Pandemic Response Propels Innovation at Westridge

Pandemic Response Propels INNOVATION

AT WESTRIDGE

Nothing you have gone through will be wasted.

With these words at 6th and 8th grade recognition ceremonies in the spring, Director of Lower and Middle School Dr. Zanita Kelly encouraged students to reflect on the experiences and hardships of the pandemic and think about all life experiences as either blessings or lessons.

What, as an institution, has Westridge learned from this difficult and unprecedented period of remote learning—a “forced experiment in pedagogy,” as History Department Chair Melissa Kelley described the past year and a half in schools? A great deal. And while our review is not yet complete, change is afoot on campus. “One of the key strengths of independent schools is our agility, our ability to innovate without some of the restrictions which come with being part of a larger system,” said Elizabeth J. McGregor, head of school. “Through our strategic plan, we have been focused for some time on curriculum innovation and the role of student social emotional wellness in academics. The crisis pushed social emotional wellness to the forefront of our work and it also forced us to try things academically that would have taken significantly longer under normal circumstances. This learning will not be wasted.”

FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE INSIGHTS GAINED INTO TEACHING, LEARNING, AND COMMUNITY OVER THE PAST 18 MONTHS.

Curriculum

Faced with a reduction of class time and students experiencing significant stress, distractions, and screen fatigue, Westridge faculty focused on identifying what is truly essential to their curricula and to student learning. “Rethinking my classes for remote learning forced me to identify the major takeaways I want students to get from my classes more precisely than ever before,” said Upper School Science Teacher Laura Hatchman. “I had to streamline and tailor content and I focused more on skills. Of course, content will always be important, but skills are transferable to other disciplines and are critical for further education. I asked myself, if a student never takes bio(logy) again, will they be scientifically literate after this course?”

For 7th grade English Teacher John Cross, focus on essentials translated into deeper analysis of fewer books or writings. When asked what he hopes to bring to in-person curriculum this year, among other thoughts he said, “I look forward to more quality time spent with fewer texts.”

“The fact that we have been focused on the essential goals and needs of curriculum puts us in a strong place to begin our school-wide curriculum review this year,” said Dr. Kelly. “Schools are always evolving curricula, but I don’t think we would have achieved this degree of clarity without the extreme

and immediate need we were addressing last year.”

Social Emotional Space in School Days

Many teachers plan to maintain expanded and more intentional check-ins at the beginning of class. While check-ins were already part of normal class days, they became a lifeline during the pandemic. In addition to providing social emotional benefits, the practice can provide teachers with more nuanced insight into extraneous factors that may be impacting student learning, and many found the heightened sense of community had a positive impact on learning.

“Community allows for more vulnerability and humanity, which is always good for learning,” said History Department Chair Melissa Kelley. Kelley also plans to incorporate stretching breaks during her classes. “They started as quick breaks to shift our eyes away from our screens every 20 minutes. But I am going to be more deliberate about the breaks in person. Standing and stretching for a few minutes pushes you into another (mental) place.”

Pedagogy

THE METHOD OR PRACTICE OF TEACHING

While Westridge classes are far from the “stand and deliver” lecture model of traditional teaching, remote learning led to trials of many new pedagogical approaches including integration of educational technologies at unprecedented levels.

Dozens of tools, programs, and apps will cross the virtual moat from remote to on-campus learning this year. Many were used by teachers in the past and others were totally new to us at “Westridge Without Walls.” Microsoft Teams and OneNote digital class notebooks will continue to play a major role for content libraries, collaboration, and communication. Students will continue to engage with science simulations, Flipgrids (a video discussion platform), and virtual field trips, like the amazing Lower School museum hops of last year. Many other tools and applications will be thoughtfully assessed by faculty for use in the new school year.

“Teachers will be reflecting on which technologies will continue to help meet specific educational goals including making student learning more accessible, efficient, and authentic,” said Sally Miller, director

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of technology.

Teachers are also thinking anew of the balance of synchronous and asynchronous work. (Best practices for remote learning call for a balance of asynchronous and synchronous learning.) “The notion of synchronous/ asynchronous is something that will stay with me… synchronous meetings have value, but they don’t have to be our default setting for what defines school,” said Upper School English Teacher Katie Wei '94.

