Thanks to you, our faculty continued to inspire students with creative approaches to hybrid teaching with innovative technological tools, despite the challenges throughout the 2020-21 school year. Your support allowed us to successfully meet the moment.
We hope you enjoy these highlights below illustrating how our students and faculty continued to learn and grow this year thanks to your support!
In an ordinary year, Sue Michalski teaches her French classes by encouraging students to move around, interact with one another, and learn pronunciation from facial expressions.
This year, she pivoted to maintain the experience for her students to the greatest extent possible and found creative ways for remote and in-person students to learn together using technology such as Nearpod. Each student had an individual learning toolkit which included pointers and vocabulary cards, so they could interact and play vocabulary games together.
Language teachers also employed clear masks to teach language learners this year. See how French teacher Adeleen Brown adapted her teaching:
To hold classes safely in person, academic spaces had to be reconfigured to accommodate social distance between students.
Small classroom spaces, which promote small group discussion, were moved to larger spaces like the wrestling room, the Dodge Room, the chapel, and the basketball courts. Additionally, plexiglass dividers were installed in science labs to separate students while they conducted experiments.
Faculty mastered new modes of teaching hybrid learners.
Most classes had both remote and in-person students. Platforms such as Zoom, OneNote, Kahoot, Padlet, and Nearpod allowed faculty to project notes and video, but also hold interactive and small group discussions using technology.
"Our faculty encourage students to explore other sides of themselves, to stretch out intellectually, to be resilient, and most importantly, to be so much more than what’s expected of them. Thank you so much for your support of our school, a place that, time and again, has given students the opportunity to be exactly who they never knew they were meant to be." —Matt Liebowitz, English teacher and advisor to The Willistonian
