Education Extra
Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School (OLS) teachers are taking a more personal approach to continue classroom instruction for students who are required to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interactive whiteboard apps, creative lessons, and videos activities are all a part of the school’s plan to help parents and students maintain classroom instruction and to help keep a school community environment while they are away. “When we realized that classroom instruction would be cancelled at school, we wanted to make sure our students continued their preparation for the next grade level,” said OLS Principal Mary Jane Dorn. “We created an interactive and more personal approach for teachers to help parents continue their students’ education at home, while keeping them connected to the school.”
Aside from specially prepared educational activity packets provided to kindergarten through 2nd grade students, OLS teachers, parents and students are communicating online with each other through Google Classroom and email. They are even making plans to move toward a more interactive instructional approach. “Currently one of our teachers is using an online interactive whiteboard program that allows her to personally teach lessons to her class in a video shared with them on Google Classroom,” said Mrs. Dorn. “Seeing how successful this program has been, we are looking to increase its use in other grade levels, helping to provide some relief to parents, in addition to keeping our students in touch with their teachers,” she said. “We believe this will give some of our teachers an opportunity to teach new material to their students.”
Currently, teachers are also sharing their own video presentations with parents and students to provide a sense of community for families. Video presentations, such as a hiking trail or gardening on a pretty day make learning more fun. Teachers are also providing Storytime videos for the students. “We want our student families to feel the school community at home during a time where social distancing is required,” said Mrs. Dorn. “We are pleased that the plan has warranted a positive response from our parents.” †
