4 | BOOMAL ACK A
Year 12 Co-ordinator and Senior Mathematics Teacher Brandon Olver, learned to teach mathematical problems using a lightboard so he could face the students, and then posted the videos on YouTube.
LEARNING AT H O M E Christine Shaw, Deputy Head and Head of Senior School Brianne Cuthbert, Assistant Head, Teaching, Learning and Innovation
In COVID-19 times, flexibility, creativity, courage and rapid decision-making have been the drivers of some of the most significant change in the way learning is delivered that we have ever seen within our school. Three months! In three months, our world, and the world of our learners, in particular, changed in ways we could never have predicted. Three months ago, we used different language to talk about learning. We used terms like ‘inquirers’, ‘engaged’ and ‘collaborative’. We would never have used the terms ‘agile’ or ‘pivot’ in a teaching and learning context. Agility described the physically adept, and pivot was preserved for the mechanics of movement. We would never have thought to use these terms to describe the quality of teaching and learning at Ballarat Grammar. But that was three months ago. Now, we understand the terms agility and pivot to carry different connotations. ‘Agility’ is now the capacity to adapt to a new normal, to prepare for the unknown and to anticipate solutions before situations arise. ‘Pivot’
now captures the ability to respond to new advice and circumstances with resilience and courage. Pivoting requires a solutionfocused mentality, and agility promotes resilience. Now, we can think of no better terms than agility and pivot to define the essence of our teachers and learners during the past three months.
In less than two weeks, educators across the School, from the CEEd to VCE took all that they knew about classroom teaching practice and adapted it to an unfamiliar online environment. Teaching online is not merely a task of transferring content from one learning environment to another. Online teaching is a specialised method and requires its own knowledge and strategies. The past three months have seen an explosion of innovation as we have all discovered new ways of learning and teaching that we will take into the future, even after the pandemic becomes a moment in history. In the first week, our students showed their resilience and adaptiveness as classroombased learning shifted to online platforms like Zoom, SeeSaw and Microsoft Teams. They watched screencasts and uploaded evidence of their learning to Online learning systems, such as Nexus. They did this while they were also grappling with a multitude of life questions and managing a vast influx of information. The enormous change we all experienced forced us to embrace unexpected things. We learnt to slow down, enjoy our families,
try new things, get fitter and pace ourselves. By stopping and ‘looking up’, we’ve learnt to embrace all that we value with just a little more knowledge of how precious it all is. The extent to which our educators have gone to ensure students could continue to learn and thrive has been extraordinary. There were trips up the highway to deliver textiles and ceramics supplies to VCE students who were unable to access practical classes, care packages were posted in the mail to cheer up our VCE students who have missed so many of the milestones that make Year 12 a year to remember, learning packages were collated in the CEEd and Junior School for families to collect, and dozens of library books were made available for collection or posted to students. More broadly, the collaboration that has occurred across the teaching profession has been incredible, as our educators have shared their resources in support of colleagues and learners in other schools. At Grammar, we now have online systems in place for care and wellbeing, service, leadership, music, Assemblies and special events, in addition to the education of students. A sense of normality developed as we ‘ZOOMed’ in each day to see each other in classes. Yet, what could be more abnormal than this? It’s like another world, but we rejoice in all we are seeing, learning and doing, and our cups overflow with positive stories and achievements. Most importantly, the Grammar family – our Village – has maintained its resilience and continues to thrive.