Flipped classrooms have been used selectively by Westridge faculty for years but won many additional converts after being recommended in the Westridge remote learning model. In flipped classrooms students receive direct instruction on their own time (e.g., teacher-created interactive presentations or video demonstrations). This allows students to work at their own pace and for class time to be focused on dynamic, interactive learning where the teacher guides students in applying concepts and engaging in the subject matter. Student feedback on “flipping” was positive. They liked being able to digest information at their own pace and to stop and rewind to review a topic that wasn’t clear.

Math Department Chair Leah Dahl intends to continue a practice called time stretching, which she introduced during the pandemic. In time stretching, a single topic is spread out over multiple weeks and homework is put into a longer timeframe as well. “I had read about this before as a powerful tool for differentiated teaching and covering a good deal of material without leaving so many students behind,” said Dahl. “It fits with research on learning and memory, and I was impressed with

the impact on both retention levels and student confidence with the covered topics.” Teachers also gained insight into the benefits of more intentional structuring of group work. During remote learning, teachers tried many different approaches to address two challenges: the heightened need to build community and connect students who were physically isolated from each other, and a need to engage students within the confines of remote, tiny screens which stripped away most of the tactile and social elements of class that help capture students’ attention. “Community building is more natural in person but being more deliberate (last year) had academic benefits that I will work to keep in our traditional classes. If I can get students talking to each other about math, it is good for both the student explaining and the student learning,” said Dahl.

Assessment

Like curriculum, assessment practices are up for review as part of the school’s Strategic Plan and the unique needs of the pandemic provided a body of real-world research to kickstart the formal review. Midterms and finals were eliminated altogether, and teachers worked to find assessment options to reduce the stakes of individual assessments and provide students with diverse options to demonstrate their understanding. These factors were especially important last year while students dealt with significant worry, anxiety, and stress unrelated to school, but they are central to the school’s desire to evolve assessment more generally.

“Traditional testing provides a window into a very specific skillset that often is not the best measure of student growth and can be easily thrown off by test anxiety or some issue in their personal life on the day of a test,” said Gary Baldwin, director of Upper School. “What we learned during the pandemic was how to be more creative and thoughtful about assessment. This year we are going to spend a lot of time as a faculty thinking about the ongoing shifts we want to make in our approach so we get a more accurate and nuanced understanding of student growth and achievement.”

Schedule

While remote, the weekly “Westridge Wednesday” schedule concentrated co-curricular activities, student-teacher meetings, and independent and collaborative student work time into a single day without classes. Its benefits were palpable during the pandemic and lauded by many parents and students, and both teachers and administrators think a version of it could have merit for on-campus learning as well.

“We went into this schedule thinking about the social emotional needs of students last year; the need to prioritize community, take a break from screens, and have time to work on homework during the day so they would have more time to restore in the evenings from the exhaustions of being online all day,” said McGregor. “Those benefits were stronger than we anticipated, and there were also some outcomes we hadn’t thought about.” Among them, teachers reported that students were more rested and engaged in their classes on Thursdays and Fridays than during the traditional schedule, in which class energy wanes as the week progresses. Structured time for meeting with teachers and collaborating on school projects with peers increased participation in both. And the day provided more time for social emotional learning and DEI programming, both integral to student personal wellness and development and academic success.

“Westridge Wednesdays had academic and social emotional benefits that we want to recapture, as did other aspects of our remote schedule, including a later start,” said McGregor. “We are undertaking a formal review of our schedule this year based on our remote schedule. In the meantime, I am glad that we have shifted the Upper School start time to 8:40 am this year. It’s an important first step.”

Parent and Alumnae Communities

Moving community meetings and events online was revelatory as well. Work and commutes can make it difficult to get to campus for evening meetings, which may be why attendance at parent meetings and education events spiked during COVID-19. And alumnae from around the globe were able to attend reunions, committee meetings, and last year’s listening and education sessions focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

One thing will definitely be happening even after a full return to campus events: remote student parent conferences. Parents reported that not having to drive to Westridge in the middle of the workday for a 20-minute conference was a boon for their schedule and didn’t impact the quality of the conversation.