Fannin County School System administrators, teachers and students have experienced challenges and found benefits as they’ve utilized distance learning in order to continue education amid COVID-19 related school closures.
“Currently, Fannin County students are 1:1 with Chromebooks in grades 3-12, which has helped tremendously with access,” Instructional Services Coordinator Sarah Welch said. “Our teachers in grades 3-12 are using Google Classroom or Schoology as learning management platforms, and they are able to push out assignments. Within those platforms, teachers utilize a multitude of resources or other online content avenues, such as Seesaw, TurnItIn, Dreambox, MyON, or Khan Academy. This list is by no means exhaustive! Our 6-12 teachers already utilized a great deal of online learning in a hybrid format.”
Students in Pre-K through second grade, and students without access to digital resources received paper packets aligned to the same instructional standards to continue their learning. Parents were also able to request paper packets.
According to Welch, teachers have been “incredibly innovative” while creating lessons that best meet the needs of their students.
First grade teacher Katy Roberson believes the main benefit in digital learning is the ability for teachers to tailor lessons to their students' individual needs.
“As you know, no student is the same,” Roberson said. “Digital learning allows students to work at their own skill level. Teachers can plan assignments based on what their students’ needs are in certain areas. For instance, one student who has exceeded in one area may work on enrichment activities, while another student receives lessons to reinforce and practice skills. Digital learning breaks the mold of one size fits all learning.”
She found a challenge during this time to be scheduling meetings and assignments to fit the various schedules families have during the pandemic.
“Parents are trying to work and assist their children with school work,” she said. “Communicating with families and working with their schedules has been an intricate piece in making at home learning work. If we need to have a 7 p.m. meeting for working families, we have a 7 p.m. meeting. During this time, flexibility and compassion are two essentials in successful digital learning.”
Language Arts teacher Tammy Thomas’ Honors American Literature class have continued to work on their poetry unit.
“I offered videos online and even one of myself reading poetry aloud to model for my students, and in the Google Docs with step-by-step assignments, I added hyperlinks to literary terms and websites that would be helpful to students,” Thomas said.
Her Advanced Placement English Language class have been able to submit pictures of timed writing practice.
“College Board has added exam review sessions that students can access to prepare for the exam in May,” she said. “It will be modified quite a bit and students will test at home, so it’s important to me that they are familiar with the College Board resources; they know best what’s on the coming exam and so their reviews are valuable!”
Thomas has had a few online meetings with students, however many have chosen not to participate in the meetings.
“I’ve exchanged lots and lots of emails with students, and I’ve used Google Forms to create check-ins weekly, just to get some feedback so that I can make adjustments to assignments and/or methods of sharing,” she said.
She explained that her main challenge has been a lack of engagement.
“Many of my students never missed an assignment or check-in the first couple of weeks,” she said. “Beyond that, it became more difficult to maintain contact; many students didn’t complete assignments, didn’t respond to my emails, and didn’t check the website daily or complete check-ins. I lost my lifeline to them, and I don’t think they appreciate how important it is to me to hear from them just to know that they are doing okay.”
Welch said the school system will need to emphasize the standards that would have been taught during the final quarter next year.
“Even the College Board has changed the Advanced Placement (AP) exams to remove the final 25 percent of each course’s standards on the test,” Welch said. “In the meantime, we hope to stop any additional ‘slide’ in skills by providing remediation and enhancement on standards already covered in the curriculum.”
She encouraged students to continue building their literacy skills during this time.
“One of the best things our young children can do is to read, read, and read some more,” she said. “It’s fun to read to a partner, a parent, a favorite stuffed animal, or even a pet!”