Learnings from COVID

Now that the pandemic is moving into the rearview mirror, there are so many things to reflect upon and learn from.  Teaching remotely for over a year has had its’ pitfalls and successes.  EZStickerbook was a great find for student motivation.  Grabbing the attention of kindergartners…a constant challenge.

Motivating Kids

EZStickerbook is an easy-to-use motivational resource that connects students and their families with the work in their remote and in-person classrooms.  When teaching in remote, I couldn’t attach a sticker to my students’ work because everything was online.  Young children are highly motivated by a fun, colorful sticker.  By using EZStickerbook, I could add stickers to an online sticker chart and the students and their families could see, in real time, validation of their hard work.

Am I communicating well?

On the flipside that, as the teacher, I also needed motivation and validation that what I was doing was best for my students.  The first time that one of my students made a video for me talking about what they learned, I knew I was doing right by them.  Hearing… “I think that the reason that some animals live up in a tree is so they are protected” in a sweet little voice made me think, “Yes!  They are thinking and learning.”  That’s exactly what I wanted!

It was often difficult to assist students because I wasn’t in the same space as them.  I couldn’t point to a place on their paper and say, “This isn’t correct, why don’t you try this” or “I really like how you showed your work on this.”  It’s also hard because the students didn’t have all the supplies and resources that are available in a classroom so I had to constantly think about how to do things with what they had. 

Reinventing Education

I will say that having to always think of new ways to present lessons and problem solve what students could use at home to help them learn taught me a lot of how to modify and be flexible with teaching and learning.  I have to give many of my students a lot of credit too because they figured out ways to use the resources they had independently and flexibly.  Legos became counters for math…markers and paper became white boards to share work…personal objects became a source of conversation.

Presenting the student with EZStickerbook is a resource that students understand and look forward to seeing each day.  It gives them a sense of accomplishment and validates their learning.  Knowing that this a positive in their learning experience reassures me that I did do what was best for my students.  It was definitely a success and I look forward to also using it for in-person learning.  The future looks bright!