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Can’t teach an old dog new tricks? SLUH thinks otherwise, whole faculty participates in online course.

How do you, in the midst of a global shutdown, attempt to change the art of teaching, which has existed for thousands of years, to break down barriers of distance, technology limitations, and public health risks? It’s a tough question. Last spring, though, following the closing of St. Louis U. High due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of SLUH faculty set out to answer it.

March 2020 brought many surprises to the SLUH community. After weeks of anxiously watching the virus spread through the country, SLUH officially announced during spring break that in-person classes would not resume. Almost immediately after the announcement, professional development (PD) began. Initially, teachers participated in a brief seminar designed to aid the pivot to asynchronous learning, but faculty members recognized that more would be needed.

“We chose the asynchronous aspect and I think that worked well for what it was, but we realized as it was going on that we could do much better than that,” said Craig Hannick, who served on the committee tasked with creating the development. 

The committee boasted a group of faculty members as diverse and diligent as the PD itself. Led by teachers Tim Curdt, Kevin Foy, Craig Hannick, and Steve Missey, the committee also included Sarah Becvar, Rob Chura, Beth Kissel, Sean Powers, and Mary Russo. The team worked extensively over the summer months to create a comprehensive plan that could prepare teachers for the upcoming semester, which, for most of the summer, was still shrouded in mystery.

Entitled Pandemic PD, the development required 20 hours of course work that teachers could complete on a canvas module. The course covered topics such as curriculum development, best instructional practices for block schedules, social and emotional learning, and assessment, as well as tutorials and tips for how to use Canvas and other tech tools effectively.  

Many students would likely find the PD course familiar, as it includes all the aspects of Canvas (modules, submission tabs, and external links) that students use on a daily basis. For teachers though, this represented a tremendous amount of professional development.

“The summer provided a real opportunity to do some really extensive professional development … which is a huge ask of faculty for a summer, not only to ask but to say that everyone needs to do it. That was big, but the decision was: ‘If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it really well,” said Gibbons. 

Past summer PD topics have included teen trauma, curriculum work, and technology use, but they had previously been optional. The unique reality of this school year required a course that would prepare teachers for a very different SLUH experience this semester, and its complexity reflects that. 

“I dare say in my 16 years as a high school educator I’ve never been a part of putting together something this sophisticated and this structured for a school,” said Gibbons. “We created our own university, basically, which, in the course of a month, is jaw dropping that we were able to do it … in ways that are paying tremendous dividends for the school.” 

One important aspect of the professional development course was its focus on using Canvas to its greatest capacity, something that has been lacking at SLUH since the software’s inception.

“We’re finally now, after three or four years, finally using Canvas for what it was intended to be as a way to develop curriculum and use it … to communicate with students,” said Hannick.  “Moving ourselves up in the technological world was important.”

As a teacher himself—he taught senior Econ courses last year and has a section of freshman Human Geography this semester—Gibbons learned a lot about Canvas over the summer for his own classes and he saw the same thing going on around him.

“We’ve got faculty members that were almost averse to technology that are now using very sophisticated technologies in their classroom. For me, it’s mind-boggling and inspiring to see that,” said Gibbons.

Hannick agreed, noting that this year’s pivot to virtual, synchronous learning brought out the best in SLUH’s faculty.

“This has really shown how resilient our faculty is as a group and how creative they can be in adapting things that they’ve done for years into this new environment,” said Hannick.

As for what students can expect from their teachers over the next few months:

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” said Gibbons. “Maybe we’ve created some monsters as far as the use of technology, but that could be a great thing.”

 

 

 


 

 

 

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