Remote Online Teaching and Learning a Resounding Success
St John’s Anglican College remote online teaching and learning testing days were a resounding success according to students, staff and parents. On Thursday 26 and Friday 27 March, St John’s students were, for the first time, engaged in two days of remote online learning to test the College’s capacity to provide ongoing, sustainable high-quality teaching and learning experiences for all students.
Mrs Maria McIvor, St John’s Principal said “during these truly extraordinary and unprecedented times we are committed to continuity of our quality educational programs for our students. It is testament to the dedication of all our staff, in partnership with our students and parents, that has resulted with such high confidence in our delivery of a remote online teaching and learning.”
Students across the College were expected to work remotely as per their usual lesson timetable and routine with tasks, resources, relevant information and homework available on the College approved platforms of Schoolbox, OneNote, video conferencing via Microsoft Teams and email.
“To assess the success of these days, students were required to participate in a pre-test audit with students and staff a post testing survey with very positive results and a high level of engagement from students in each lesson” said Deputy Principal, Curriculum, Mr Andrew Landroth.
Results indicated that 85% of St John’s students said that the course content and instructions were both easy to access and beneficial in nature. Their feedback received was both sincere and insightful.
St John’s student Sanvi Mehta said “I really liked the use of the Microsoft Teams chat feature. We could all have great discussions and my teacher could allot us time to ask questions and let us know if we can continue with the presentation. We also used Nearpod, a presentation service where the teacher controls what slide we are on. I really enjoyed the lesson due to the discussion element between the teacher and my peers.”
In terms of staff continuing to teach effectively over a period of one or more weeks using the online resources, 98% confirmed that this was very much achievable. The remote online testing days are part of St John’s Academic Contingency Plan developed in response to COVID-19 and in preparedness for government directives for schools.
With ongoing review and modifications, St John’s looks forward to continuing to deliver high quality teaching and learning experiences for all students with remote online learning continuing for the remainder of the term.
