Will we be distance learning again next fall? Maybe. As you plan for that possibility, you might find these articles useful:

• "How Can Educators Tap Into Research to Increase Engagement During Remote Learning?" EdSurge, May 5, 2020.
• "The Single Most Essential Requirement in Designing a Fall Online Course"  by Cathy Davidson is aimed at college professors, but provides food for thought for K-12 teachers as well. It begins: "Let's start the week by repeating that a summer of planning for better online learning this Fall will be wasted if we do not begin from the premise that our students are learning from a place of dislocation, anxiety, and trauma. So are we. This is the single essential that must be built into the structure, assignments, thinking about what and how we will teach online in the Fall. Face to face too."

Whether instruction is face-to-face or at a distance, it's worth thinking about the big questions--especially in the summer when you aren't slammed by the daily grind. Here are some articles that might start you contemplating:

• "These are the 7 most important things our students should be learning. Or maybe not". Education blogger Glenn Wiebe wrote most of this a few years ago in response to a Washington Post article that asked "history gurus ... What are the most important things young people should be learning in school today?" (If you have time this summer, I highly recommend spending some of it with Glenn's blog--he's got an archive filled with practical suggestions as well as more philosophical posts like this one.) 
• ‘Schools are killing curiosity’: why we need to stop telling children to shut up and learn," The Guardian, January 28, 2020. (This isn't as annoying as the title suggests--it's really about the importance of teaching students to ask questions.

And speaking of... Harvard's Project Zero is offering a course on teaching that very skill from July 6-July 26: "Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: Best Practices in the Question Formulation Technique".  It costs $199 per person (group rates are also available) and you will receive a certificate that you have completed 10 hours of instruction. I talked to a teacher who took this course and he said it was transformative.

Time to Explore

I wish you a happy, relaxing summer filled with good hikes and better books. I also hope you'll have time to do some digital exploring. If so, stop one should be at the Smithsonian, which has launched a "vast and diverse digital resource," Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo. And they aren't done: "the Smithsonian is committed to releasing over 3 million items throughout 2020 alone. Beyond 2020, it will add more items on a continuing basis as they are digitized, researched, and published online."