UPPER SCHOOL

IN THE UPPER SCHOOL

By Brandon Neblett

HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL

This spring launched one of the biggest challenges any of us will face in our career: teaching students confined at home during a pandemic.

It was a daunting experience filled with unanticipated obstacles, yet it was also a revealing opportunity. And in classic GCS spirit, our faculty adapted quickly and impressively, constructing a digital framework to deliver a GCS education almost overnight.

The Digital Dragon experience demonstrated our agility, creativity, and holistic awareness of adolescent needs in the Upper School. Learning in our virtual classrooms provided a sense of normalcy. Latin students deciphered verbs, and algebra students solved equations. Biology students prepared for the AP exam as all students continued sharing quirky anecdotes about family and friends in advisory.

Other things were very different. Art students staged interpretive representations of iconic masterpieces in their own homes, while advisory groups watched a video of Athletic Trainer, Joey Sierzega, pumping iron in his living room. Engineering students explained their work to a panel of local experts, and seniors defended their Integrative papers digitally.

For Upper School students, the pandemic was something of a “Twilight Zone” experience: very recognizable in some ways, yet quite bizarre in others. Tellingly, the most frustrating part was the inability to interact with students in person. While our students completed the academic year, the lack of daily face-to-face contact left us with a lingering lack of dissatisfaction, though we know we adapted well. We are eager to see our students again!

CREATING THE DIGITAL DRAGONS EXPERIENCE

In preparing for Digital Dragons—a process coalesced the week before Spring Break—we had to strike a delicate balance between structure and flexibility. We knew the most essential element of success in shifting to remote learning would be student engagement. We had to keep our students mentally and emotionally present every day. An academic experience lacking person-to-person contact in hallways, classrooms, and Forum meant ensuring students had a sense of control and empowerment in their education.

Student engagement was even more difficult given that we knew every family would face distinct physical, emotional, and logistical challenges in the months ahead. Students had to have the freedom to attend to family needs and work within constraints while attending to their academic work. With these factors in mind, we landed on three key determinants of our weekly schedule.

First, we required advisor check-ins each Monday morning and focused the rest of the day on setting expectations and getting an overview of the week’s work in each class. Next, we created a rotation of classes Tuesdays through Fridays. We emphasized a constructive balance between asynchronous work (completed by the student on their own) and synchronous meetings (connecting with others directly via Microsoft Teams or Zoom). Finally, and perhaps

most importantly, we capped the total number of weekly academic time teachers required for each class and allowed all students to submit the week’s assignments by Friday afternoon without a late penalty.

The results were reliable. We avoided shifting to a new schedule many schools made after either duplicating their on-campus program, placing too much emphasis on synchronous meetings, or both. At the end of the school year, almost everyone—students, teachers, and parents— were ready for summer. At the same time, the vast majority of our students consistently attended class and advisory, completed their academic work, and finished the year with solid results. The plan worked.

FORECASTING THE FALL

Looking ahead to September, there is much to do. We will launch our Digital Dragons program with a plan to safely welcome students back to campus. The initial weeks of the school year are especially powerful time culturally. We set the expectations, priorities, and tone that will determine the success of much of the year ahead. It is also an essential part of the year for new students, whose welcome and effective transition into the community is critical for their success and sense of belonging. How will we accomplish these things virtually?

First and foremost, we have built mechanisms to preserve the smiles, laughter, and mentorship that forge relationships at the core of the Upper School experience. We have crafted a new schedule that builds on the spring schedule’s success while incorporating more opportunities to connect students to each other and their teachers outside of class.

We must also effectively recreate some of the essential Upper School traditions, such as Forum and Enrichment. Finally, we continue to examine new models for assignments, assessments, and evaluations and develop new professional development opportunities to enhance the digital academic experience. For our faculty

Spring presented an opportunity for extraordinary growth. I look forward to implementing what we have learned and incorporating it into our future GCS experiences with students, whether remote or on campus. Whatever lies ahead of us, we will be ready.

From left: Jamie Jobson ’20; Nicole Diaz-Mackey ’20; Elizabeth “Ellie” Oyebode ’22