Abstract:

This paper tells the Covid-19 story of a classroom-based assessment professor and her elementary teacher candidates at a university in the United States. Generation Z students are the majority of K-20 school and undergraduate program populations (Brotheim, 2014). Specifically, Gen Z students have endured many life-changing events that have shaped their views and perspectives (Seemiller & Grace, 2016). The uncertainty caused by these events have, according to researchers, encouraged Generation Z to learn how to be self-reliant (Seemiller & Grace, 2016). These “digital natives” (Brotheim, 2014; Turner, 2015; Seemiller & Grace, 2016) value quick communication and the ability to search for information (i.e., Google) and retrieve it immediately. Turner (2015) noted that students from this generation spend more time online. This includes interacting on social media and through other methods of quick communication (e.g., text messages). This is also the preference in terms of coursework.

This paper is written for current (and future) public school elementary educators and teacher educators who endeavor to follow authentic distance learning practices during times of crisis and as P-20 schools evolve from traditional face-to-face to modified hybrid instruction. The pandemic allowed for a learning opportunity to engage students from afar and to improve how we teach P-20 students and prepare future educators, moving forward. In this paper, the author shares the evolution of a distance learning survival guide website(https://www.distancelearningsurvivalguide.com/) developed as a performance-based learning final project in a classroom assessment course in a university elementary education professional program. The performance-based assessment (PBL) assessment was informed by the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework (CAST, 2020).

Keywords:

Distance learning, elementary education, online teaching, universal design for learning (UDL), performance-based learning (PBL).