Teachers are usually social beings; we seek out connections with students and staff to make our job more enjoyable. They are now being asked to undertake a new challenge – managing the learning of their students from afar. Remote learning has become our reality, and teachers are now faced with this new challenge.
At LeapEd we have been working with schools and teachers, face-to-face, for over 10 years. Now faced with our new reality, we too have had to rise to the challenge and support schools remotely.
Supporting learning remotely
At the start of last week, we reached out to our community to find out how we could help. We offered 2 free Zoom chats with our team to help in this time of uncertainty. In just 24 hours, over 150 teachers had signed up to join our virtual coffee mornings to share some of their concerns and problem solve together.
On Friday we hosted our first ‘Connecting Teachers’ Zoom Coffee Morning.
15 LeapEd team mates were joined by over 100 teachers from Private, International, and Government Schools from across Malaysia. For 45 minutes we chatted and problem solved together, suggesting new ideas and making connections that will support us through this tough time. Later in the day we were joined by 35 school leaders who are also facing new challenges.
Facing new challenges together!
The sessions passed by in a flash, with the conversation ranging from strategies to support online learning, to top tips on how to engage parents. Our participants certainly enjoyed the session. Azzuan said afterwards “It was very beneficial and helpful to remove some doubts and uncertainty about ideas that are new to us especially during this time.”.
The idea that teachers are not alone as they face new challenges was a recurring theme. Madeline said after the session, it was so ‘helpful to know that we aren’t alone’. This was echoed by Gennie who said it was a ‘good session with the team. I felt so much better today knowing that I’m not alone at least”.
Sharing ideas and useful tips
The PLCs were more than just a chat, lots of ideas and strategies were shared throughout the session. One of our participants, Lakshmi , said that she loved the idea of setting ‘checkpoints’ for students throughout the day, to ensure that teachers could get feedback from students even though they were not face to face. Rita also commented that she got a lot of ideas for getting students to participate in their learning.
The first set of PLCs were certainly a huge success, and now we plan our next steps. We will be hosting specific online chats for Primary, Secondary, and School leaders, and a specific session on how to support Parents at this time.
As Khor Kai Xuan said ‘It was great. I learned a lot from the session and everyone gave great suggestions and comments. I enjoyed it and hope to have more in the future”.
If you are interested in finding out more about our online PLCs and keeping teachers connected, please sign up here: https://bit.ly/2UKvbC3 to receive the latest schedule.