FROM THE NEWS DESSC | KEYNOTE
UPSKILLING OUR WAY THROUGH
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Katharine Gracey | Teaching & Learning Leader, DESC
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istory has taught us that as humans we are incredibly resilient, and we operate most effectively when we form strong communities that have a shared purpose and a common set of values. Never before has this been more relevant than in the past 18 months, when the pandemic threatened to prevent students from accessing the rich diet of learning experiences our College offers, which we feared could have potentially had a significant impact on learning and progress over time. Yet we have instead adopted an agile and adaptable approach to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by maximising the use of technology to enhance and extend our teaching and learning provision here at DESC. Here is our story of Teaching and Learning through the pandemic.
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FROM THE NEWS DESSC
More than anything else ... we wanted to reignite our students’ love of learning and provide fun, engaging lessons in the classroom, following many months at home alone.
Our first challenge occurred in March 2020, when we were given short notice that schools were closing for two weeks. Teachers were able to plan lessons and upload them, using the platform most of us were familiar with: Show My Homework. Two weeks then became several months and it became clear that online learning was here to stay until the end of the academic year and we realised that a change of direction was needed. If we wanted to provide the best education possible in this time, we needed to explore other online teaching methods and start to consider both the functionality and security of these platforms too. At that time, Webex offered us the best solution, so by April we had pushed this forward and presented the concept of Live Lessons, bringing back classroom discussion and introducing virtual, face-toface teaching for the first time in DESC’s history.
We then established a team of teachers who were up-to-speed with technology and had a real flair and passion for Teaching and Learning to help support and guide staff through this challenging time. The DESC Distance Learning Team (DL Team) was born - a group of colleagues from across the curriculum: Miss Malone, Mrs Bennett, Miss Wright, Mr Treble and Mr Murtaza, and me as T&L Leader. Our first task was to rapidly upskill ourselves in several new platforms to provide immediate and ongoing support across the College. We worked many hours over the summer to put plans in place and get tech-ready for the new academic year. We were hoping that students would come back onsite for the new term, but we knew that other restrictions were unlikely to have been lifted, so we faced an even greater challenge of balancing students onsite and in-class, with those at home in quarantine. We needed to ensure that this did not turn into a logistical nightmare! Nevertheless, returning to the College in September was an exciting time for everyone; teachers were back in the classroom doing what they love and students were back reconnecting with their peers. Finding and embedding a platform which suited the needs of all students - those onsite and those at home – was still very much a priority. Following our summer of research and testing, we made
