FIRST PART – How to be an Edron teacher in times of home learning

Through the Edron Home Learning (EHL) program, teachers at The Edron Academy continue to educate students from home. How is their work in this situation? And how do they maintain the attention and quality of teaching? Academics from our College, Matthew Toby Glover, Diana Benhumea, James Hughes and Mike Smith, tell us how they are doing in this change.

“We have all had to adapt drastically” says Dr. Mike Smith of Secondary (Years 10, 12 and 13), for whom the main challenge is how to “make the learning process interesting, interactive and positive” where “all students have a voice.” In this sense, his effort is directed to ensure that each lesson does not focus only on the teacher giving out information, alternating between live lessons and sessions where each student performs tasks independently.

To achieve this goal, Dr. Smith tells us that he had to create “a lot of resources from scratch” tailored to his students and to the online model. One activity is the short videos that he is recording to introduce the lessons and ensure that everyone receives the same background information and can play it back multiple times.

In the case of James Hughes from Primary (Year 6), running the teaching model at home offers him a learning opportunity. This transition does not change “in the least” his level of creativity and excitement to bring “interesting lessons with fun activities.” Mr. Hughes always has a particular idea in mind: learning is an active process in which the student engages. That’s why he shares with us how he strives to promote content with a hook, a useful activity and guidelines on how to be successful. Simple?

“I have never considered myself to be particularly technologically literate, so EHL has helped me to develop a host of new technology skills.” Says Mr. Hughes, who confesses to quite enjoying himself feeling like a “YouTuber.”

Professors who teach the youngest members of the School also have to transform their classes into the context of the online model. This is the case of Nursery B teacher, Matthew Toby Glover, for whom this form of teaching allows him to be more aware of the learning environment from the children’s perspective. His secret to making learning fun is storytelling. Because Mr. Toby, in addition to being a teacher, is a published author and professional storyteller, an experience that he transmits to his students through his own videos.

Mr. Toby tells us that he prepares his pre-recorded teaching sessions under a pretty tree, as he feels that “such an amicable setting, with the current delightful weather, proves a fantastic learning environment.”

For Diana Benhumea, Head of Pre-Nursery, the challenge is to understand and ensure that the students in her care remain at the center of the new educational process at home. This starting point helps her to plan interesting, creative, short, engaging, and simple activities so parents can organize tasks with little or no materials at all. The work, as a whole, is designed to facilitate the learning process. As for the rest of the Pre-Nursery staff, for Ms. Benhumea the next challenge is how to organize the classrooms into small groups of a maximum of six students each. The structure of the live sessions begins with a short “warm-up” activity, followed by a short task according to the area of development.

All four teachers agree that creativity is essential at this stage for the success of EHL and learning. Mr. Toby and Dr. Smith also point out that one of the essential bases at the moment is that students shuld all be able to see their teachers.

How do they perceive the adaptation of the students to the new format? And what skills are they developing? We will publish the second part of this Edron Blog entry on June 11^th.