{"id":26418,"date":"2020-04-23T17:40:59","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T21:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26418"},"modified":"2020-04-30T14:21:20","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T18:21:20","slug":"learning-at-home-lets-teachers-engage-with-students-in-new-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/learning-at-home-lets-teachers-engage-with-students-in-new-ways\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning at Home lets teachers engage with students in new ways"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cYou\u2019re strong. You\u2019re smart. We\u2019ve got this! If it\ndoesn\u2019t change you, it won\u2019t challenge you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a simple sentiment but a strong message in a time of\ncrisis, and it is one teachers and staff at Regency Acres Public School have\ndelivered to students as they \u2013 and their parents \u2013 grapple with the temporary\nnew normal of learning from home, with teachers just a click away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message, each word and hashtag being held by a member\nof the Regency Acres faculty, spent last week making the rounds through social\nmedia channels and was the brainchild of Norma Moffitt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Moffitt, who teaches Grade 7\/8, was inspired to bring\nher colleagues together to reach out to students as the venerable school in\nsouthwest Aurora begins a new and unusual chapter in their six decade history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to send this message out that we\u2019ve got this,\u201d\nsays Ms. Moffit. \u201cWe, as staff, came together on e-learning, the kids got on\nboard, and it is really phenomenal when you think about how we\u2019re teaching\nthese days. It\u2019s just going amazing. Students aren\u2019t getting the social aspect\nof school, but I wanted to send out a message that we\u2019re supporting out\ncommunity, we thank them for working hard, learning in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of last week, Regency Acres had their Google\nclassrooms set up, students who didn\u2019t already have the technological resources\nat home to make e-learning possible received their tablets and other devices to\nget up and running, and new routines had been established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Moffitt\u2019s class, for instance, has begun a new\nprocess of touching base with each other each morning from 10 \u2013 10.30 a.m. on\nGoogle Chat, where the teacher of 32 years shares videos and pictures relating\nto the lessons at hand, as well as tips to help students get through the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Province announced its new Learn from Home\nmeasures to respond to school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms.\nMoffitt says the new normal was thrown at them pretty quickly. There was a lot\nto learn to get up to speed, having to \u201cembrace technology\u201d and track down\nnecessary resources in the span of a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these initial growing pains, the positives soon\nbecame clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a challenge, but it will change us for the better\nand I think how we have to see this new \u2018new\u2019 of teaching and learning, there\nare a lot of positives that will come out of this,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve found I\nhave a much better rapport with our students because it is more informal. I\nreally, truly feel I am better able to address the majority of students because\nif I am on Chat with them and I am doing my work at the same time as they are\ncompleting their tasks, maybe the student who wouldn\u2019t raise their hand, or\nmaybe a student who really doesn\u2019t understand and wouldn\u2019t raise their hand in\nfront of the whole classroom; in this forum they can independently shoot me a\ntext and I can go back into their work and help them through it. In some\ninstances it is harder, but for that it is great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students have been rising to the challenge as well,\nencouraging each other along the way \u2013 online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kids, adds Ms. Moffitt, are also benefiting from getting\n\u201cimmediate feedback\u201d which is sometimes not always possible in the traditional\nclassroom environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnother benefit is the kids really appreciate getting up\non their own time and working through the activities,\u201d she says. \u201cI think in\nthe first week we were overzealous and put too much in and were marking too\nmuch. For some kids, they like working past the 3 p.m. time and I have had\nsubmissions come in at 9 p.m. As long as they complete the tasks at the end of\nthe week, that\u2019s what we\u2019re shooting for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students and teachers are not the only community members\nthat have had to adapt to this temporary situation. Parents also have the\nchallenge of making sure their kids are doing the work at home. Ms. Moffitt\nsays that parents have been \u201creally supportive and appreciative\u201d of the efforts\nthis far and have been writing the Regency Acres community to share their\nexperience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is amazing how much collaboration, teamwork and positive attitudes we, as an Aurora community, have,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019re strong. You\u2019re smart. We\u2019ve got this! If it doesn\u2019t change you, it won\u2019t challenge you.\u201d It\u2019s a simple sentiment but a strong message in a time of crisis, and it is one teachers and staff at Regency Acres Public School have delivered to students as they \u2013 and their parents \u2013 grapple with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/2020-04-23-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6S6","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 10:22:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}