginning their work Two things came out of this approach - kids had the opportunity to acknowledge the emotion which helped them to detach.  And the teacher was able to quickly spot where further follow-up or intervention might be needed.

Yours in learning and filmmaking.
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Ramona