As old routines go by the wayside and schools continue to adapt to remote learning, Mt. Laurel is helping students find some positivity and structure despite the physical distancing of classes.
Director of Communication Services Marie Reynolds has advised township residents to look no further than the district’s social media pages or teachers’ classroom accounts for screenshots of smiling faces, virtual morning meetings, videos from at-home spirit weeks and evidence of a personal connection bridging the digital ether between staff and student computers.
“They are all working extremely hard on a rigid teaching schedule,” Reynolds said. “But if you check out any number of our teachers on Twitter … you’ll also see a number of videos of actual sessions with a lot of happy faces.”
Just as each teacher brings his or her own personality to the physical classroom, as a group they are individualizing the digital learning experience for their students, too, with an array of outside-the-box approaches to make staying on curriculum memorable for children who may still be feeling the effects of schedules being thrown off.
Per Reynolds, many of the district’s teachers maintain active Twitter accounts that showcase their students’ accomplishments and highlights from new routines as necessity continues to be the mother of invention.
The recent 50th anniversary of Earth Day prompted Hillside Elementary School teacher Marci Abate (Twitter: @MTL_AbateUpdate) to take her students on a virtual field trip exploring wonders all around the globe, thanks to the American Museum of Natural History. Meanwhile, third grade Fleetwood Elementary School teacher Heather Philips (Twitter: @MTL_FWPhillips3) shared screen shots of her morning meeting, including photographs of the postcards she sent to her students.
“My coworkers and I have been on so many sites, we were just googling ‘Earth Day things’ and it came up that American Museum of Natural History in New York was doing something every hour, they had different activities all day long to tie in with Earth Day,” Abate said.
The program, Field Trip Earth, allowed Abate and her students the chance to ascend the heights of Mt. Everest and plunge down to the Nile River at night.
“These are things I’m never going to see in my lifetime, so I thought how cool would that be from a second grader’s perspective?” Abate continued.
The field trip let Abate’s students get a glimpse into different parts of the globe while teaching them about things like time zones and wonders of the world. She said it’s an experience that turned what started out as a bit of a bummer — her class’ original April 1 field trip to Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Science had been cancelled on account of the pandemic — opened up the world to her students in a whole new way.
“We got to see the lights on the Nile River and the clusters of lights where a population was and it was more than I could have ever imagined,” said Abate. “My kids loved it, they thought it was very fascinating — and I did, too! These are things you don’t usually get to see. This was just so much bigger than the things we would have done in the classroom.”
Meanwhile, third-grade Fleetwood Elementary School teacher Heather Philips (Twitter: @MTL_FWPhillips3) has been sharing screenshots of her morning-meeting screen filled with her students’ personalities shining through their computer screen, as well as photographs of the postcards she sent to those same students to let them know she was thinking of them over spring break.
“My inspiration is just basically making sure that I stay connected, that my students know I’m still thinking about them even though I’m not in the classroom with them — that was one of the reasons I sent the postcards out, and they really seemed to like that,” she said.
Philips added that it’s definitely a balancing act to keep students engaged while managing her own expectations, but that the district has made adjusting to an abrupt transition easier to handle.
“I’m lucky to work in a district that’s actually valuing the balance between the schoolwork and the curriculum and their social and emotional needs,” Philips said. “Their social and emotional needs are a real priority in Mt. Laurel, they’re really focused on the whole child, even before this whole experiment. That’s been really the driving force between finding ways to make sure I’m staying connected, make sure that I’m checking in with each of the students to see how they’re doing.”
Philips said that getting to peek into her students’ home lives has been an unforeseen benefit for the opportunity to facilitate a closeness unlike any other.
“I’m getting to meet all their pets and I have one student who was showing off her new baby sister so, in that way, it’s almost like we’re getting more of a connection because you get a glimpse into their homes, you get to see and meet their family in ways that we wouldn’t normally in the classroom, so that’s really been a positive, too,” she said.
Reynolds said that beyond individual teachers’ efforts to infuse novelty and normalcy alike into their altered routines, the schools themselves have been facilitating events for all grades to join in: “We have already had a number of schoolwide events in all schools — pajama days, spirit week, superhero days and more.” Harrington Middle School hosted a Clash of the Cougars virtual spirit week at the beginning of April, inviting everyone to embrace the day’s theme with the likes of pajamas and team colors to bring their school pride from the classroom to the living room.
And it’s not just faculty members who are embracing these unusual times.
“A couple of our Parent Teacher Organization groups created videos from home using student-contributed clips to compile a video for staff,” Reynolds said. The videos were heartfelt compilations of students telling their teachers how much they miss them and can’t wait to see them, their friends and classrooms again.
Philips agreed that parents have played a significant role in the success of sticking to a curriculum during long-distance learning.
“Just hearing feedback from the parents, they’re so appreciative of everything that we’re doing and they’re so supportive at home with helping our students navigate through the content,” she said. “We’re still moving along through the curriculum, so it’s kind of nice for them to almost be sitting in our class now. They see that newfangled math that everyone’s so frustrated with. They see how we actually teach, they’re starting to understand the mindset of it. I get messages like ‘It makes so much more sense now that I see you instruct it.’”
Because, in the end, the MLSD faculty and staff want to maintain some sense of normalcy for the students in their care while they educate from afar — but still with their whole hearts.
“The personal connections both staff and students are continuing online is significant,” said Reynolds. “Our teachers have adapted amazingly well. They have really risen to every challenge.”
