The Distance Learning Playbook, Grades K-12: Teaching for Engagement and Impact in Any Setting Spiral-bound – 17 August 2020

I love this book! It provides practical information to support all our teachers as they shift all or some of their instruction to distance learning. It is the best of what Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey have to teach us about great instruction, all packaged up in a hands-on tool to guide teachers as they plan for the upcoming year. From teacher self-care to feedback, assessment and grading, it’s all addressed here. It’s right on time and it will be a foundational tool to help shape our instructional focus at my school this year.

As we charter the unfamiliar territory of a blended learning platform, we turn to the experts who have gone before us. Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie remind us that the focus is not technology, learning management systems, or devices, but the focus remains student learning. This book serves as a safe haven, as it reminds us what effective teaching and learning entail, and it rewraps it around a digital learning framework. Whether districts are familiar with distance learning, or if they are starting from ground zero, The Distance Learning Playbook is the place to start.  

Echoing through the pages of this timely book is the message: Effective teaching is effective teaching, no matter where it occurs. Teacher voices and classroom examples animate core principles of research-based teaching and learning, enabling the reader to visualize practices in both face-to-face and online learning environments. Multiple self-assessments and templates for reflection support reader interaction with the content. The authors connect Visible Learning and informed teacher decision-making to all facets of effective lesson design and delivery, and address the important issues of equity and inclusiveness; learner self-regulation and driving of their own learning; and use of formative evaluation and feedback to move learning forward. A must-read book!

We are in a place in history where we desperately need answers to questions that will determine the future of our nation′s most precious possession -- our children. The Distance Learning Playbook is an incredible resource with a wealth of practical support for teachers and administrators, and it will fill a huge information gap that many schools are experiencing in educating students in a virtual setting. Very practical, easy-to-use samples about how to start and end a class, the social-emotional support needed, and setting up norms to develop a safe culture for students to learn at high levels. This is a must-have for educators at all levels -- district leaders, principals, coaches and teachers in the 21st century and beyond. This resource is ideal for schools that are looking for answers to a whole-child approach to virtual education.

The year 2020 will be forever etched as the Era of Distance Learning. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused cascading changes that have shifted our educational institutions. This concerted seismic move has elevated the need for robust internet connections and meaningful virtual interactions.  The Distance Learning Playbook is an invaluable resource to prepare our teachers to provide a powerful learning environment through technology, while promoting the most powerful tool available to educators -- a caring and challenging relationship with students.

Never has there been another time in history where the majority of educators around the world jumped into action to reinvent how schools and classrooms function. Using current research of what constitutes ‘best practice,’ The Distance Learning Playbook helps guide us all through ‘pandemic teaching.’ This book is filled with ideas and insight from real educators as they reflect on what they themselves need and what students will need to learn within a new teaching and learning environment. Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie continue to develop relational pedagogies that support cultural responsiveness and social emotional development in order to have a positive effect on student achievement, but this time, in a new setting. They help us understand new research-based approaches to engage every student, and in doing so, help us select the appropriate digital tools. I can’t wait to use this book in our professional learning.

Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College having been an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He is the recipient of an International Reading Association William S. Grey citation of merit, an Exemplary Leader award from the Conference on English Leadership of NCTE, as well as a Christa McAuliffe award for excellence in teacher education. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, differentiated instruction, and curriculum design as well as books, such as PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design, Building Equity, and Assessment-capable Learners. He can be reached at dfisher@mail.sdsu.edu.

John Hattie, Ph.D., is an award-winning education researcher and best-selling author with nearly 30 years of experience examining what works best in student learning and achievement. His research, better known as Visible Learning, is a culmination of nearly 30 years synthesizing more than 1,500 meta-analyses comprising more than 90,000 studies involving over 300 million students around the world. He has presented and keynoted in over 350 international conferences and has received numerous recognitions for his contributions to education. His notable publications include Visible Learning, Visible Learning for Teachers, Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn, Visible Learning for Mathematics, Grades K-12, and, most recently, 10 Mindframes for Visible Learning.