Building Partnerships to Support Teachers with Distance Learning during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Cohorts, Confidence, and Microteaching

Seven weeks into the spring semester, we were learning what it means to build community in our online classes and then, our lives quickly and drastically changed. School districts shuttered their doors in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and K-12 teachers moved to distance learning. This was a challenging moment for our school systems and many teachers and parents felt understandably overwhelmed. This narrative describes how two teacher educators partnered with a local county office of education to launch a professional development series to support K-12 teachers with virtual learning. We learned that building partnerships and proactively addressing educators' needs through a microlearning model of professional development helped teachers feel confident in this new remote learning environment.