Post Primary Placement:
Remote teaching
Change is the opportunity to do something amazing . Do not just embrace it; create it
- George Curous
Drogheda Grammar School
Mornington, Co.Meath
In march of 2020, I had the pleasure of being hosted by DGS, a fee-paying post primary school located on the river Boyne in the town of Drogheda. The experience was short lived, as on the 12th all teaching was moved online.
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DGS prepared their learning content on google classroom, and below are some examples of the remote teaching I planned during that unprecedented time.
the learning content was accompanied by a written brief, video tutorials and was mainly project work. Regular Google meets were scheduled to boost student wellbeing, and to assist students who may be facing challenges with their assigned task.
1st year Paint
'My Habitat'
This unit does not have it's own documentation of learning outcomes or reflections as this unit was the first to be adapted to remote learning in March of 2020, and all learning content was posted on Google Classroom in a brief format. each unit was carried out through video tutorial, frequent check ins over Google Meet to maintain student wellbeing over this period.
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On your left are two examples of video tutorials posted to the platform, where students are asked to mind map the theme of their 'Habitat', complete a tonal observational sketch, and paint it using monochromatic colour palettes.
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Reflection:
Although this was a very new approach to teaching, I think I adapted tot he needs of the students rapidly. I decided to base my lessons on the format of social media culture in the form of video 'tutorials' which is content that's already popular and accessible to teenagers, and I hoped that it would appear appealing to students.
The unit was based on students 'habitat', as at the time we were in the midst of a national lockdown for the first time, which not only meant that student's wellbeing was at risk, but students would begin to become confined to their living spaces. The aim was to ask students to thin about their living spaces in a new way and possibly learn something new, and also get students used to gathering their own primary sources.
The unit was overall an enjoyable first project for students settling into this new method of learning and it allowed for me as a teacher to get to know my students virtually and have meaningful and thought provoking discussions surrounding their reality at the time. I had only met these students once before, and thanks to platforms such as Zoom and Google Classroom, I was able to plan to imitate a learning environment that would boost student wellbeing as best as I could.