We’ve arrived at the third and final part of our series, “Inside the Virtual Classroom” (here are Parts 1 and 2) and this week we explore student challenges. Some of the more talked about challenges, such as distractions and technical difficulties, are more obvious, so we wanted to take a look at some other challenges students are experiencing to shine …
Racial Literacy in the Virtual Classroom
In a world where the death of George Floyd and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement have become part of the national lexicon, we have to examine how racial literacy is applied in the classroom. Racial literacy is a concept developed by sociologist France Winddance Twine and which refers to a set of practices designed to teach adults …
Inside the Virtual Classroom, Part 1
For the next few weeks, we will be talking with a few of our instructors about various aspects of teaching mindfulness. As more and more youth are exposed to mindfulness and begin to experience and practice the tools, we wanted to share some of our instructor’s thoughts. This week’s question delves into the process and perceptions of teaching mindfulness. What …
Learn to Teach Mindfulness to Teens
This time last year, a lot of teachers were doing what you do best: they were in a classroom engaging with their students, teaching them, guiding them, empowering them, and helping them to cement skills that would support academic success and personal growth. They were passionate about what they were doing. They were motivated. Their students were motivated. Everyone …
Mindfulness Students Become Tech Testers
In last week’s blog post we talked about the creation and development of the Inner Strength app and this week we’ll do a little bit of a deeper dive into that process. There are a lot of things to be aware of when undertaking a project like this – functionality, need/value, accessibility, and if it’s actually useful to the target …
Meet the Inner Strength App
An important aspect of working with teens is being able to meet them where they are, whether that’s mentally, emotionally, or physically. We realized that in order to do this, we needed a better way to engage them – and what better way to do that than through their phones? And so the app was born. Why build a meditation …
Supporting Teens Through Loss
As human beings, loss is something that we all must face from time to time. When we hear the word “loss” our first thought is generally around the loss of a person or a pet – someone near and dear to us. But loss means so much more, and our pandemic experiences have taught us that the definition of loss …
Make Self-Care A Habit
It’s 11:00 PM on a Thursday night and you’ve finally got a moment or two to yourself. You’ve uploaded tomorrow’s lesson for 79 of your students to their virtual classroom, including that YouTube video that you had to figure out how to convert to post. You’ve answered 23 emails from parents, 17 emails from students, 2 from the assistant principal …
Student Teaching for Inner Strength
This week we’ll hear from a teacher new to the Inner Strength teaching cohort, who recently completed her training practicum, the final level of the Inner Strength Teacher Training. The Inner Strength Practicum gives participants real-world experience under the guidance of an experienced instructor. They get to see how the lessons are taught live and learn how to adapt lesson …
7 Ways Students Learn: How to Take Learning Styles In Account When Teaching in a Virtual World
With the onset of COVID-19, educational systems everywhere have been forced to find new ways to safely instruct their students. Here in Philadelphia, our school district has been 100% virtual since April of 2020, giving us a lot of time to assess how to best help our learners. One of the things to take into account is how different students …