LEARNING AT HOME

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.

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.

REFLECTIONS FROM OUR TEACHERS

Hannah Wise

Middle School Teacher,Chair of Faculty – Humanities,

Head of Boarding House – Woodbridge

Learning at Home is a little bit like a rollercoaster – you aren’t sure about getting on in the first place, but once you have taken the plunge, it is in equal parts exhilarating and scary.

Our students are always at the centre of all we do as teachers, so finding ways for them to effectively learn in a new space, in a very short time, was a challenge. On countless occasions I have been so grateful that we live in a time of wonderful technology which provides a way to continue our teaching and learning albeit in a different way. Very quickly I became confident in a whole new range of programs including Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Screencast-O-Matic – all of which helped to keep students’ learning continuing. Making sure that each student could understand the content and continue to challenge and engage was the focus, and I feel grateful that this was able to continue, sometimes with a hiccup or two, but mostly the transition was positive.

The connectivity we are so lucky to have, has also allowed a daily check in with my tutorial group. Being able to see their faces every day was such an important part of keeping connections and ensuring that the students were going as well as they could. It also helped me to keep the energy up as they are a great reason to be sitting at my desk in the morning. We all took a couple of weeks to adjust after the initial excitement about learning at home, but we soon settled into a new groove which surprised us all. We kept a ‘silver linings of isolation’ list, and each couple of days tried to add to the list. Technology and appreciation for our homes and families have both been high, but most often the girls have given gratitude for their teachers, how much they care for them and how excited they will be to walk into a regular classroom once more. This time has forced us all out of our comfort zone but more importantly asked us to reflect on what we are grateful for – and we have each discovered it is the small things, that we often take for granted, that we won’t be so flippant about in the future.

Dart Boarding House students Learning at Home, including some helping out on the farm.

We learned to slow down, enjoy our families, try new things, get fitter and pace ourselves. By stopping and ‘looking up’, we learned to embrace all that we value with just a little more knowledge of how precious it all is.

- Christine Shaw

Brandon OlverMathematics Teacher,Year 12 Co-ordinator

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

— Sir Winston Churchill

This quote, by Sir Winston Churchill, succinctly captures two ends of the spectrum of reactions that people could have had during a time such as this. Students, teachers and the entire School community recognised the opportunities during this period of adversity. There are ongoing conversations about how the newly developed skills could transform the way we teach and learn. Perhaps, even, governments will reflect on this period of time and think about what teaching, learning and schools could or should look like in the future?

From Whiteboard to Lightboard: For me, personally, I missed the face-to-face interaction with other staff and students. However, teaching from home presented unique challenges that were satisfying to grapple with and overcome. Having some knowledge of creating screencasts and videos for lessons already, the challenge became how to ‘humanise’ this experience. With some research and support from other teachers at Grammar I was able to build and set up a “Lightboard” which enabled me to write on a piece of glass (in a similar way to a Whiteboard) but still face the students during video/explanation. I am very much looking forward to using this Lightboard even after we return to normal classrooms!

James Betts

Kindergarten Teacher, Hippos Room,Centre for Early Education

It was with some degree of trepidation that I embarked on my first week of the CEEd’s Dual Learning Program during the last days of Term 1. There were so many uncertainties involved in what was a completely new, untrialled, and ever-evolving process. Providing an online Early Childhood Education Program for our children using a host of new technologies and skills, seemed daunting to say the least. And so many unanswered questions! Would the children be able to engage with the online program? Would we be able to continue to foster relationships? Would we be able to provide support for the children’s wellbeing in what was bound to be an extremely challenging and stressful time? After many weeks of involvement in the Dual Learning Program, I am pleased to say that I feel we have accomplished all of these things, in large part, due to the openness, flexibility and cooperation of my colleagues and the CEEd families. I have received overwhelmingly appreciative and positive feedback from parents, especially those whose children continue to learn from home and I have been surprised myself with how well some of the technologies have facilitated continued connection and relationships between families, educators and the Kindergarten curriculum as the weeks have progressed. I feel proud to have been a part of this significant achievement.

Kindergarten Associate Victoria Stewart and Kindergarten Teacher James Betts sing to their class in Seesaw on a post during the lockdown period.

Clarice Lisle

Junior School Teacher, Year 4 Co-ordinator,

Stephen and Sue Higgs Centre, Mount Rowan

With restrictions gradually being lifted, there was a huge sense of excitement amongst my colleagues and students on our pending return to School. And whilst we had all desperately missed the daily interactions with our classes, there has been a lot to be gained from delivering lessons remotely. Even though, it has, at times, been challenging to get the balance and content right, I have found the whole experience to be a worthwhile form of professional learning. The conversations that have arisen from this unexpected occurrence have given us all time to pause and reflect on our pedagogy as teachers and parents. I can sense like many others, a deeper appreciation for the interactive, hands-on, community-orientated learning environments that educate our next generation.