I have go-to recipes.
Ones I don’t have to read.
I follow them while talking to someone standing in my kitchen, with ingredients I have on hand. Sometimes my pantry determines what I make; other times the family or friends eating give me hints about what recipes to choose.
Teaching is like cooking.
Over time, we develop our “go-to” classroom recipe strategies.
We start with what we know. What tools do I have in my teaching pantry? Who is going to be consuming what I make today?
You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces–just good food from fresh ingredients.
Julia Child
In our new teaching environment, what we have and what our students have will determine our instruction–what we “cook” for student learning.
Since we don’t have the same resources as our face-to-face classroom pantry, a substitution chart might help. Here are some ideas that will help you quickly transform a teaching recipe to a remote, mobile, or online platform.
Substitution Chart for Remote Teaching
| Instead of… | Try… | How it changes the recipe |
| Writing prompt in a composition notebook | Writing prompt folder in Google Drive organized by topic or week. Mobile app like GoodNotes  or Notepad. | For teachers who like systems and tidy processes (like me!) it’s challenging to offer a variety of formats. Remember: It’s not about what the learning looks like to you. It’s what the process becomes for your students. |
| Ok, where were we? | Voxer | Think about a walkie-talkie, but with the wait time of an answering machine. Ask students to give a quick summary of the reading, the video, a reflection of the content or the process of learning. Ask their parents to hop on Voxer with them to ask questions. Listen and respond when it works for your new instructional calendar. |
| Think-Pair-Share | FlipGrid  | Face-to-face teachers are used to the quick pace of checking in and then moving forward with instruction. FlipGrid allows for a deeper exchange between student pairs and groups. It creates verbal formative checks and an opportunity for peers and teachers to clarify misconceptions. |
| Content Delivery (Powerpoint or Slides) | Screencastomatic (beginner beginner) SparkPost(beginner) | Those “hinge point” comments you make about your content are meaningful! The anecdotes, refined directions, and connections points that make your teaching zing don’t have to be left out of the recipe Narrate a few important items in your already-developed slide decks. Your expertise can’t be substituted! |
| Exit Ticket | Padlet | My favorite face-to-face exit ticket looks like students writing a quick something on a sticky note and literally slapping it on the doorframe as they leave class. They can still do that! All of my quick exit tickets can be used with Padlet. Even better, students can include a picture, video, or link with a digital sticky note. |
I used to think that using technology made things move faster.
Shifting in-person instruction to remote teaching slows down the process, which is why it’s important to scale back. Processes that we quickly pulled from our toolbox at the point of need are not obsolete, but they take longer.
Students need comfort food.
Build on the routines and recipes you have developed in your classroom that are the touchstones and anchors of your instruction, even when the yeast takes longer to rise.
