The new landscape we find ourselves in today has brought with it exponential changes. These have happened over days and a mere few weeks. For education, a vocation that at its heart focuses on the relational, it has been confronting to interact with students just through a screen and mouse!

As we pirouetted from the face to face interactions in the classroom to our Learn@home delivery, our teaching has required us to become adept in technology almost overnight. It has also seen the creativity and resilience of teachers and students rise to the fore as we traverse a new terrain with our students and parents.

Our students too, have had to make the journey with us, and perhaps it is their patience and understanding, recognising that their teachers are on a very steep learning curve which reminds us that we are all in this together. I for one have found my students offering assistance and support navigating the new tools available. Their patience in this regard is humbling indeed. We have become learners together in a time that necessitates being closer than ever, despite finding ourselves geographically far apart.

Our interactions and our conversations may have changed but their essence has not. While the language and content of our conversations have changed, whether they contain integrating memes that make us laugh or cry with laughter over COVID-19, or discussing inspirational quotes that elevate beyond the seriousness of these times or the simple question that opens every Learn@home lesson, “Are you ok?” our students know how much we care, and this is a testament to the age of technology, but, in essence, it is fundamentally the St Catherine’s way.

Our time in ISO has brought changes to the way we learn and teach, not to mention the way we interact. Teaching is relational. Our interactions, gestures and banter with students is somewhat diminished across our screens, but remarkably it has not taken long to settle into a new repartee, despite the chunkiness of this teacher’s knowledge of the latest platforms and their tools.

Apart from the teachers acquiring new skills utilising technology, our students have been thrust into sharing our terrain. They too are learning to navigate technology in a way that is far more demanding, given the pace the changes have occurred. They require time to learn, adapt and transfer new skills. There is a heightened level of anxiety for them and we all are encouraged to be mindful of this as it has an impact on their well-being and by default their ability to effectively learn.

Parents, teachers and students have been introduced to MS Office Teams. This platform provides an opportunity to simulate the classroom and the interpersonal interactions that form part of the relational aspect to teaching and learning. MS Office Teams has several tools that enable learning. Collaborative group work can be actioned so students are able to contribute to class discussions or share and build on each other’s ideas. Channels can be established by teachers to allow small groups to work on a task or set of problems. Individual Channels can be created so students are able to share their concerns without the class being privy. Class Notebooks provide a repository for student work.

Assistive technology is integrated into Teams, so students who are challenged with a significant amount of text to read can use Immersive Reader to read the text for them. There is also the Speech to Text tool that can be used to transform speech into text. Students can dictate the essays and this tool will write the words for the student. It can also be utilised to create a word map of ideas to assist with planning and identifying ideas.

As we journey through this new world of ours, it is essential that we remember, we are all in this together. Communication has never been more important than it is today. Parents are essential partners as we manoeuvre through these unchartered waters. Please do not hesitate to contact the Learning Plus Department, Head of Year, Faculty Head of Subject teacher if you have any concerns about your daughter’s learning progress.