This week, teacher Rebecca Gilkinson read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds to her Grade 1 class.
Gilkinson is one of many teachers who will be working as part of the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic’s Virtual Elementary School this year. The school held a soft launch on Monday, with the full launch planned for Sept. 23.
“One of my favourite things to do is read with the kids. Instead of being able to curl up on a carpet and share a book together, we needed to get creative with that,” she said.
She has been reading stories through her web camera with kids, but is now taking it a step further with the assistance of new technologies to keep kids engaged and interested.
“I pre-recorded a video during my planning time of myself reading the book and paused throughout to show all the pictures. I attached questions for the kids to be able to work on. I created a Google Slide they could all access and made a separate slide for each of the children to be able to share a picture of the Dot that they created, and then everybody in the class could view the full slideshow,” she said.
Gilkinson’s home base is out of Monsignor Michael O'Leary Catholic School in Bracebridge, but as part of her new responsibilities as a virtual teacher, she’ll be teaching kids across Simcoe County and Muskoka.
“Is it the same? Absolutely not. But we’re able to re-imagine how we do things and still deliver intentional, rich experiences for the kids,” she said.
Assigned to the task of working at the Catholic board’s virtual schools are 133 elementary teachers, 55 secondary teachers and 19 designated early childhood educators for Kindergarten.
“There were a few different ways teachers were chosen for the program,” said Gilkinson. “The board was very accommodating to any teachers who had medical needs that prevented them from being able to work in the classroom. They filled those positions first. They also filled some positions with teachers who were deemed surplus due to seniority. I was one of those.”
Slated to attend are 3,300 elementary students and 1,360 secondary students. Students and teachers will be using a virtual learning platform, called Brightspace, as well as other virtual tools.
Preparing programming for this school year has been a unique experience.
“It’s very different than usual, of course,” said Gilkinson, with a laugh. “Grades were assigned last week, and we’ve been working on planning since then. We’ve had great support.”
Gilkinson said teachers have been split up into grades, and work collaboratively to come up with consistent programming.
“Because the virtual school is so huge, each level has a Grade team which isn’t always the case in schools,” she said.
In her Grade 1 teachers group, there are about 12 teachers who are preparing programming together. The virtual school is still adhering to guidelines for capping class sizes, so each teacher in the primary grades will be responsible to teach about 20 students.
“Children have amazing capabilities. In the spring, I taught a Grade 1/2 split class. I was working with the kids online to do all sorts of research projects. Usually, I wouldn’t be looking at (projects like) that until Grade 4, but because we had the opportunity to explore technology... the kids were able to do incredible things,” she said.
In the summer, Gilkinson taught the Kindergarten summer learning program, which was also done virtually.
“It was a half-day program for 10 days, and within the first couple of days, the kids were already learning how to mute and un-mute themselves,” she said. “They are capable, and we just need to give them the chance to do that with the supports they need to be successful.”
Gilkinson said the virtual experience students and teachers had in the spring that was born out of necessity is vastly different from the experience students can expect now.
“In the spring, it was the response to a crisis and we didn’t have time to prepare,” she said. “Now, I think this pandemic situation is causing all of us to re-imagine what life looks like.
"We need to be mindful that everything we’re doing is a learning process," Gilkinson said. "We, as educators, encourage our students to take on a growth mindset; be willing to make mistakes and try new things, and we do too.”
Gilkinson sees herself as an optimist, and says she works hard to make sure to serve the kids in her care.
“I am a firm believer that we can either be problem-focused or solution-focused. Of course, this is challenging,” she said. “We can choose to look at the glass half-full and be there for those kids the best we possibly can, or we can choose to look at it as, everything is a negative. I choose to be the sunshine and find the positive.”
“It’s not their fault there’s a pandemic. It’s not their fault we’re learning through a screen. I’m going to do everything I possibly can to serve those kids the best I can,” she added.
Gilkinson shares tips and tricks for virtual teaching and learning on her Twitter and Instagram.
If you have signed your child up for virtual school but have not received communication from the Catholic school board, email [email protected] with "Not Receiving Emails" in the subject line.
For up-to-date information on Simcoe Muskoka Catholic’s Virtual Elementary School, click here.
