Athens went viral on social media once more

tion call referring to how academic institutions responded to the pandemic, Dr. Maria Avgerinou, eLearning Director, and Ms. Sophia Moros, ES principal, co-authored a chapter titled “The 5-Phase Process as a Balancing Act during Times of Disruption: Transitioning to Virtual Teaching at an International JK-5 School”. The 5-phase process was organically developed through a collaborative, participatory action research design by identifying the ACS Athens population’s resources, teacher’s instructional design needs and technology skills, and student body digital skills while keeping the school’s mission and vision at the forefront. The process was followed by ACS Athens Elementary School during Greece’s remote emergency teaching in the period March-May 2020. The chapter is part of an open-access, peer-reviewed book that is titled “Teaching, Technology, and Teacher Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic”, edited by R. Ferdig, E. Baumgartner, Ri. Hartshorne, R. Kaplan-Rakowski, & Ch. Mouza, and published by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). The publication contains 133 chapters (of the original 266 submissions!) with over 850 pages of helpful strategies and content for teacher educators and those who lead teacher PD.

It is particularly interesting to note that no other chapter in the book reports on original, applied research as conducted in a K12 international school. Fi-

Online has received close to 20.000 hits in academic and research databases- a fact that, among other things, indicates the massive need for guidance in online teaching and learning in the K12!

Teaching ■ & Learning

The Elementary School 5-Phase Process Or How ACS Athens Went Viral On Social Media Once More!

by Dr. Maria D. Avgerinou Director of eLearning and Sophia Moros, Elementary School Principal,

In response to a special, research-based publicanally, since its publication in June 2020, the chapter

Excerpt from the book: Recommendations for the successful implementation of the 5-Phase Process by teachers and administrators follow below:

One should begin with clear objectives aligned with core subjects and present students with daily PowerPoint lessons without necessarily replicating a school day teaching. The progressively low to high technology approach in support of online learning will allow the school to pick up momentum as teachers and leadership move through the phases (Konen, 2020).

An effective means to keep the school’s morale high and vision united is to host weekly meetings with faculty and scheduled meetings with parents. It is necessary to coach faculty and parents to remain flexible. Through mainstream announcements from the principal’s office followed by explicit outlines for each grade level, expectations will unite teacher expectations and student engagement.

Keeping lines of communication open by providing weekly or biweekly parent letters about next steps is very important. Maintaining strong and continuous communication among school leadership is necessary to align goals both vertically and horizontally between schools.

It is important to recognize that everyone’s needs are different and to be prepared to support student learning needs with personalized sessions, both academic and psychological.

Collecting feedback in each stage from all constituents using similar comparable surveys along the way is another important recommendation.