The Importance of Connections

Tracy Galvin. Year 2 Leader, The International School @ Park City, Kuala Lumpur

In Malaysia, most of last academic year was spent teaching online and schools have begun the new year in the same way. Whilst there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, with vaccinations progressing well and plans in place for a phased return to campus, it is tempting to revert to ‘normal practices'. However, by diverting our attention in this direction, there is a danger of moving on too quickly, and most importantly, not learning from our experiences.

Without doubt, campus closures have almost forced teachers (and students) to develop new skills and have pushed us all to try new strategies for teaching, many of which we will continue when back in the classroom. The use of technology; the variety of platforms with which to engage and stretch our students, and the wealth of online CPD opportunities are improvements to our practice and should easily stay with us. However, there are other opportunities that online teaching has created that might require a more conscious effort to sustain. These are vital as they are all about human connections and relationships. I believe that schools should endeavour to highlight these strategies and make plans for how they can translate back into the physical classroom.

1. Engaging with Students

As teachers, we always aim to develop the best relationships with our students. Yet our natural inclinations are often to maximise every teaching moment we have with our students and pastoral times such as registration and end-of-day sessions can often be accompanied by slides full of activities and further learning. When online, we purposely built in time to come together as a class and get to know the students as individuals. We must endeavour to keep these key moments in the timetable when back on campus as through giving ourselves time to connect and have fun, we strengthen the bonds and relationships with our students, resulting in better outcomes, pastorally and academically.

2. Engaging with Parents

Our school has always maintained many channels of communication and opportunities to build relationships with parents - from weekly newsletters to termly parent conferences, a few minutes chatting at the gate to parental involvement at events. With the move to home learning, the need to engage with parents was vital yet these physical opportunities were not available. Thus we had to innovate and adapt.

After seeking feedback from parents, it was clear information needed to be easily accessible and focused. Conferences moved successfully online and newsletters included an executive summary. Recognising a personal element was also needed, we created video messages, which produced a very positive response. Whilst email updates produced little feedback, teachers received many appreciative messages from parents on receipt of videos. They were relaxed, informal videos - chatting about what the children had been learning, explaining why we were doing things a certain way and always telling the parents how much we valued and appreciated their support. Upon return to campus we must ensure this personal connection is maintained and using videos and other media will allow access to, and an understanding of, the teacher’s values and teaching philosophy, deepening relationships and providing a sense of security for parents.

3. Engaging with Colleagues

Unlike the relationships with students and parents, online learning hasn’t highlighted new ways of working with colleagues as much as illustrated just how important our peers are and how much we miss the day-to-day contact. We’ve all become much more adept at using technology for communication, but it's just not the same. Teachers are generally sociable creatures and teaching without colleagues around has proved more challenging than many of us would ever have anticipated. Even when we return to school, it will probably be a while before we can go back to big, collegial meetings. Until then, we must appreciate each other and take the time to build those relationships, making the most of being able to pop our be-masked heads round a colleague’s classroom door. As we move slowly towards in-person learning, we must continue to remind ourselves about how vital these emotional connections and relationships are and how, actually, when they are in place, teaching and learning is more successful. With our busy timetables, relationship building is one of the first things squeezed out, but if the past roller coaster eighteen months have taught us anything, it’s that relationships matter and have a profound impact on performance.

There are other opportunities that online teaching has created that might require a more conscious effort to sustain. These are vital as they are all about human connections and relationships